Vari-Mu Compressor
VariOhmAnalog glue. Musical control.
In detail
Dual VU with real ballistics
Fairchild/Manley-style gain-reduction needle, with its characteristic kick-back motion.
Sidechain and tube drive
Side Chain, Dry Level, and Input — the knob that sets how much tube color goes in — with the Compressor/Limiter switch.
Independent channel
Threshold, Output, Mix, Attack, Release, and Recovery per channel — with Link to mirror the left channel onto the right.
VariOhm does not approximate a vari-mu curve — it reconstructs the circuit. The push-pull 6BA6 remote-cutoff tube cell, the saturating output transformer, and the vacuum-rectifier sidechain are reproduced with full circuit modeling, verified bit-exact against a circuit simulation of the original hardware.
THRESHOLD, ATTACK, RECOVERY, and WARM BIAS are not arbitrary mapping curves — each knob moves a real physical component in the circuit (a load resistor, the tube bias point), so parameter interaction behaves like the hardware, not like a curve-fit emulation.
The RECOVERY switch has 6 positions (0.2s to 4s, plus a DUAL mode that recovers the peak fast and holds the program tail). ASYMMETRY is the house signature: it introduces a second harmonic that breathes with gain reduction.
Controls
- Threshold — compression onset point
- Attack — 18–73 ms, measured on the circuit
- Recovery — 6 positions: 0.2s / 0.4s / 0.6s / 2s / 4s / Dual
- Comp / Limit — two-position switch, changes the emergent ratio
- Input / Output — ±12 dB — Input also sets how much tube color you get
- Warm Bias — shifts the tube bias point (color vs. headroom)
- Asymmetry — second harmonic that breathes with gain reduction
- Dual Input — +6.02 dB sensitivity (primary transformers in series)
- GR Meter — ballistic gain-reduction needle, Fairchild/Manley style