Eventide Omnipressor 2830au – Originally created by Richard Factor, the founder of Eventide (and later fine-tuned for production by Jon Paul), the Omnipressor opened up a world of creative possibilities. It allowed for precise control over every aspect of dynamic adjustments and introduced the concept of the ‘side chain.’
This groundbreaking technology also hinted at techniques we now consider standard, such as ‘look ahead’ processing. Notably, one of our earliest customers happened to be a young Brian May, the legendary lead guitarist of Queen. With the Omnipressor in his setup, his sound underwent a remarkable transformation.
Features
- Dynamics Processing — capable of creating otherworldly sounds
- Dynamic Reversal — the first of its kind, soft signals come out loud and loud signals come out quiet, simulating tape reversal, a near unique attribute of this versatile compressor
- Function Control — sets a ratio over a continuous range allowing extreme expansion, to infinite compression, and is even able to push further into dynamic reversal
- Variable Control of attack and release time
- Variable Control of maximum gain and maximum attenuation
- Gating — amplitudes of signals that fall below a set threshold are ‘squashed’
- Expansion — widen a signal’s dynamic range, louder gets louder, softer gets softer
- Compression offers variable control of compression ratio
- Infinite Compression — if you want everything to come out at the same level, this is the feature for you
- Limiting — a fast, versatile limiter, useful for maintaining a loud sound
- Intuitive Interface — clean and easy to operate
The 50th-anniversary Eventide Omnipressor 2830au stands as a top-tier dynamic modifier, blending the attributes of a compressor, expander, noise gate, and limiter into one convenient unit. It boasts a unique dynamic reversal feature that can turn high-level input signals into something lower than their low-level counterparts.
Musically, this feature can reverse the attack-decay envelope of instruments like plucked strings and drums, creating a distinctive “talking backward” effect when applied to voice signals. When you want to return to the standard audio, simply use the LINE switch to bypass the Omnipressor.
The Eventide Omnipressor 2830au offers an impressively wide range of controls suitable for all program-controlled gain adjustments. The Expansion/Compression control is continuously variable, spanning from an expansion ratio of 10:1 (acting like a gate) to a compression ratio of -10:1 (a sharp reversal).
The attenuation and gain limit controls allow you to fine-tune the gain range, ranging from a substantial 60dB to as little as plus or minus 1dB. Additionally, the variable time constant controls enable you to adjust attack and decay times over an approximate 1000:1 ratio. For further versatility, the bass-cut switch restricts low-frequency response in the level detector.
