Manley Nu Mu Stereo Compressor/Limiter Reviews

Love how this compressor reacts to vocals and instruments. It's my go-to for almost everything - it just sounds good out of the box. Don't pass this one up!

I bought the Nu Mu to add to my mastering chain which already featured an SSL G Comp( serial style compression).

The Nu Mu is larger than life sounding, but can be transparent most of the time. It really shines in widening the stereo field and adding thickness and texture to the material. The T-Bar front end is very articulate and has subtle warmth, yet it is very punchy, allowing the bottom end to sizzle...

I'm very impressed with Manley's overall quality, and this comes from a guy that LOVES the SSL G Comp

Love the Nu Mu, it's a versatile piece that can be used on all sorts of material in any genre.
Excellent for tracking and great on busses or the 2-mix.
What really surprised me is the transparency, I can drive it hard and get huge amounts clean gain reduction.
Solidly built & looks great with the illuminated metering. Simple controls make it a breeze to dial in as well.
Very hard to beat for the price.

OK - I've had this for a few weeks now. I've put it through it's paces on mixes and vocals. I just wrapped up a hip hop mix for a major label client and this thing has the goods. Clean, Big and Open. Even when pushing the gain reduction a bit it never really gets offensive. The HIP switch is going to live in the ON position on my mixes from here on out. This box is way different than an SSL bus comp or clone. It's also different sounding from a standard Vari Mu. I mix a lot of different genres of music and this box so far is handling it all with out breaking a sweat.

Everything sounds natural. I don't catch myself having to mix to complement the compressor. It handles low end better than any box that I've used to date as well including the Smart C2 and SSL G Comp.

On vocals It sounds like a vari mu. Natural, open and no hype in the top end. Just right.

I definitely recommend this box if you mix hip hop, electronic and modern pop stuff.

GET ONE!

I wrote a review right after I got it, a month later I think I can give a better insight.

I don't think this is something meant for everybody, it sounds great, no doubt, but my mindset previous to getting it was to have a fixed setting and just push the compressor's in to the Manley, this will not work and I was a little disappointed at the beginning with it, to the point where I wanted to return it, but for many reasons I didn't, one of them that in reality there's nothing better in the price range, among others.

So, you have to really tune it perfectly for every track depending on what you want, for example, if you are doing hip-hop, or something similar with little dynamic range, you may want to lower the output and have the input as hot as possible hitting the tubes, ("HIP ON" ALWAYS), also a high threshold, you can get incredibly loud with this. However, for something more dynamic, you will have less input gain and a lower threshold that releases in the quieter sections, and compensate with the output, it is really a trial-error situation and it will take a little while to get the perfect setting, but once you get there it really sounds great, it colors in a very nicely, it adds presence and consistency, it glues everything.

I don't love the meters but I've gotten somewhat used to them, always listen with your eyes closed though

So, in conclusion it is an amazing sounding box, but it is one that will make you spend time on it,

This is a great piece of gear ! If you are looking for a premium compressor that can sound rich in harmonics and saturation while still staying relatively true to the original signal this is a great addition to any studio . I found myself really loving how it sounded with vocals, and on snare and guitar . This compressor adds some sizzle to the air band frequencies as it compresses which is VERY nice . It also handles the low end amazingly well and adds some great fullness to the bottom end. Having the transformer at the input stage is a plus because it keeps the signal a bit "cleaner " compared to having an additional transformer on the output. This is also a very quiet unit .

After listening to my mixes this compressor adds some impressive thickness to your audio . When I imagine using the NUMU in my mixes I imagine a nice layer of gel being applied . Adding heft , weight, and thickness . I am only giving it 4 stars because I have discovered I am not really into adding tons of color and too many harmonics to my mixes that I cannot control . Other than that I would have rated this 5 stars .

HIP control is great for keeping the low end punchy , rich, and full as you compress . There is another button that allows sub frequencies to pass through in a way that works out surprisingly well. These functions do wonders for letting your low end shine .

Manley made a great product here ! Not only does this sound great but it also looks modern and cool and definately can add that "cool" factor to your rig .

Special thanks to everyone at Sweetwater and especially Drew OWens for his patience , knowledge and stellar customer service ! You guys are amazing .

Great sound, great low end and details. I use it for tracking vocals, snare/kick, guitars/keys, or mixing drums. It sounds great.

I really like what it does to the sound, it is very clean in terms of color, but it is really punchy and it really opens up the sound, the HIP function is a great tool, I don't see why you would turn it off ever.

The only downside is that it is not a straight forward device, it operates very different from any other device, particularly the threshold, so you really have to tune in the knobs even when HIP is ON. the user manual says that the cleaner setting is with the threshold near minimum, I didn't really like that, so it gets a little tricky, you want to set it at a point where it compresses the loudest sections and releases in the soft sections however, certain transients may come through and it will react rather aggressively, that's when the release knob comes in handy, and I think it is very well designed, as opposed to a lot of devices where you don't really hear it.

Also, because its got tubes in it, you gotta wait until they really warm to really get the best out of them, once they reach a certain heat level you can really push them, that's what I liked the most, I turned the input switch to -3dB and pushed the output in the compressor harder to drive the tubes as much as possible

Manley Laboratories Inc. (Manley Labs) is an audio company in southern California that takes pride in manufacturing high quality pro audio and hifi audiophile gear. EveAnna Manley has been at the helm at the company since the mid-1990’s and is passionate about tubes and moving the company forward in today’s audio industry. Manley Labs manufactures several now-legendary pieces of gear including their Variable Mu® Stereo Limiter Compressor which has become ubiquitous staple in recording and mastering studios around the world. This unit is renowned for its wonderful character that can add a pleasant color to your 2 bus mixes, vocals or instruments. The Variable Mu is known as the unit that adds a magical glue to your mix.

With today’s pop and electronic music having a lot of top end, sparkle, and solid bass, many engineers want to maintain this in their mix. Also remembering how far digital converters have come since the olden days, there is less need to color or mask or change sonic character. Therefore, Manley Labs decided to come out with a new dynamics processor that had a cleaner character compared to their Variable Mu® while still providing the smooth tube character that is so sonically seductive.

Manley’s new compressor is called the Nu Mu Stereo Limiter Compressor. The challenge EveAnna gave to her team was to design a high-quality tube compressor that costs a lot less than the older Variable Mu unit without taking short cuts with the quality of components or moving production overseas. Manley’s recent offerings such as the Manley CORE® Reference Channel Strip and Manley FORCE® 4-channel microphone preamplifier achieved these goals primarily by increasing the efficiency of the build method minimizing tedious labor-hours required to assemble the unit, in Southern California, please note! The design has the same front end transformer and first tubes as the Variable Mu’s special TBAR Mod using two 6BA6 pentodes strapped as triodes per channel. From there the signal goes into high voltage discrete transistors and FETs for the amplification and output stages. There are no op-amps in the signal path. So how else did they make this unit so affordable? The outputs are transformerless in the Nu Mu which saves a ton of money on the Bill of Materials while also yielding more transparency. The Nu Mu has half the number of vacuum tubes compared to the Variable Mu. The side-chain rectifying tubes of the Variable Mu were easily and cloned using solid-state diodes plus a resistor. Creatively, they were able to match the characteristics and speed of the vacuum tube diodes saving cost, hassle, and heat and drain on the power supply. So, the way the signal gets converted from AC signal into a DC control signal is done with the same reaction as the Variable Mu. Manley’s newest units all reside in a smaller chassis than the 1990’s designs. The main board holds all the I/O connectors minimizing hand wiring. The layout of this unit makes it build fast shaving off hours of expensive American labor.

The Nu Mu front panel includes solid feeling controls for Attack, Threshold, Recovery, Ratio (Compress vs. Limit), Bypass, and Link features. There is also an input level switch that goes from -3db to +3db. A new HIP switch allows compression at lower dynamic ranges, while leaving louder dynamics unaffected. There is a big beautiful stereo meter in the center of the unit that switches to show the output level or reduction amount of the signal. Unit is powered on by the front panel mounted power switch.

I ran the Manley Nu Mu on various types of mixes from rock, jazz, and contemporary Christian music. I found the HIP button to be extremely useful. It makes the compressor not react so quickly to the low end content in the music. I generally reduced the signal by one to two dBs with a slow attack and fast recovery which is a common setting for the Variable Mu as well. In tracking situations, the Nu Mu also does a great job on vocals and acoustic guitar. I found it has a similar overall character to the Variable Mu but the level of color was less and provided a clearer sound. In using colors to explain the tone difference, the Variable Mu would be brown color, while the Nu Mu is more of a tan color. It’s not as clean as the Pendulum ES-8 as the Nu Mu adds a gentle character to the sound. The Nu Mu sounded great with every style of music that I put it through and it has the ability to remove harshness from cymbals while getting the mix to gel nicely. If you hit the mix harder, you will obviously get more color from the unit as well. In comparing the Nu Mu to some of the newer plug in compressors, I will admit many of these plug ins do sound good, however I would say that most of them sound like they are on top of your signal while the Nu Mu sounds like it is part of your signal.

This unit is a high quality and versatile limiter compressor. I think Manley hit this one out of the park with its much lower price over their Variable Mu, it sound and features.

I just received this unit and by using it only for a week in recording and mastering sessions, I have to say this unit sounds better than any other compressor in this price range and way above. it's gonna be the Swiss Army Knife of your studio, if you believe in it and use it properly
If I had to describe it in just two phrases I would say " Versatile , Great sounding "
This unit has tow transparent and warm character because it has both tube and discrete section in it.
If you use it with -3 input gain and "HIP & SC" activated you simply achieve the transparent side
also you can use it with +3 input gain without "SC & HIP" and push it hard for Creamy and warm tone

It has new features like side chain insert & HIP, that distinguishes it from more expensive Manley Slam and Vari-Mu
I rate it 4 because of these :
- metering in output mode is funny and impossible to use in mastering, but it is good for recording
- no detented steps in output, attack and threshold but only for recovery, no mastering version at this time
- link function doesn't link the left and right channel outputs!!

Conclusion :
Based on its price and performance, I’d say it is one of my best purchases ever for my studio. On top of that, it is very well thought out electronically and operationally, easy to use gear that’s more than capable of producing very professional sounding results!
Thanks Manley for bringing this device to life :-)