Based on a famous Danish design, Heritage’s versatile homage includes some useful additional features.
Madrid‑based Heritage Audio have been busily expanding their product range in recent years, and having reviewed a few of their outboard devices for SOS I’ve been impressed enough to make my studio the permanent home to some of their EQs. For review here is Heritage Audio’s Tubesessor, an analogue compressor that doffs its cap to the legendary Tube‑Tech CL‑1B optical tube compressor. The CL‑1B is still technically in production but there’s a very long waiting list, and it was almost inevitable that other companies would look to cater for the demand. More than one company seems to have had the idea around the same time, so the Tubesessor is jostling for attention alongside a few other options for those looking for that CL‑1B sound.
Overview
The Tubesessor is a stylish, substantial‑looking device that fills 3U of rack space and sports chunky dials and a vintage‑looking VU meter on the front. While you can tell from the aesthetics what its inspiration was, I was pleased to see that Heritage haven’t tried to mimic every aspect of the Tubesessor’s muse. Also commendable is that, while Heritage do intend this device to deliver the characteristics that made the CL‑1B so appealing, they’ve taken the opportunity to add a few extra features that might help their version stand out from the crowd.
One of the desirable traits of this style of compressor, compared to some other vintage ‘tube opto’ designs such as the LA‑2A, is that it gives the user greater scope to fine‑tune their compression settings and, in keeping with its inspiration, the Tubesessor features fully variable ratio, threshold, attack and release controls. Expanding further on the theme of controllability, Heritage have included a Tube Saturation control and five different side‑chain filter options. The latter allow you to focus the compression towards or away from certain parts of the frequency spectrum. The options on offer here are high‑pass filters (80Hz, 160Hz or 5kHz) and peak boosts (1 or 3 kHz).
On the rear, you’ll find the expected balanced audio I/O on XLRs, as well as a quarter‑inch jack link socket that allows two units to works in stereo. Two dual‑triode valves protrude through the rear panel, one a CK5755 and the other a 12BH7A — these are exposed to allow for both cooling and ease of swapping out. There are also chunky input and output transformers, including an AMI UT10, and at the other end of the device, a larger power transformer. As with all their valve‑based designs, Heritage are keen to point out that they have secured large quantities of key NOS (‘new old stock’) components so that customers can feel reassured their unit is suitably future‑proof.
On the rear, along with the balanced analogue audio I/O, you’ll find two valves and the input, output and power transformers.
Into Action
The Tubesessor arrived at my studio when I was deep in a mixing project that involved me breaking things out of the box to use certain hardware pieces. Needing little invitation to go down a rabbit hole with a new piece of gear, I immediately patched in the Tubesessor and experimented with it on the lead vocal and bass guitar parts — two key elements in a mix that I still often enjoy using hardware on.
Cutting to the chase, the Tubesessor really is an excellent compressor for bass guitar. Using a higher ratio it felt ridiculously easy to dial in a vintage‑sounding direct bass sound, and I found myself liking a fast attack and release with a generous amount (around 6‑10 dB) of gain reduction. For the bass parts, I also enjoyed playing with the low‑pass options in the side‑chain filter section as well as the Tube Saturation facility, which proved as valuable an option for a touch of gentle tone‑shaping as for more obvious saturation effects. Having started with the relative safety of mixing, I soon felt at ease putting the Tubesessor to use compressing bass guitars while tracking, and as it proved such a forgiving and reliable option I used it in that context on several sessions. A device you can pretty much ‘set and forget’ like this can be a real asset in a busy session.
When I played around with this style of compression on vocals, it was easy to understand why it has garnered such a strong reputation.
The original CL‑1B is arguably best known as a vocal compressor for rap and R&B vocals. These aren’t genres I typically work on, but when I played around with this style of compression on vocals, it was easy to understand why it has garnered such a strong reputation. It can add all the colour, sheen and character of simpler vintage designs but, as I mentioned earlier, the variable nature of the main controls means you have the flexibility to dial in transparent dynamic control much more easily. While the gain reduction can seem transparent, though, there’s definitely a more obvious analogue ‘vibe’ to be found if you want that, and on vocal tracking sessions I was sometimes surprised at just how ‘colourful’ the review unit was — the saturation seemed to kick in quite quickly when using anything other than moderate settings. Sometimes, therefore, I found myself having to be careful to not overdo it when tracking, but in the more controlled environment of a mix session, I was able to get much more stuck in, discovering different styles of compression and colour with this device: fast and transparent or slow and ‘gooey’, it all seemed to be there once I’d become accustomed to the controls.
Transient Delight
I’ve reviewed plenty of nice compressors for SOS in recent years, and have learnt not to typecast tools as being good for specific things — whatever their reputation, I always try them out on a range of material to see what they can do. Yet, in this case, I was still surprised at just how much I liked using the Tubessesor on drums.
It worked superbly on one session in particular, in which I used it aggressively on a mono drum overhead channel. Encouraged by an excellent drummer who was in control of their own dynamics, I was able to get heavy‑handed with some ‘smacky’ sounding compression, and we liked the result so much that this channel ended up being a central part of the drum sound for that project. It also performed admirably on close kick and snare mics on different tracking sessions, and when used moderately it worked very well indeed for combining dynamic control with a little tube coloration. In short, this seems to be a compressor that can make a positive contribution to pretty much any aspect of live drum recording and mixing, and it would no doubt work just as well for shaping and adding vibe to programmed drums.
Depending on how hard you hit the input stage, the Tube Saturation section can be quite subtle on sources with plenty of sustain in the sound, like guitar and vocals, but on more transient‑dominated or bass‑heavy sources things get a bit more interesting. It’s hard to put this sort of character into words but whether it was the subtle tube saturation or more obvious distortion, it always sounded tasteful to my ears. It’s worth noting that while the side‑chain filter is there to fine‑tune the response of the compressor to different frequencies, the balance that results from the compression also has an impact on the results from the saturation stage, so there’s some indirect interplay between these controls. I found that the last three side‑chain filter settings often worked well when I was dialling in more character.
Final Thoughts
For the most part, I’ve considered the Tubesessor as a studio tool in its own right, rather than attempt a direct comparison with its inspiration. I have fairly limited experience with the Danish original in its hardware form, but I recall it as being a touch cleaner and more transparent‑sounding than the Tubesessor. This isn’t a criticism because, for mixing in particular, I really did tend to find the coloration was desirable.
The most impressive aspect by far for me, though, was just how versatile this compressor is — it performed a number of different roles in my studio without breaking a sweat. There’s plenty of competition in this price range for an all‑around studio compressor but, at around half the price of an original CL‑1B and with some excellent extra features, I’d suggest that the Tubesessor would be a strong contender if you’re looking for a hardware compressor in this style, and well worth putting on your list of gear to audition.
Pros
- The variable controls work very nicely in use.
- Can be both clean and colourful as needed.
- Excellent for vocals and bass.
- Excellent on drums.
- Stylish and substantial looking!
- Half the price of its inspiration.
Cons
- Care is needed when looking for cleaner vocal compression when tracking.
Summary
A substantial and full‑featured optical/valve compressor that sounds great as the ‘main course’ for vocal processing and all‑round studio duties. The extra features helpfully augment this already versatile studio tool.
Information
£1638 including VAT.
Heritage Audio +34 917 266 189.
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