Best rackmount compressor under 300$

[Inconnu]

Ideas ? for bass of course...

 

[Happynoj]

www.ovnilab.com

 

[Jim C]

used dbx 160
new dbx 166

 

[Geddyfleaharris]

Heck even the dbx 266xl works fine. I have 2 rigs each with a dbx rack comrpessor. Great gear.

 

[JohnDavisNYC]

i'm gonna vote for either a used dbx160a or a used symmetrix 501... 160 is a classic, and the 501 is like the poor man's distressor... the limiter is awesome in the 501, too.

john

 

[bassman1185]

I really dig my Symetrix 501. It's pretty transparent, but it adds a nice punchiness to my sound. Having the compressor and limiter in one unit is pretty nice as well.

 

[gastric]

I enjoyed my Rane DC24 with the exception of it's external power brick. Two channels of gate/comp/limit/gain with a crossover. Lets you run true stereo, dual mono, or single mono and use the crossover to split your signal so you can effect the lows differently than the highs. I ended up using it as dual mono, gate/comp to start, feed my other rack gear, then back into the other channel for limiting the end of the signal before feeding back into the effects loop. Was seemingly effective and fairly easy to use with the exception of setting all the switches properly to get the right mode.

 

[bassman1185]

I enjoyed my Rane DC24 with the exception of it's external power brick. Two channels of gate/comp/limit/gain with a crossover. Lets you run true stereo, dual mono, or single mono and use the crossover to split your signal so you can effect the lows differently than the highs. I ended up using it as dual mono, gate/comp to start, feed my other rack gear, then back into the other channel for limiting the end of the signal before feeding back into the effects loop. Was seemingly effective and fairly easy to use with the exception of setting all the switches properly to get the right mode.

Yeah, the DC-24 is kind of a headache to set up, but it does sound good.

Also, for the OP, the 501 and the DC-24 are both discontinued, so you would have to check ebay for them.

 

[fokof]

I had good success with the RNC by FMR.
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There is this new one too;
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Bongomania !!!!!!!

 

[jufros]

I've used the DBX 166A, Symetrix 501, Behringer MDX2200 Composer, and Alesis 3630.

The Behringer and DBX were honestly indistinguishable. I tried several blind tests to no avail. Once I thought the Behringer was a little noisier, but then I thought the same of the DBX at another time. Both work really well on bass. However, the limiters on both of them just don't really do much of anything and I'd say they're not even worth fussing with. Both will endow your bass tone with a tiny but of "mojo" at the right settings.

Without any more info about your tastes and music, I'm not sure if you'd love or hate the Alesis 3630. It just can't sound transparent at all and it's definitely not versatile. It is, however, a really cool "effect" for dance music.

The Symetrix has a great limiter and it's more transparent. Used, they're in the same price range as the DBX. I think the 501 is a better swiss-army knife and stage compressor for bass. It's plenty aggressive if you set it right and definitely won't automatically kill your dynamic range for more mellow material. Mine was also reliably more quiet than the other compressors I've tried in this price range.

I haven't tried the Ashly unit on bass.

I played my bass through an Avalon one time. I'll never own one and definitely wouldn't want to gig with one but it did some pretty awesome things to my tone.