Chandler TG1
This compressor has been a major part of my sound for years.
You can hear it on pretty much all of my released DnB and on countless other things I’ve worked on outside of DnB.
It’s a very special sound that I’ve not really found anywhere else, and one I became so used to when I had a plugin version of it back in the day.
The problem came when computers moved to 64-bit, and that particular plugin never got updated, so I had to find a hardware version.
It opened a door I’ve never been able to close. Luckily, I managed to find one for a decent price from Lewis at Star Delta Mastering but it started a long road of buying outboard and studio gear.
Its origins are from the EMI TG console, which they built for their studios. Most famously Abbey Road.
It was used for The Beatles’ final album of the same name, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, and a ton of other artists from the era such as The Hollies, Billy Preston, The Shadows, Mary Hopkin, and many more.
One of those original consoles has been reconditioned and is currently on sale for 1.8 million quid.
The EMI TG12413 compressor/limiter from the channel strip on that console is the design that the Chandler TG1 and Zener limiter are built on, after the company (founded by Wade Goeke) bought the rights to the designs from EMI in 2002.
Fundamentally its a diode bridge compressor and he kept much of the original design the same. He just updated a few parts, mostly for reliability but also to make some of the controls more flexible.
There are three modes for it: one is a THD mode where you can just drive the circuit for saturation; one is ‘Comp,’ which is gentler with a slower attack time (I like this on guitars with a medium release); and my favourite setting is the ‘Limit’ mode, a really aggressive action with an 8ms attack time. I love it on drums.
Over the years, I’ve used it in various different ways. Originally, I would put it on parallel, absolutely smashed.
I also like it just doing a dB or two on the drum bus, and sometimes I’ll just put each side on a mono kick and snare.
In all of them, I’m looking for the same thing: the ‘grab’ of the unit and how it shapes the transient.
Sometimes I’ll put another compressor or a transient designer before it to make it 15–20ms, so it gives the TG1 more to get hold of and lets the 8ms really cut through the transient.
Pushing that 8ms into a saturator or tape then gives me a unique shape and a density on the front of drums that helps them cut through anything.
There’s a more modern plugin version made by Softube, which I often use at mix time.
If it had been around back in the day, I may never have spent everything I’ve ever made on outboard haha.
The modern plugin has all the same action and shape as the real unit, it’s just missing that last 5–10% of tone.
These days, I’m more often using the TG1 to record drums on the way in, so I’m getting that tone there, and I can have the flexibility of the plugin for shaping.
Like with anything outboard where there’s a digital counterpart, the need to have it is totally subjective, and I think nowadays it’s more based on workflow than anything else.
That’s why I use both. It’s definitely my favourite compressor though and I’d never sell it.
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