Alesis 3630

Named after Alesis's street address at the time, the Alesis 3630 lays claim to be the most popular compressor of all time. The Alesis 3060 is a versatile unit offering stereo or two mono compressors, and they are switchable to do different compression types. Well worth checking in the free-ad's.

Named after Alesis's street address at the time, the Alesis 3630 lays claim to be the most popular compressor of all time which is believable because despite the 3630 being generally sneered at by 'pro' users on it's release, this VCA compressor sold by the truckload all over the world offering both Soft & hard knee compression & gating, all at a super low price.

This compressor was used to create huge side-chain pumping bass & drums on the French house scene and elsewhere in the 1990's. Used on the big hit by Stardust, ‘Music Sounds Better With You’, with French producer Alan Braxe stating in an old interview:

"Benjamin Diamond recorded the vocals which were compressed with an Alesis 3630, plus we used another 3630 compressor on the master buss of the entire track. And that was it".

Despite still being sneered at by some 'high end' snobs to this day, the Alesis 3630 is actually a great little compressor for both the budget and pro studio alike, which can be used for general level control duties where a character compressor sound does not need to be featured at all, but it can do the big old pumping sound if and when required.

The Alesis 3630 was brought out decades ago and is now sadly discontinued, but was Alesis' main and only 19" rack compressor in it's product range for all the years it was sold, and it's not hard to see why... it works, it's versatile, and is good value. I've used one of these a lot, and they work fine.

It's a 2 x mono or linked stereo comp in a traditional layout, each side has the common controls you get on stereo units... an expander/gate followed by Threshold, Ratio, Attack & Decay (release) - what is also nice about a comp' this cheap is the switchable 'modes' making it even more versatile for the dosh.

The 3630 can be switched to run either or both sides in 'RMS' and 'Peak' compression modes, plus you can also switch each side to use either 'Hard Knee' or 'Soft Knee' compression - (for more on all that stuff see the Dancetech FX-RACK Section, 'Compressor' page) - But basically it'll do compressor 'effects' like getting huge pumping basses & loops, or more traditional compression tasks, from discrete 'soft-knee' mild compression to hard limiting etc....

The unit also has proper side-chain using a traditional ring/tip send/return sockets on the back etc, so ducking fx & de-essing etc is also all possible with this baby !!... so it's useful for so many compressor jobs from straight traditional signal 'control' to special compressor techniques & FX...

Ok, this ain't no classic Neve or DBX etc, but all in all for the price & availability s/h it's a 'proper' compressor, great for newbies and experienced users studio's alike !... and it looks great in the old rack too !!...