NTP Limiters

[heathen]

Now if I remember correctly someone here had a bunch of ntp limiters and offered to sell me a pair, can anyone refresh my memory? If you still have them I'm keen to get a pair pretty soon, for a reasonable price that is. :)

I tried searching but................................

Cheers
Heath

[jkhuri44]

umm, maybe they was AWA limiters? that Linear (chris v) was getting rid of?

[heathen]

Nah they were'nt the AWA, I'm sure someone said they had like 12 ntp modules, could have been
Linear.

Goddamn my useless memory.

Though I did remember to purchase a lawo ms matrix on ebay for 89 euro. Stoked. Found anothr for 150 EU. Gotta get it I spose now.

[TimS]

You are such a German gearslut Heath!!!

[Aearth]

You are such a German gearslut Heath!!!

It's his boots, he never takes them.

nIC

[rick]

nah they were linears emt limiters your thinking of

[Chinagraf]

There's been a couple on Gearslutz in the last fortnight, maybe it was there you saw them?

[heathen]

Nah Rick's right. I'll give Linear a call sometime soon and have a chat about them, would just be cool to rack a pair to try out, If I don't like em ................ then theres ebay.

I just could'nt bloody find the thread, no wonder, duuuuuh. EMT not NTP. Thanks Rick.

[Chinagraf]

I bought a pair of the EMT's from Chris a while back. They are awesome squash boxes. They have a 'gain' control that increases everything UNDER the compression threshold by the chosen amount. Does amazing things to room mics and drum mixes. I was going to buy another pair from him I liked them so much, but my ADHT kicked in and I went of chasing an SSL 384 or something or rather. The 256II's are well worth what Chris was selling them for..

[heathen]

I bought a pair of the EMT's from Chris a while back. They are awesome squash boxes. They have a 'gain' control that increases everything UNDER the compression threshold by the chosen amount. Does amazing things to room mics and drum mixes. I was going to buy another pair from him I liked them so much, but my ADHT kicked in and I went of chasing an SSL 384 or something or rather. The 256II's are well worth what Chris was selling them for..

Hey thanks good to know they sound nice, cool.

[rob]

yep indeedy, having modified and racked some of these EMTs the "gain" control is an amazing thing and quite unique. I still can't quite get my head around how it works but it does push up everything below the compression threshold, then go into whatever ratio comp you have set above the threshold. In tests with room mics, drums etc I found it an awesome "effects" compressor.

R

[Chinagraf]

Yep. I saw the racking Job you did Rob, so much nicer than mine. I loved the way you got the in and out to go where the old meter used to be. I'm still not quite sure how you got them in there..you must have tiny fingers :) I've been hassling some designers I know to make a plugin that will do basically what the gain control on the EMT's does. I wanted to call it the Elevator. Of course if someone clever came up with a hardware one I'm sure that would be pretty cool too...
Those EMT trannys were wired in a pretty special (or odd) way too. So tiny.

[Linear]

Yeah rob did a great job racking these things up.

What's weird about them is the fact that the effect you get from the little cassette -style compressors (256) is essentially the same as the larger PDM 156 compressor that EMT also made. It's a different way of looking at compression, but once you get your head around it, it makes sense.

The 156 is so complicated in fact, there is a graph on the front panel which explains the whole thing (in case you forget) and the knobs are colour-coded to match points on the graph. It kinda operates in the reverse to what i'm used to, but works really really well. I think it's one of the different compressor topologies around after vari-mu, FET and opto. Something to do with a diode bridge. It's like there is a compressor gain and threshold mixed into one knob, and increasing the compressor gain dips rotation point into the compression limit point.

I think the 256 is a straight FET though...rob?

Chris

[Linear]

and also, the metering on them is weird. so weird in fact that I had rob make up a circuit so they just showed gain reduction, as opposed to gain reduction that was mixed in with makeup gain. The 156 has a completely different meter scale, and when the unit isn't doing anything the meter just sits upright in the middle. I don't know how rob did it, but I'd recommend it to anyone who ever gets 256's.

Plus I got really big meters (I think from an otari tape machine?) which are really really handy, much better than the tiny and unreadable meters that they came with.

Chris

[rob]

two interesting things on a technical front about these EMTs. They are transformer in and out and as Linear says they transformers are tiny. What EMT have done ( and there were only a couple of manufacturers who ever went down this path ) was to integrate the transformers into the acutal circuitry for the input and output electronics respectively. This allowed all shortcomings in the transformers because of their small size ( mainly distortion ) to be 'ironed' out in the circuity.
The other thing of interest, and the only other comp i've seen with this topology is an Audix, is that the gain reduction is done with an IC called a 'four quadrant muliplier', so it ain't VCA, FET, opto etc etc, it is something else again. A four quandrant multiplier is generally used in AM radio circuits or sometime in pre digital analog computers. It is an IC that can take in two signals and do maths on them...ie multily, divide, square root etc.

...and if compression ain't about maths...nothing is!

class dismissed

Rob :)

[heathen]

Great read guys, cheers Chris and Rob, good to know about the metering also and Rob I'm glad you're familar with them, I'll be sending something soon you may not be familiar with though, :) . But then again ...... you probably are, heh.

Chris can you send me a PM on a price for a pair, if you're willing to sell them.

Cheers
Heath

[Linear]

well unfortunately all the 256 compressors are gone. however rob still has 9 (or 7?) little 257 limiters. I think the circuit is similar, without the ratio part.

i'm pretty keen to keep a pair for myself and rack the rest up to sell. if anyone is interested let me know, it would be easier and cheaper for rob to do them all in one hit (ie you can spread the investigating and developing cost across three units)

Cheers

Chris

[rob]

erk...a job lot?

what about a special Turtlerock edition?

[rick]

turtlerock edition ... no way i passed on them way before chris even got hold off them all , the knobs are way to small for my hands:)
what were they thinking ...?

[Linear]

yeah, thankfully rick passed on them without ever hearing them... ;-0

the idea behind the 256 was that it was small enough to fit into console fader slots, to be like an automix function. i can't believe how much they fit into tiny little boxes, pretty impressive. not sure which console it was designed for though.

the 156 on the other hand - it's huge. the amazing thing about the 156 is that every single board inside is removable through slotted plug-in card cartridges, including the power supply. the other amazing thing about the 156 is that i picked it up from smithys for $400.

don't tell me you passed on that too rick.... it's awesome.

Chris

[rick]

from smithys ...?
i sold them one in 1993 .....ummm :)