#a-designs

My most recent acquisition is the A-Designs HM-2 Compressor, which is more commonly known as the “Nail.” The company also make a great sounding 3-band parametric EQ called the Hammer. Adorable.

Basically the Nail is just stereo compressor that most commonly finds a home on the stereo buss. For the uninitiated, the “stereo buss” is the Promised Land where all the elements of your mix end up before they hit your speakers. Chug.

What does this mean? The Nail is well suited for very complex sonic signals.

Why? Well that's a touch harder to answer, but without getting too ubern3rd on you, the Nail has the following that make it well suited for such an application:

Variable Ratio: I think this is brilliant. It's not like we are just jamming a bass track or a snare drum where one ratio would cover all our similar waveform bases, a variable ratio means the compression knee changes based on what you are hammering into the nail (pun intended). Of course this also means we are putting our faith into the tiny leprechaun scientists inside the box setting our ratios for us. But I can already say, from personal use, that the leprechauns are really, really good at their job. They also have awesome hats.

Fully Variable High Pass Filter: Yes, other compressors have a high-pass filter, but I'll still explain why this is good to have. Essentially, you can get away with more low-end before the compressor starts choking on every kick hit. Handy.

Mix Knob: Parallel compression without it being a pain in the ass. Sometimes it's cool to get your compressor smooshing things like a son of a gun and then blend in a bit of the uncompressed mix for a much needed reality check. Compression is like french fries: you want more. And you usually don't know that you've had too much until it's way too late, commonly known as the, “I feel like / this sounds like... crap,” phenomenon. With the Nail, Captain Squish-a-lot can turn one knob and his mix will magically return back to the mystical land of dynamics, where there are wild concepts running rampant like, “head room,” and, “dynamic range”. Ooooo, Ahhhhhh...

In summation: Nail > French Fries.

 Lastly!!

HARD THRESHOLD: Everything else I've mentioned before has been done on some other piece of gear in some capacity, however, I think this little morsel might actually be a Nail exclusive. It's a weird but really cool feature. The hard threshold is the bouncer at the club. See, the club is BANGING, but only IF you can get your fugly ass in. Are you hot enough to cross the threshold? No? Well club Nail ain't touching you. You can sit there with all the other dynamically disadvantaged losers, completely untouched. Oh Hello Mr. Lead Vocal and Mrs. Snare Drum! It seems you are more than hot enough to get into Club Nail. SMASH, you have been Nailed. Basically, the hard threshold lets the parts of the wave that don't meet its variably set level remain untouched and the parts of the signal that DO cross the hard threshold get hit with however you've set the Nail. I know, it's weird. But it's actually pretty useful once you wrap your mind around it.

Anyway, I love it. If you know what you're doing it's a great tool for shaping dynamics. It has just the slightest hint of color if you push it and it has already started making my mixes sound better. Before too long, we'll post some of the stuff I did using the Nail for The Tired and True so you guys can hear something it's been used on. It will also be in full effect on all my next projects.

Maybe A-designs will give me a discount on a Hammer to compliment my nail now that I've written this glowing blog post. If not, I'm holding their leprechauns hostage.

Other Nail related projects:

Citizen (U.S.: Either/Or Records; U.K.: City of Gold Records)

No Trigger (No Sleep Records)