Toft DC-2 opinions?

[pandafresh]

http://www.toftaudiodesigns.com/dc2.html

hi, i've been looking for a compressor to pretty much, just sit on the output of my mixer. something that could maybe just add that little bit more.. "nice".
i recently did a job, where at the end of the mix, we ran everything through a pair of neve compressors [i know, witch onees!?? and i completly can't remeber].
anywhos, the point was i was happy with the results. but the 3-4k is way out of my range. i've check some of the toft stuff out. but only instores [and its really hard to tell much like that]. i was wonder if anyone has an opinions or thoughts on the Toft DC-2?
i know the ATC-2 was pretty much raved about in the last issue of tapeop. how does the DC-2 stand up. i'd mostly be using it as a stereo bus compressor. with mix's going out my computer, submixed on a soundcraft m12, then through XXX compressor, and back to the computer. most of the music would be post-pop ish. live and electronic istruments stuff. sometimes soft, sometimes noisy.
well thanks for your thoughts.

-trevor

[pandafresh]

bump.

what? no one has used one of these? i just got back from a mixing gig in tokyo. and you couldn't walk into a pro audio shop and not see a rack full of these. they seem like a good thing. but because of their mass proliferation. i was afaird maybe they are just some hyped prosumer stuff. [ie. designed by someone good. chinese manufacturing]

-trevor

[Bear's Gone Fission]

Unless I'm mistaken, the ATC-2 is the only one of these Toft boxes yet to make it into production, thus the lack of comments on the DC-2.

Bear

[pandafresh]

Unless I'm mistaken, the ATC-2 is the only one of these Toft boxes yet to make it into production, thus the lack of comments on the DC-2.

Bear

well i dont really. know. maybe its just to new? cause then this is just confusing.
http://www.8thstreet.com/product.asp?Pr ... Processors
anywhos.

-trevor

[PatrickBrown]

As above, I've yet to catch wind of that one, and I'm sniffing around alot, to see what's out there.
A pair of RNC's,,or even one, since it's stereo, can work well, but they're kinda clean. Super Nice mode is pretty neat. The Drawmer DL241 is pretty decent too, in the price range of the Toft. Also the DL251 Spectral, though it's about a grand. The Focusrite Compounder might be the ticket. About 7 bills.
All the best offerings are up in the 2 grand range and above, it seems. You can score a Langevin ELOP for 13 or so, and it's clean, and nice, but not real versatile on the 2 bus.
I'm using a FATSO, not everyone's choice, but it's pretty interesting, and does get the job done,,,for me, anyway.
The Drawmer 1968 is several weeks from debut, but the list will be 24 hundred or so.
A Joemeek SC2.2 would do nicely, if you can find one,,in that range, and you like the coloring.

[I'm Painting Again]

save up another 1g and get the Avalon 747..and it has a progam eq too..
probably you would like that on 2bus better than the toft..

[Himali]

A friend of mine tried out the toft box thats mic pre, comp and eq. had a few concerns, the main one being that the channel nearest the power supply had noise on it. The gain pot for the instrument DI was uneven, had to crank it along way round to get any action, then it was suddenly on.

My friend entered into conversation with Toft regarding the noise issue, they came back with some lame arsed reply that probably had something to do with running it in a country thats 230v. Then he tried out another unit that had a mod, (to fix the problem) which was slightly better , then he moved the unit and it got worse!

He gave up after that, didn't buy the unit.

However, its a great sounding box for the $, I had a play on it, really liked it. It would have been perfect for his setup, such a shame about the noise issue.

Has anyone else had this problem with this toft unit?

Himali

[junior]

i tried one and liked it a lot. no noise issues...

[soundguy]

trevor-

If you liked the neve, chances are it was a diode bridge limiter which has its own special kind of feel. It was also probably a unit with transfomers which is probably what you liked the most.

For the price of the toft limiter, you can pretty mcuh assume that it is electronically balanced and my guess is that is has something like a tlo72 on the output. That chip can be made to sound good in a circuit, but you are dealing with a transformerless box which is going to do a very different thing to your mix than a transformer balanced box. The old trident limiters were really nothing special (yes, the ones that sell for crazy stupid money today) and this is probably a lesser version of that if my assumptions are corrrect (which they very well might be totally wrong). If you could stand to save more cash, you could probably buy something REALLY REALLY nice that has a discrete audio path with afancy opamp and transformers on the output. Yes, its twice the price of what you are looking at, but it will get you close to the sound you liked with the neve for about half of what youd need to spend on the neve. This is probably not too helpful for you, but maybe its food for thought. My guess is that toft box is not a reallly nice expensive circuit made afffordable, rather its a cheap circuit that works made expensive in a fancy box. I dont know whats inside there, so this is ALL postulation on my part, but that would be my suspicion before opening the box up and looking at the construction. Saving more money to get you into the next class of gear will probably do you better in the long run if you are serious about getting a good limiter to run your mix throgh.

Also worth noting, with a soundcraft board, you might not notice the shortcomings of the toft, it may use the same amplifiers that your soundcraft does so who knows, you may love it to death. Always helps to listen.

dave

[Recording Engineer]

I wondered about that DC-2 for awhile mainly for multed drum sub-mix compression, but havn't thought about it since purchasing a used dbx 160SL on the super-cheap. If you can find a used one at a steal of a price, snatch it up ANY time! Would be cool as a main-mix compressor too!

I'd use a DaviSound TB-2 ot TB-3 (I do with my TB-3) ANY day on the main mix bus... And at $895 for TB-2, it's a steal!!! Ask Joel H. about his TB-2!

The API 2500 would absolutely be cool, but with a price around what the model number is, it may not be an option for your budget.

I haven't tried either of them, but I sure wouldn't hesitate to try the Buzz Audio SOC 1.1 or Sebatron VEQC2000; both for $2k.