Behringer Composer (Updated August 2010)

This must be the most common compressor in low end road rigs and studios. There's a reason. They are cheap and they sound good and they have professional features.

They occupy the top of the low end in the market. Today you can get cheap compressors that sound as good but there is always something wrong with them. Wall warts, low headroom, cheap packaging, funky controls, lack of balanced i/o, no XLR plugs, whatever. The Composer is full of professional features and its reliable and it sounds just fine as long as you don't try to take out more than 8 db of gain.

With built in gates and limiters (the limiter doesn't sound too good but it can save your bacon if there's digital gear downstream) this is the Swiss Army gain machine.

The faceplate is set up exactly like the old Drawmer single rack space stereo compressors - and I assume that's what was copied. Good choice to copy.

I've been in situations in good studios where very expensive compressors were having a problem with a track and the composer saved the day.

That said, this is no miracle box. Its just a serviceable compressor for not much money. It won’t make anything sound better… it will just compress it.

Tedrank: **** does the job without fanfare, every time, for a decent price.