Elysia Mpressor At MusikMesse - Interview
Gearwire dropped by the Elysia booth at MusikMesse 2007 where we found company president Dominik Klassen holding court about the Mpressor, Elysia's latest box. Billed as a creative tool that happens to be based on compression principles, the Mpressor takes some explaining and Dominik is up to the task. Watch later for more Gearwire video where we pop the top of the Mpressor and get a guided component tour.
ROB WARMOWSKI: All right everybody. Welcome to Musikmesse 2007. We’re on the floor of Musikmesse right here with [PH] Dominik Klaasen, the president, correct?
DOMINIK KLASSEN: Yeah, that's right.
ROB WARMOWSKI: President of Elysia. Elysia, of course, is the compressor manufacturer and designer that we've covered before on Gearwire.Com. We've talked about their Alpha compressor, but they got a new product. It's called the Mpressor and it's not just sort of a damage control device, if you will, for your audio. It's actually a creative tool. Dominik, tell us a little bit about it.
DOMINIK KLASSEN: Yeah. That's really true. We also call it the "creative compressor" because unlike or the other as the Alpha compressor, it's not a dedicated mastering tool that's good for recording, for sound shaping, and really going into the extremes.
ROB WARMOWSKI: So, has this been designed for producers who might want to use it as part of a production -- music producting before mastering?
DOMINIK KLASSEN: Definitely. Definitely. Especially for producers, it's very good for electronic music, for example, and everywhere where you really want to hear the compressor. Of course you can also do the standard compression jobs with that because it's also at a very high level of audio quality which the alpha is, but we have tailored this one that it can really go into the extremes but still at that very high audio quality level.
ROB WARMOWSKI: So how many stages are there in the Mpressor?
DOMINIK KLASSEN: You mean different operation amps or do you mean modules -- functional modules?
ROB WARMOWSKI: Functional modules. Meaning if you can create some crazy compression and then tame it down.
DOMINIK KLASSEN: All right. You mean the special functions and mode and all of that. We have the auto-fast function for attack, which you already know from the Alpha compressor. We have an anti-log function for the release parameter which keeps the release down for a little bit longer than usual and then comes up faster, so you can make the compression much more audible than usual, which is very nice when you're being creative with the compressor. And then we have a very nice function which is called maximum reduction which is kind of limiting for the gain reduction so no matter how high the input is, you can say for example 6 dB of gain reduction no more. Then of course we have also integrated our filter, which you also know from the Alpha compressor but having the concept for the Mpressor in mind, it's also more extreme than all the other compressors.
ROB WARMOWSKI: So tell me. What is the difference between the limiter that you just described and a typical brick-wall limiter?
DOMINIK KLASSEN: It's something completely different because it's not the limitation circuit but it's some kind of a threshold for the compression, so the compression will not go below any further than the value that you have set. Maybe we can show it on the unit itself later. Reuben will do that.
ROB WARMOWSKI: Terrific. Well that's the overview of the Mpressor, and watch Gearwire for another video where we actually pop the top on the thing and take a look at the insides.





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