Thermionic Culture THE PHOENIX SB Stereo valve compressor - Manual (Page 7)

©Thermionic Culture Ltd, July 2011 6
N.B. The compressor will become inefficient if very
slow attack and very fast release times are used.
However, this can be used to advantage if ‘thumping’
bass effects are required.
3.5 Threshold Control
The threshold control is used to adjust the amount of
compression in conjunction with the input level. With
the control in the fully clockwise position, there will be
no compression. Turning the control anti-clockwise
increases the amount of compression.
3.6 Bypass
This control totally bypasses the compressors, by
linking the inputs to the outputs.
3.7 Link
Links the two compressors for compressing a stereo
track. All controls are still in use, so both channels
should be set to around the same setting. Ideally, a
1kHz tone should be used to setup the levels so that
both channels’ inputs and outputs are equal. In
practice, this is not always necessary.
In another application, the link control can be used to
allow one compressor to control the other in a mono
application. For example, to increase the high end
compression, use the channel 1 compressor as the
signal path and feed an equalised version of the same
signal with additional top lift into channel 2. Turn off
the compression to channel 1 by turning the threshold
control fully clockwise. The opposite applies to