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A UAD newby's questions on the Fairchild

avatara

Member
Hello,

I have just purchased my first UAD card and this is my \"virgin\" post, so hello all!

I am very excited to get to know these plug ins, and see how they perform as I have only heard rave reviews.

However if some of you UAD veterans could give me some pointers especially on using the Fairchild on the mix bus to add sheen and glue together mixes I would be super appreciative.

My genre is electronic dance music so think of that before giving me setting for jazz or rock n roll. :)

Questions
-------------------

1) I remember reading somewhere ( maybe on the Pro Sound web forum) that one of the cool things about the Fairchild is using it in certain modes kind of creates a very subtle enhancement of the stereo spread. From reading the manual, I am thinking that this would be either the \"Stereo, coupled left/right \" or the \"Stereo, coupled mono/stereo\" setting.

Any comments on what mode I should be using to create this?


2) Also what settings would you use to add a nice warmth, sheen, fairy dust, etc on the mix buss? I am not looking to raise the levels just glue the mix together and give it character.


3) How hard can the Fairchild be driven without getting too distorted. I would like to hit some lead female vocals on an electro hip hop track really hard to beef them up and slap you in the face.


Obviously, the best thing is to experiment and try what works for me, but if any vets out there could give me some settings to use as starting points, it may help me through the learning curve faster.

BTW: I am following good ITB mixing practices such as using K-System metering and always keeping my peaks at just over 0 on the K-14 system to avoid distortions (I'll let a mastering engineer with golden ears and a perfect room to raise the levels without squashing the mix).

Thanks for sharing your experience,

Siddhu
 

saemskin

Established Member
If you understand the effects the controls have on a \"standard\" compressor all you have to do is check the manual and it explains what those funnily names things do.
 

avatara

Member
But I thought the whole thing about the Fairchild is it's \"non-standard\" non linear response/functioning.
 

neil wilkes

Venerated Member
That subtle thing you refer to could well be the adjustment of the balance control.
You'll need to decouple the controls to unlinked, and the effect is extremely subtle - try turning one all the way to the right and the other all the way to the left.

There is a post somewhere in here that details how to tune the Fiarchild for mastering. If you cannot find it, please mail me & I will send you a copy. I think it was posted by Soundsmiths Mastering originally.
This is a serious beast of a compressor/Line Amplifier and really takes a lot of learning. Once you get there - it's like someone turns on a light in a dark room & everything seems to slot into place.
I love this beast.
 

baronluigi

Active Member
A totallly agree with Niles and the Soundsmith Mastering post. Before that I didn't know how to use the Fairchild. Since I read the post I've been using the Fairchild a lot over the years.
 

taylor

Active Member
i've had no luck finding that big Fairchild post

searches on the forum by author for \"soundsmith\" or \"mastering\" or \"soundsmith mastering\" turn up nothing..

and a search for \"fairchild\" times out the search engine

if anyone has a link to this thread, it would be great to post it here.. thanks
 

avatara

Member
Is this the post you are talking about?

This is not my work, but that of SoundSmiths Mastering, who posted this guide on the \"unofficial\" UAD-1 forums, so I'm sure he won't mind me quoting it here for all. It works, too.

Please be aware that the Fairchild 670 was widely (almost universally) used in mastering, expecially in the days of vinyl where the Lat/Vert mode allowed mastering engineers to control the factors affecting groove dimensions. So it was every bit a mastering device.

It is no less useful to us today for mastering digital media, but it is not the most intuitive device. A good deal of time is required to master the art of using this peice of gear. That is as true of the hardware version as of the software. The engineers who invested 30 grand in this thing did not expect it to run itself. They were tweakers to the max. They spent hours listening to the audible effects of changing parameters. Should we choose not to do so, we will get proportionately less usefulness from it.

For mastering a full mix with the 670, you will almost certainly need to use something other than the default settings or factory presets. You will probably want to start by backing off on the Bias setting to about 2-3 o'clock.

That will get you in the stadium. To find your row and seat, you'll probably want little (or no) Input Gain, and a low (or zero) Threshold. You'll probably want to use a Time Constant of something other than 1-3 (most likely one of the Program Dependent modes, 5 or 6, or occasionally 4, rarely 3).

The ideal Time Constant setting will vary greatly with the above parameters and the source material. So it may be necessary to change this and go back to square one and start again if you don't like where you're heading.

You'll probably be most happy on a full mix when you see little or no activiy on the Gain Reduction meters, even in loud passages. That may be counter-intuitive, but it works.

You are trying to acheive a smoothing and sweetening effect, not a brute force taming of dynamics. Today, we have very good brickwall limiters to use after the 670, such as the L2, etc. Use them.

Much experimentation is needed to familiarize yourself with the wide variety of possible outcomes. For example, did you know that tweaking the \"Balance\" screw has a measurable and audible affect on the sound?

Originally this would tweak the voltages across the 6386 tubes, which does not produce a straight-forward effect on stereo level when the two screws are set slightly differently.

Rather it causes low-level dynamic phase variations that can be quite euphonic. I find that on mono signals and some stereo mixes, it is best to have these two screws set exactly the same (with fine increments of the keyboard), preferably so that the little paint dot is at the 12 o'clock position. But for many mixes, I have preferred the sound of one screw set fully clockwise and the other fully counter-clockwise, or somewhere in between. Try it and see what you hear.

Again, I say that this is a complex and amazing piece of gear, and it will be some time before the user gains enough familiarity with it to know instinctively where to go to get the desired result. But for those of you who have not had much time to spend with the 670 on a full mix, I urge you to do so. I warn you though, that you may end up like me. I agree that for most material, it doesn't sound right any more until it's been through the Fairchild! And I've never had ANY piece of equipment, let alone software, about which I could say that!

This should get you up & running nicely with the Fairchild. If anyone else has tips from the days when they used to use the real thing, then please post them here. It's a complex beast, but well worth getting to know.
Also, try this on guitars for that Tom Petty sound:

Time Constant - 1
Input Gain - 0 to 4 (try 0)
Threshold - 0 to 4 (try 0)
Factory calibration - around 2:00 (turn anticlockwise unti the highs become crisp again)

The harder you hit them, the better these plugs sound too. If you are after the mastering \"sheen\" then use the method above. If on a solo track, then hit it hard.

I found it on a musicplayer.com forum. Link is here: Fairchild Thread
 

Cabbage

Active Member
Much of the music I make have lots of distorted guitars. The problem I am having with the FC on the bus is that the high mids of the guitars can get very hard and unplesant. Can also affect the cymbals and hihat.

Anyone else notice this? Is there are quick fix?

Petter
 

bob humid

Active Member
avatara said:
Hello,

2) Also what settings would you use to add a nice warmth, sheen, fairy dust, etc on the mix buss? I am not looking to raise the levels just glue the mix together and give it character.

3) How hard can the Fairchild be driven without getting too distorted. I would like to hit some lead female vocals on an electro hip hop track really hard to beef them up and slap you in the face.

Siddhu
congrats on the purchase. you just bought a piece of jesus

on 2)
some ppl say that the fairchild sucks cause they dont hear it working. until they switch it off and they realise that 20dB are gone. so if you want to squeeze a single track / instrument A LOT this is one monster that can handle it. it will NOT shape and boost the transients (attacks) as a LA-2A or 1176 - so I dont know about this "fairy dust"... anyway for "shinyness" or fairy dust Ill use fat reverbs, ambience, EQs, class A tubes (or the Amphibia preamp modelling in Samplitude V9) or exciters.

its true that the 1176 and the LA2A can boost attacks in a way that the overall mix gets a nice, glamourish touch. that is due to the nice way they treat attacks.. still the fairchild is much more transparent on compression and level. though it will seriously alter the frequency domain (wheres the bass pressure gone?) .. you should try it on acoustical material.. for electronic music Ill try it on the snares, pads, basses or vocals.

3)
beef up vocals? LA-2A or the fantastic CS-1 channel strip (highly underrated as hell!)

CS-1 magic: (try cutting off the low-end of the vocals with the EQ until it stops to be muddy, boost some smooth mids at 1-3 KHz (wide Q! low number!) and glue it with the compressor set to 4:1 with 0.50ms attack and 70 ms release. add some subtle room pre-delay sparkle with the reflection engine). switch it off = hate it!

maybe: put some LA-2A with 1 dB gain reduction on top of it...

best

robert
 

Arys Chien

Active Member
Cabbage said:
Much of the music I make have lots of distorted guitars. The problem I am having with the FC on the bus is that the high mids of the guitars can get very hard and unplesant. Can also affect the cymbals and hihat.

Anyone else notice this? Is there are quick fix?

Petter
My humble suggestion: try a Precision EQ before F670. Smooth out the annoying high mids a little bit before it enters the compressor.
 
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