Stam Audio SA-4000 Stereo Bus Compressor
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ส.ค. 2024
- My friend Nick brought over his Stam Audio SA-4000 (Without the transformer mod) for a quick test.
Overall I was impressed with how close I had remembered the compressor sounding from my time hearing Eric Sarafin's (Mixerman) GL384. It had the same warm sound, but still had the full spectrum of highs, mids, and lows.
Most importantly, it didn't have a "Small" sound when pushed. Many compressors will get small when pushed, and it means it is an unforgiving unit. However, the SA-4000 didn't sound that way to me, and overall a very musical compressor.
My standard settings for stereo bus compression are a slow attack at 30ms, a fast release at .1 or the auto release, a ratio of 2 to 1 OR 4 to 1, and gain reduction of around 2 to 4 dB. This gives the mix a great sound that is stronger than the original uncompressed sound, but still allows the original character to come through.
Nick really enjoys using the Stam Audio SA-4000 with a more aggressive compression setting at over 4 dB of compression. Many times he commented that "This was a good sound" when the needle was at around 8dB of reduction. There is no wrong way to use the compressor. I think that because the SA4000 is a forgiving and very musicial compressor, that you can have that flexibility.
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This is the best unit that stam made, was when they was thinking on introduce to the market
This lives on my master buss. Great unit by Stam Audio. Combined with a pair of Warm Audio EQP-WA's, a mix can really come to life. Would love to grab that Tegeler Creme' at some point as well since it's an all in one stereo eq/compressor. Great vid!
Yeah, I really dig the Stam on the bus, and I've had a "Wow" moment with the Creme on overheads. I think the two are very different. Oh, and the creme high end boost is amazingly smooth compared to the EQP-WA.
Great demo with a very cool song. Just got a good deal on a SA-4000, and this video further proves i should be soon getting a great box. Now I'm gonna check out more of Flint Zeigler's music. Thanks!
sound great @ 2/1 30ms auto release. really glue the mix
It's a good sounding unit. It would be right at home in a little hybrid studio.
I was toying with the idea of buying one of these not that long ago, seems like a no-brainer for the price, it'd just be nice if it had a sidechain filter to stop it compressing the low end as easily if you don't want it to.
I had the same issue back whenever I was debating to purchase it or not. I had pre ordered it and ended up cancelling my order to pick up the audio scape buss comp. I love mine, it has the side chain at 160hz. Just letting you know in case you still looking for one.
VictorGG11 Thanks, I'll take a look at that. Probably won't be buying one for a while now. In Europe you can build your own via PCB Grinder which I was looking at. I'm sure there's probably a workaround with the Stam by setting up something in software, not as time effective as flicking a switch though.
There IS a sidechain on this one. I don't know how it works, but I would imagine you send it a second signal of whatever you want it to hear, so "Ess" sounds, or a high passed mix. Still...just a guess on how it works.
Creative Sound Lab It's an external sidechain though, isn't it? So I would have thought it'd be used to duck a bass guitar, for example, every time the kick drum was hit, rather than filtering out low frequency information to stop the compressor reacting as quickly. I suppose you could create something in your DAW with an EQ to act like an internal sidechain so that wouldn't happen, but it would take a lot more time to setup instead of just engaging a button.
Yeah, up to you. I mean, the compressor really doesn't need it. The low end sounds great going through it, and it's not getting in the way of a good sound like it does other compressors.
I love my SA2A. Can't wait for the 2 channel API to come out. But I was thinking about the CAPI VP28 with the red dots.
I didn't know about the API preamp. I've never built any of the CAPI gear...yet. I found out about them after I was done building all my Seventh Circle Audio preamps, but I may build some of their stuff in the future.
I would like one of these just for drums actually. I like how it warms up the vocals and bass, but I tend to hit them hard on the way in out of habit from the tape days. This would serve that purpose on overheads too, I find I can go fairly heavy on them and not regret it later.
Yeah, really musical compression that you don't regret. You just HAD to mention that you used to record to tape...
I'm probably older than you think I am. The blue hair throws people off. Yes, I recorded to tape, not as some sort of novelty, it was the 90's and only really big bands had even started tracking direct to a PC. You've never tracked to tape before? I still have a Fostex R8, but it requires a mixer on both ends to use it. I'd happily trade it for something interesting, but you'd want to actually receive it first and test it, because it has sat for so long that I can't confidently say it would work without any issues, and I don't currently have a setup that would allow me to properly test it. It uses an RCA in and an RCA out for each track. It's 8 tracks on 1/4" tape, which means it's 1/32" per track, so the fidelity isn't going to be like the 2" 16 track machines, but it has a pretty interesting sound of its own, especially if you have a hot line-level source going into track 1, 3, 5 and 7 (so you can saturate the hell out of it with, for instance a 4 mic setup on drums, and not get bleed or crosstalk between tracks). I recorded some punk bands in the mid 90's with it, including my own, and 8 tracks is plenty for punk rock. But yeah, I used to record to tape.
Haha. Yeah, never worked with tape. I considered getting a tape machine instead of a new converter, but realized that I needed the converters just to be up with the times.
Started recording around 1998 or so with Cool Edit Pro doing basic multitracking and stuff with drums. Never tape, and never ADAT recorders.
You should have a tape machine, even if it's one of the old cassette based Tascam Portastudio 424's. I use one for drums sometimes, it allows you to record all 4 tracks simultaneously and it sounds quite good on a drum mix. My first real recording experience was with one of those, and we did everything on 4 tracks. I was 12 and I knew a girl who played drums. I had this little Radio Shack passive mono mixer, just a 4 channel audio-funnel, and I had one of the old pistol-grip Shure dynamics along with a Radio Shack dynamic mic and a really old ribbon. We'd set up a kick mic and a snare mic and a single mono overhead, all plugged into the mixer, and record her drums on a single mono track. Then a track for bass, third track was guitar, and track 4 was vocals. We'd both sing sometimes, which would mean we had to use the mono mixer again. Using this machine taught me a lot, being limited to 4 tracks, having to mix down with only pan, bass, treble pots and level faders for each track, no adding anything after the fact. We must have spent about 5000 hours in the laundry room of my building recording shit. The 424 was my birthday present from my mom, and she included a huge pack of cassettes with it, and we just went nuts recording all kinds of shit because we could.
Fast-forward (terrible pun intended) several years, I'm just getting out of jail, trying to avoid doing anything stupid to get myself thrown back in. I got a job until the "PCA Waiver Program" taking care of a guy with ALS, working 56 hour weeks and paying 200 a month to rent a room. I saved until I could afford the Tascam DP01 (DP stands for digital portastudio), and I used that as a sort of halfway point to bring myself into the modern world. I was 27 and having had 3 years with nothing to do but write, I had a ton of songs. I started recording. Since then, I have gradually moved to modern technology, but I started tracking to that DP01 and then mixing it down using the two RCA outs on the back and the physical knobs and faders. Obviously, that isn't how it was intended to be used, it has a USB connection that you can use to take your tracks off it and open them in a DAW. I actually STILL use a couple of those same machines for some tracking, because they are actually latency-free and the mic preamps built in are pretty decent. I am actually thinking of getting the DP24 or DP32 so I can use a similar machine like that to track everything, including drums. I love the tactile experience of moving physical faders and knobs to change the sound. I don't think I will ever get totally used to doing it all with a mouse.
I've actually been meaning to ask you about one of those Mackie "USB Mixer" things. I'm looking at the "PROFX22v2" and other models in that series. So the question is this, it has 16 mic preamps and a few other channels, and it SAYS "Record or stream via USB" in the description, but I am wondering if that actually means that you can plug it in and your computer will recognize all those channels separately and allow you to track with them, or if it only recognizes it as a single stereo audio device, and hence would only record two tracks (or a single stereo track) out of the sum of all those channels. In other words, is a 16 channel "USB Mixer" functionally a 16 channel audio interface, or is the mixer doing its thing and funneling everything onto two (left/right) channels? I know you had a Mackie board for a while, but I don't know if it was a direct USB hookup or if you had a separate interface after it.
I actually have a cassette 4 channel but the recording on it sound super dark, so I think the heads need cleaning. For the Mackie, I would think that it would recognize all of your inputs if it says 8 x 2, then it would let you record 8 at once. The mackie that I have packed up but used for a little bit, was an older unit and it had a firewire card in it. It allowed you to record any or all of the 16 inputs, but it was only a 2 channel out, so just the stereo mix.
What track is used for this test? Really like it.
great review
the question is whether it's actually "8 dB of reduction" just because its meter says so, or for that matter whether your plug in is doing the same amount when IT says so. Every meter ballistic is different and most aren't all that accurate. If anything, one could assume that plug in, software, meters are potentially, at least, more likely to be accurate.
I think thats going to be warm audio next gear a ssl 4000 bus compressor that would be sweet...
You were right
Really looking into the Stam products for my front end.
Calvin Sattler exactly. They do a 1073 and a la2a I think.
Calvin - Anything that is before the DAW, which is mics, preamps, compressor or EQs that you use to get the intial sound.
Calvin Sattler Nope, you cant use this compressor as a preamp, at least its not intended to. The earlier commenter is saying theyd like to use this compressor on the "front end" just meaning basically during tracking, as part of the sound that gets recorded. In this example video, theyre running a full mix through it, so he was saying instead of using it on the master bus on a final mix, he was planning to use it while tracking on the way in.
Calvin Sattler 2nd question, can you use a preamp on the master bus... short answer is no, not usually, but it is possible. Now, some preamps do have true dedicated line inputs, or at least a pad. You could run a bus into the line input of a preamp for the color, sure. The problem per usual is proper gain staging, your daw is sending line level (HOT) balanced signal, and your pre wants to see a mic level (weak). Polar opposite. Add to that most color/transformer preamps like api or neve style will need to be working somewhat (i.e. adding gain) to add saturation or rly impart their sonic character. If its already super loud line-level, it doesnt have anywhere to go.
To get around that you'd need to consider using attenuaters/pads, or a re-amp style setup switching to high impedance and using the DI on the pre (do NOT simply plug the balanced line level outputs of your DAW into the DI on a preamp just cuz it looks like it will work). Actually Creative Sound Lab has a whoke video on this topic! Haha i think its like "dont listen to youtibe experts" or something where ppl were suggesting using the DI as an input.
One big difference is if you're DAW is routing to a summing box, then coming out of a summing box, which is basically a box of resistors, you typically will absolutely want to hit preamps on the way back in.
Calvin Sattler - Yes, uzefulidiot is right. For example the "Front end" could be that you use this compressor on the overhead mics as a stereo pair, but AFTER the preamp, because this unit takes line level at it's input. Preamps will amplify the mic level signal from a microphone, up to line level signal. So a full mix will need to be attenuated down by A LOT of amplitude if you play it through a pre amp. As uze said, many preamps have "line in" because of this idea of coloring a mix coming out of an interface (At line level).
Hola brother...I've seen these comps a few times and they seem like a good value, just takes a while to get them Anyway, I was actually just curious...have you moved away from Warm Audio gear? It almost appeared as though you were almost a spokesman for them and I haven't seen much from you about them recently. I am totally not trying to be a jerk, honestly just curious about your experience with their gear over time. You mentioned that your bigger comp has a nicer top end than the eqp-wa's and stam and warm almost seem like direct competitors, but I really don't know that that is true, just kinda seemed that way. So, yeah...what's your thought? if this is not appropriate for a comment on the channel I apologize and if you wanna remove it and maybe be private I understand. Again pure motives here...I have a grip of Warm pieces as you do, but they are budget in comparison to the BIG expensive units regardless of how much I enjoy using them, which I do!
I still use their gear. They hired me to create some product videos for them for their channel and website, and then they also helped promote videos that I did on my own channel. A great way to get to a larger audience because gear companies are always looking for content to share with their gear in it. It was a really cool collab, but then I noticed some videos I owned were being reuploaded which would compete against the original (Still on their channel and facebook pages). Regarding ANY gear company...secretly replacing audio in a video with overdubbed audio, and selecting musicians for videos based on if they are "Good looking" just was something I refused to do here on this channel. I think we can do better business than that personally and it's the right thing to do.
huh, i kinda preferred the more exaggerated settings
Most will, and that's ok. It's just like seasoning, and it takes practice to know how far is too far once you know what it sounds like aggressive.
I just got my sa4k and I actually like the waves version more
Why?
How did you find it compared to your tegeler creme compressor ?
Very different. The stam gives that classic SSL sound and glue. I think I like the Creme better as a stereo compressor on overheads with it's super smooth top boost for my ribbons.
Very interested as I’m trialing a Tegeler Creme at the moment. Could you tell me more? How do they both compare on the mix bus? The one thing I don’t like about the Tegeler is it feels cheap but sound wise I’m pretty happy
Bad to the Bone influenced
Check out the TK Audio version.
I just take a photo of the settings and save it to notes on my phone
Haha, I've done that stuff too.
So Commenterman has to be a little snarky today, I'm on the rag I guess, but ........ did you smack this guy around just before you started the video? He looks utterly terrified of you.
That's what he actually meant by letting the dude twiddle with his knobs, then 'slamming' him, and 'other things that probably didn't sound good' ... :S
It might just be that Ryan is a big bad dude and his friend here is elfin.
Sure, it could mean that too ... :)
I just remembered that I have been trying to convince Ryan to do some drums on something......I hope he doesn't take this stuff seriously...........
Well, I told him we had to sit close to get in the shot. The camera can mess with your head too, and it was different for me even to have someone else there.
Sounds good. My only gripe is that the song rubs me the wrong way somehow. Meh.
Hey, J Howell ;
It’s the vocalist. He’s on every video that Ryan makes. Can’t stand his voice.
I really hope Ryan finds other available variety for vocals.
I really dont understand why there is anything else than 30ms and 10ms attack on this compressor. I have similar clone with SC up to 130hz. I mainly do hip-hop or anythin heavy on a beat so I use SC @ 130hz all the time and only then from time to time i use 10ms. Every lower setting is just murder.
Totally, and such a good setting. And some would ask why the meters go beyond 8 dB, but some still slam it. I know I would not though.
I used mine during tracking at the .1 and .3 attack times on room mics. I really dug 'it.
If I were using it for parallel compression, I'd either use it at 10:1 with a fast-ish attack and a fast release to bring up the room or slow attack medium release to emphasize the transients (depending on what I need for the program material).
When it's on my mix bus, though, I'm using it just like you: 30ms attack, fastest or auto release (depending on if I want to float or hold down the sustained material), and 2:1 or 4:1.
Made from chile 🇨🇱
*SA-4000
Fixed thanks!
Stam has the worst PR ever and takes forever to get your products.
My rule of thumb is to order 6 months ahead. I know as of 2018 they are making changes to better turn around time and PR! they can only make 2 units a day an can have up to 500 orders to fill. I have been waiting 9 months for my moded SA 4000+ but I promise its worth the wait. I am in no way affiliated with stam I just stand behind the product.
Right, I've heard about the wait list too. I almost find it a good thing it takes a while to build because you can only pick two: Good, fast, cheap. If we know it's not "Fast" from those three, then hopefully it's the other two.