Over the last 20 years the EL-8 &ldquo;DISTortion compRESSOR&rdquo; has become synonymous with greatness. With well over 25,000 units in the field and working daily, no other compressor is as well known, or well-loved as the ELI-8 and ELI-8X. Pretty much every recording made in the last decade-plus has employed at least one, if not several Distressors during the production process, no other unit, from any other manufacturer, can make that claim without lying more than a little bit.&nbsp; The Distressor has the capability to run as clean as clean can be, or add a little &ldquo;attitude&rdquo; as the user determines is appropriate for the music on which they&rsquo;re working. Two different &ldquo;distortion&rdquo; offerings are created in the analog domain while being controlled digitally for ease of use and repeatability. Those &ldquo;distortion&rdquo; settings are called DIST 2, and DIST 3. When the DIST 2 function is engaged the user will find that &ldquo;even order&rdquo; harmonic distortion is added to the signal in a very musical manner, much like when audio is run through a tube circuit that features Triode tubes. When the DIST 3 function is engaged the user will find a fair bit of that &ldquo;even order&rdquo; harmonic distortion along with a helping of &ldquo;odd order&rdquo; harmonic distortion (like what you&rsquo;d get from a Pentode tube circuit), which makes the audio a tad brighter and airier in addition to the &ldquo;thick&rdquo; qualities of the &ldquo;even order&rdquo; harmonic distortion. Even if adding some distortion isn&rsquo;t your thing, the compression ratios are intensely useable, and the setting called &ldquo;NUKE&rdquo; is perhaps one of the most unique settings on any compressor ever built at any time in human history. &ldquo;NUKE&rdquo; has the ability to turn an average drum set into something you might hear on a Led Zeppelin record. &ldquo;NUKE&rdquo; has the ability to drive a sound (especially when used with a &ldquo;parallel compression&rdquo; technique) so far into the listener&rsquo;s face it just can&rsquo;t be ignored. Just as the sound of the unit is exceptionally variable, so is the ability to shape the compression curves to the point where the sound will fit into a recording or mix with ease, giving you one less thing to worry about!! Features include: Easy to read/understand nomenclature; distortion indication lights; musically intelligent ratio selections; built-in [accessible on the face panel] detector circuit side-chain EQ; XLR &amp; &frac14;&rdquo; inputs and outputs; and a true &ldquo;hardwire&rdquo; bypass for easy &ldquo;before and after&rdquo; comparisons. If you&rsquo;ve gotten this far without nodding off to sleep, here&rsquo;s a little bonus feature that isn&rsquo;t in the manual!! If you don&rsquo;t have the link cables inserted in the back of your Distressor and you hit the &ldquo;link&rdquo; button &ndash; it increases the noticeable effect of the DIST 2 and DIST 3 settings. If you&rsquo;re the creative type, you can have an awful lot of fun with this formerly undisclosed &ldquo;feature&rdquo;.

Single Channel Harmonic DISTortion &amp; classic Knee compRESSOR. Features Distortion Indicator Lights, Advanced built-in sidechain EQ; 8 unique curves; Locked and calibrated output level; Binary Stepped Interface; XLR and 1/4&rdquo; ins and outs and True Bypass.

EL8 Distressor

Made with care by Empirical Labs

EL8 Distressor

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Made with care by Empirical Labs

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