The Best Manley 2024

1. Manley Mastering Stereo Variable Mu Limiter Compressor Hi Pass Mod

The Mastering Version of the Manley Variable Mu Limiter Compressor incorporates detented and logable steps, built with 1% metal film resistors on sealed gold-contact Grayhill switches. The Manley Variable Mu Limiter Compressor has been Manley's best selling product for many years. It is one of the very few compressors that have become a real standard in mastering studios and contributed to most hit records over the last decade”and probably the next. "Mu" is tube-speak for gain. It works by using the "remote cut-off" or re-biasing of a vacuum tube to achieve compression. The highly revered vintage Fairchild 670 also uses this technique, and is one of few all-tube compressors to do so. Even the side-chain has glowing rectifier bottles. How's it work? The unique 5670 dual triode is at the center of the peak-reduction and compression action constantly being re-biased by the vacuum tube rectified side-chain control voltages, which cause this tube to smoothly change its gain. Just like that. The Compress mode is a soft-knee 1.5:1 ratio, while the sharper knee Limit mode starts at 4:1 and moves to a more dramatic ratio of 20:1 when limiting over 12dB. Interestingly, the knee actually softens as more limiting is used. Distortion can be creatively used by turning up the Input and turning down the Output while using very little or no compression. You might notice that the Variable Mu Limiter Compressor has a ganged input control, but do not jump to conclusions that it is mono-unfriendly. Track away! There are separate threshold and output controls to make compensations with plus you can always adjust your individual source levels elsewhere, right? The advantage of the stereo input control becomes dramatically clear when you switch to LINK mode, and that's what our Variable Mu Limiter Compressor does better than anything else: final mix, 2-track, or mastering limiting and compression. Like one reviewer put it: "It's like pouring a bowl of sweet cream over the mix." Mmmmmm. Yummy. Give your music a big hug. Manley Variable Mu Modifications: High-Pass Side Chain option: Also available on the mastering version of the Variable Mu (#620909), this adds two switches to the front panel, one for each channel, so that when engaged, the side chain will not respond to frequencies lower than 100Hz. (100Hz is standard as the -3dB point. Other frequencies can be custom-ordered.) This HP SC Mod can be used with music with heavy bass lines or bass-heavy mixes where you don't want the bass driving the whole action of the compressor. The filter is a very gentle 6db per octave 1 pole filter, and will typically be down 1-3db at 100 Hz, and down 4-6db at 50Hz. As you decrease the frequency the amount of limiting will decrease also. At the extreme LF (<20hz) there should be very little gain reduction going on. The purpose of the filter is to keep very LF stuff (like a heavy kick drum) from activating the compression/limiting so that the overall level doesn't duck with every drumbeat. Mid-Side mod (Vertical/Lateral or Sum/Difference): This modification opens the door to stereo encoding and decoding, as well as exciting image-enhancement processing capabilities. For instance, setting it to compress the in-phase information only allows the augmentation of the stereo image as the out-of-phase content is left untouched. Or, conversely, if you need a "more-mono" mix for broadcast, or vinyl-cutting for instance, you can set it to kill off more of the out-of-phase info which leaves more in-phase material in the final result. (Read more about the M-S Mod on page 12 of the owner's manual.) Note: There is no space to add both the M-S and High-Pass mods. You must choose one or the other. T-Bar mod: This modification is in response to users wanting to know if they should use the 5670 tubes or 6386 tubes. With the poor

The Mastering Version of the Manley Variable Mu Limiter Compressor incorporates detented and logable steps, built with 1% metal film resistors on sealed gold-contact Grayhill switches The Manley Variable Mu Limiter Compressor has been Manley's best selling product for many years It is one of the very few compressors that have become a real standard in mastering studios and contributed to most hit records over the last decade”and probably the next "Mu" is tube-speak for gain It

2. Manley Labs FORCE 4 Channel Vacuum Tube Microphone Preamplifier

From America’s premier high-end studio gear manufacturer, the Manley FORCE offers four channels of vacuum tube microphone preamplifiers extracted from the hugely popular and award winning Manley CORE, housed in an exquisitely gorgeous chassis, meticulously hand-crafted, purposefully and efficiently in southern California. Your relationship with the FORCE begins with the ergonomic facia through its thoughtfully organized controls, silky and bulletproof rotary potentiometers, positive latching feature switches, and convenient Direct Input ¼” jacks. Seven-way LED metering for each channel provides instant visible feedback for audio levels which are enhanced with a double-inlay CNC-milled accent. This is investment-grade audio equipment that you will be as proud to showcase in your studio as Manely was to handcraft it in Southern California. Your microphone signals enter through gold-plated XLR connectors straight into MANLEY IRON mic input transformers. Your line level sources or instrument level guitars and keyboards come in via the front panel ¼” Hi-Z 10 megOhm jacks before hitting the input level control which also acts as a Variable Input Pad. Phase Reverse and a 120Hz High Pass filter can be invoked here in the circuit and then into the 12AX7 dual triode amplifying stage operating in pure Class A, of course. The amount of GAIN for each channel can be selected as 40dB to 60dB via the front panel switches. The output stage “can drive a truck” as we like to brag delivering up to +35dBu. You will not get near this sonic performance with any 500-series design. This is FULL FORCE audio excellence from Manley Labs, proudly built by an American workforce.

From America’s premier high-end studio gear manufacturer, the Manley FORCE offers four channels of vacuum tube microphone preamplifiers extracted from the hugely popular and award winning Manley CORE, housed in an exquisitely gorgeous chassis, meticulously hand-crafted, purposefully and efficiently in southern California Your relationship with the FORCE begins with the ergonomic facia through its thoughtfully organized controls, silky and bulletproof rotary

3. Manley Labs NU MU Tube Compressor

The Manley Nu Mu stereo limiter compressor uses the special T-Bar mod tube front end of the legendary Variable Mu, with the same super smooth side chain and timing characteristics. That’s followed by a high-voltage discrete and FET solid-state amplifying and output stage, for a faster and punchier audio path. It’s like a “clean” version of the Variable Mu, especially suited for modern digital and electronic music—where you don’t necessarily need to color or mask the sound like they did in the early days of digital. Featuring Manley's new HIP function, the Manley Nu Mu finesses dynamic control to bring up lower-level details—without knocking the life out of exciting transients. It’s smartly engineered to build efficiently, and aesthetically designed to elicit ravishing compliments from your clients, both visually and ergonomically. The Manley Nu Mu breaks new ground in performance and value, all proudly built by hand in California.

The Manley Nu Mu stereo limiter compressor uses the special T-Bar mod tube front end of the legendary Variable Mu, with the same super smooth side chain and timing characteristics That’s followed by a high-voltage discrete and FET solid-state amplifying and output stage, for a faster and punchier audio path It’s like a “clean” version of the Variable Mu, especially suited for modern digital and electronic music—where you don’t necessarily need to color or mask the sound like they did in the

4. Manley Reference Silver Dual-pattern Large-diaphragm Tube Condenser Microphone

The Manley Reference Silver microphone is built with a fantastic capsule, which features an adjustable acoustic chamber on the back to switch easily between Cardioid and Omni pickup patterns. This distinctive capsule is the heart of the rich and creamy tone that the Manley Reference Silver Mic delivers. The fragile high impedance signal from the capsule first hits a FET sitting underneath the 5670 vacuum tube’s cathode which then amplifies the signal into a more robust voltage that the hand-wound Manley IRON microphone output transformer sends out to your microphone preamplifier. Output level from this mic is a bit lower compared to Manley's other two microphones and is ideal for capturing your loudest instruments such as snare drum, guitars and toms or for recording female vocals and saxophones. It's a very classic sounding microphone, which is to be expected since its innovative capsule design harkens back to the 1950s.

Condenser Microphone Transducer USA Hand Made Capsule by Josephson Audio Reference Silver Tube Microphone