Audified U73b Compressor

Faithful emulation of the German broadcast compressor/limiter unit U73b. 2nd generation of the famous plug-in.

The quality and uniqueness of its sound and the inaccessibility of the original device makes U73b Compressor plug-in hitting the top ranks of the producers' wish lists.

• Award-winning plug-in
• Precise valve circuit model
• Faithful tube sound
• External side-chain
• Auto Output parameter
• Oversampling

The device was often used for mastering between 1960 and 1980. It is an all-tube vary-mu compressor/limiter with adjustable release time option. We kept the circuit exactly as it was originally designed and only added input and output gain (before and right after compressor circuit) to help with proper adjustment of the compression. The plugin effect has been also supplemented with a VU meter and selectable side-chaining.

There are many models of vintage compressors around. The sound and control of the original devices with legendary brand names from one era and one region were great, so it is good to have the originals or software models in your studio. But there is quite a significant number of famous recordings where a different gear was used.

The glory of U73b appeared simultaneously with the glory of the first very famous rock bands. Most of them recorded in Europe and although some studios used American compressors, a significant number of the recording used U73b or very similar products. U73b may bring not only some required diversity to your recordings, but it also brings the sound tied with the golden era of rock music in Europe.

• Compressor/Limiter switch – is the upper U73b knob and it switches between Compressor mode (Kompr), Bypass (Durchschalt) and Limiter mode (Begr). The compressor mode has a lower threshold setting and very gentle increasing ratio, in opposite, the limiter mode provides a higher threshold setting with a higher ratio but still with the smooth knee.
• Release time – the first three positions offer fixed release time, the other three positions (marked red) provide adjustable program content-dependent release time option.
• IN – adjust input gain before the compressor/limiter circuit
• OUT – adjust output gain after the compressor/limiter circuit.
• Key input – selects the signal source used for controlling the gain reduction
• HPF – U73b is a vintage device and as such, it may not meet present mastering demands. We added a bass management button that simply switches between original sound and desired modern sound (without low frequencies bypass).