SSL have just released a free (if you register)mac only plugin version of their 'Listen Mic Compressor'. The LMC is the compressor that accidentally created the drum sound on Phil Collins' 'In The Air Tonight', which appeared in the pilot episode of Miami Vice, and so gave birth to: 1) The Eighties. 2) Hit songs appearing in films and TV shows. 3) The popular pastime of driving around in your shiny black sports car while unhappy, listening to Phil Collins.
From the SSL site, here is the full story, via Hugh Padham, via Mix Magazine: "On a normal console, you have a button to press to talk to the musicians in the headphones, but you did not have a button to press for us to listen to the musicians. To do that, you'd plug a microphone into a spare channel on the desk and listen to your musicians through that. But the SSL had a reverse talkback button and there was a microphone hanging up in the studio already, a dedicated input into the reverse mic input on the console. And on this microphone, they had the most unbelievably heavy compressor, so you could hear somebody who was over in the corner.
"One day, Phil (Collins) was playing the drums,” Hugh recalls, “and I had the reverse talkback on because he was speaking, and then he started playing the drums. The most unbelievable sound came out because of the heavy compressor. I said, 'My God, this is the most amazing sound! Steve, listen to this.' But the way the reverse talkback was setup, you couldn't record it. So I had the desk modified that night..." There's a great Wikipedia entry on 'In the Air Tonight' here.
Plugin download page here.
: 5:23 pm