I'm pretty sure this was talked about in the last few months. Search for the word drawmer. Not a current fave, not popular and not highly praised. Much better exists for it's price range.

I've used the 1960 (Mercenary Edition) to compress a stereo bus of drums. I squashed it and mixed that under the original drum signal. It was way cool for this and pretty underwhelming at most other applications.

Where in NY are you?

You are either mistaken or must have some proto type slicraider as there is no Mercenary Edition of the 1960. There is the Mercenary Edition 1969 and the new 1968 but no 1960. And there is very little in common in sound, tone or guts between the 1960 and the 1969 units.

true, i have one of those (the 1960), it's not that bad but it's not brilliant either,very tricky to get the right release, if it's not right it compresses too much, :? i'd get the 1969 instead...

I had a 1960 for about three minutes once. Using the compression was like trying to kill an ant with a steam shovel. The mic pre was noisy as all get out. All in all, I really sort of hated it. I ended up trading it in on a Manley EL OP and I never looked back.

I really like Drawmer noise gates but I hate all of the compressor line. Word is the Mercenary Edition is a totally different animal.

wow it sound like this thing sucks !
I found one for 1000$ and I thought 2 pres and 2 comp for a grand is a nice deal, I gues was wrong.

slicraider I'm in the village east village.
I am about to take a studio in mid town and so I am shopping around.
where are you?

Yes i'd have to agree with most of these opinions.
The Drawmer gates are great but their preamps suck for sure.They just seem to lack prescence and speed.

Drawmer compression is way over rated.
Even with little or no compression you can hear it a mile away.

I have one fo these and i rarely use it ,
The preamps are noisy not accurate distorted with no headroom , the overdriven di is almost unusable the di's eq is crap the filters are crap
the compressors can be usefull from time to time , deffenetly not my first choice , but it is not a bad compressor at all , the release is a problematic issue ,but it is problematic with la-4 , la-2 ,avalons (the ones i know) and many other compressors that are good for a specific things not for universal use , i found the 1960 good for sax on several ocasions and for elec guitar sometimes , but the drawmers main problem is the sound coloration it is masking the sound (the coloration is tl audio crapy style)

I found a 1960 6 months back for $1100. I have worked at the
settings (and my hearing!) and know enough about it to put it
across the 2-bus. I really could use a real 2-bus comp (2500, mu,
stc-8) but cant scrape the scratch together yet.

I keep the release on the fastest (left most ) setting for 2-mix,
with the attack on medium, and move the threshold til the loudest
program material reads about 3db GR.

Character? Dark, not mushy, but not sparkling. On gearslutz
recently some told me it was a VCA comp. I thought with all those tubes, i thought it might be vari-mu or something exotic...

its a hybrid design, lately i've been getting MUCH BETTER results inserting a low pass filter in the side chain, I mean its a night and day difference, it still compresses a lot but it will sound more open...

try it, hi pass set @ around 120 HZ low pass depending on what you are mixing, it really works

slicraider wrote: I've used the 1960 (Mercenary Edition) to compress a stereo bus of drums. I squashed it and mixed that under the original drum signal. It was way cool for this and pretty underwhelming at most other applications.

The only thing the Drawmer 1969 [Mercenary Edition] and the 1960 have in common are the basic chassis and face plate [except we put a couple extra holes in the face plate for stuff like polarity reverse switches], the power transformer, the meters and the Direct Input [but because the DI has totally different stuff behind it, it sounds rather different]

The 1969 was a ground up new design that is unfortunately often somewhat confused with the 1960 [which is indeed a complete turd... hence the creation of the 1969]. The 1968 is slated to be a 1RU version of the compressor section of the 1969... and there will be no confusion that it is a world class unit that can easily rival units costing way more than it's projected $2,250 USD street price.

Thank you for this opportunity to clarify the difference

I want to point out that almost everything Fletcher and Mercenary Audio have had a hand in designing has been excellent! In a time when everyone seems to be looking for a way to "dumb down" audio quality, Fletcher continues to strive for excellence. I only wish that other manufacturers had as good of ears and the sense of taste that Fletcher exhibits ... it ain't cheap but that's the point!