Vintage FET Compression for Your 500 Series Rack
The Pete's Place BAC-500 FET compressor lets you upgrade your 500 Series rack with a versatile range of warm, vintage-style tone. Designed by renowned gear inventor Brad Avenson, the BAC-500 was built flexible enough that you can use it on anything from soft vocals to booming kicks or blazing trumpets. A variable attack time ranges from blazing fast to nearly instant, and the BAC-500's release times run from ultra-slow smoothing to fast enough for deliberate pumping and breathing. With six ratios, two distortion modes, sidechain filtering, and nearly 50dB of makeup gain, the Pete's Place BAC-500 is a perfect fit in any studio
Related Videos: BAC-500 Series FET Compressor
Variable compression ratios range from subtle smoothing to severe
Built along the same sonic lines as some of the world's most popular FET compressors, the Pete's Place BAC-500 offers you six compression ratios you can use to achieve an impressive range of results. The first five settings run from a smooth 2:1 ratio to a heavy 20:1 limiting mode, which cover anything from taming vocals to punching up drums. The BAC-500's sixth mode, infinity!, is not only extremely flat, it also pushes down the threshold, allowing you to severely over compress your signal to produce extremely cool effects.
Three sidechain contours provide powerful tone-shaping options
When Brad Avenson built the Pete's Place BAC-500 compressor, he didn't just give it a basic sidechain, he also equipped it with a pair of sidechain filters for added versatility. The first filter is a standard lowpass filter, allowing you to compress off of the mids and highs only. The second both boosts the highs and dips the lows, kind of like running a de-esser into the sidechain. This gives the BAC-500 the potential to tame overly bright sound sources dramatically.
Turn up the character with an extra dose of classic FET distortion
Historically, FET compressors are known for their warm and wooly character, sought after by engineers to provide sterile tracks with much needed vitality. The BAC-500 compressor takes this concept to a higher level, by providing you with a distortion setting that lets you delinearize the FET circuitry. The result is a more raunchy breakup full of second-order harmonic distortion. You'll be impressed with the range of tone you'll get out of the BAC-500 compressor!
Pete's Place BAC-500 FET-style 500 Series Compressor Features:
- A feedback-style FET compressor built around two discrete op amps and a custom wound output transformer
- Engineered by renowned gear maker Brad Avenson of Avenson Audio
- Designed for perfect compatibility with any standard 500 Series rack
- Delivers the warm and vital sound of real FET analog compression
- Variable attack ranges from fast enough for limiting, to slow enough for transient enhancement
- Variable release ranges from slow enough for smoothing, to fast enough for deliberate pumping
- 6 x ratio settings include 2:1, 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, 20:1, and a special inf!:1 limiter that drops the threshold for over compression
- 8-segment LED gain reduction metering provides excellent visual feedback
- 3 x sidechain filter settings include flat, highpass, and presence peaked, which allows you to tame overly bright sources
- Switchable distortion lets you effortlessly add FET second-order harmonic grit
- Output level delivers up to nearly 50dB of clean gain
