Rupert Neve Designs has announced the OptoFET analogue compressor and wave shaper, combining a newly-designed FET compression circuit with an optimised Optical compression circuit in a single rack space, with several controls to implement both circuits in various creative ways.
Intended for tracking, touring, mixing, mastering and sound design, the OptoFET has two primary compression modes: in Dual Stage mode, the FET and Opto compressors are used in series ‘for complete dynamic control over critical sources, accomplishing a common recording and mixing technique with ease’.
In Dual Band mode, each compressor is assigned to either a low or high frequency band which can then be processed independently, greatly expanding the OptoFET’s dynamic control and tonal shaping abilities. ‘From transparent vocal smoothing to extreme envelope shaping with massive harmonic texture, the OptoFET offers seemingly infinite creative control,’ Rupert Neve Designs says.
Each compressor offers fully variable attack, release, threshold, make-up gain and parallel blend controls, plus side-chain high-pass filters and special ‘Grit and Bloom’ harmonic modes. Additionally, the OptoFET includes global controls to flip the order of the two compressors in Dual Stage mode – FET into Opto vs Opto into FET – plus a unique variable crossover control to fine-tune the compression across upper and lower frequency bands while in Dual Band mode.
‘For example, this allows a user to gently smooth the upper frequencies of a drum kit with the Optical circuit while using the FET to aggressively control the low-end – there are many possible combinations, and we encourage creative experimentation,’ the company says. ‘Though it is a single-channel unit, a pair of OptoFETs in dual mono – with 31-position fully detented controls – can add massive impact to stereo stems, groups, or even full mixes.’
While the new Grit and Bloom modes may bring to mind the company’s Silk circuitry, the RND team says they are actually quite different. ‘With Silk, we have always relied on our custom-designed transformers to generate musical harmonics. With Grit and Bloom, harmonics are generated by the FET and Opto compression circuits themselves, specifically in how they interact with the side chain. This gives Grit and Bloom a sonic character that is noticeably different from Silk, but equally useful in a variety of ways.’
More: https://rupertneve.com