So, I've had my DBC for a few days now, and I gotta say, this thing is amazing! First use was on drum overheads, and you can really shape the sound with the DBC. Fast attack is really quick, totally smears off the transients, great for a parallel compression type of usage, or you can do slow attack, fast release for an SSL kinda thing. I ended up somewhere in between, with the 10ms attack and 100ms release for adding a little "smack" to the front of the snare hits, while also bringing up the tone and ambience. Whatever you want it to do, it always sounded great.
Piano on another mix was the next use, and here it also sounded great. The HPF switch helps reduce pumping, and again, the attack control and the hard/soft ratio switch enables you to go from mild control to full-on pumping for a Beatles-esque compression swell effect. The flexibility does mean, however, that you can set it wrong and get pumping, or un-natural sounding compression. This is not a set-and-forget box.
Final use on today's mix was for double-tracked acoustics, using the L and R channels independently. Fast attack and auto release with the side chain HPF switched in, doing just a couple of dB's of gain reduction just helped to tame the peaks and increase the sustain of the acoustics, adding a slight sheen and sense of authority to the sound, making them sound much more expensive than they were! I haven't tried it on the mix buss yet, but I have no doubt that it will be great.
I have used the MA2.2 and the ARC before, but this is my first Buzz purchase, and I can see myself using the DBC-20 on something on every mix I do. It's that good!
[May 2015. Producer/engineer/mixer Adrian Hall website]
Click here to hear some sound clips from Adrian.
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