Custom DIY Dangerous Compressor High-Pass Filter Sidechain Cables
I've love my Dangerous Compressor. After installing the BK Mod*, the compressor is insanely versatile. And virtually transparent. I can impart 5 to 10dB of gain reduction and it’s still unnoticeable.
What’s great about this compressor is the sidechain feature. There are two built-in sidechains. The Bass Cut is 6dB/octave, -3dB at 60Hz and the Sibilance Boost corner frequency is 1kHz with +2dB at 5kHz shelving.
I often feel like the 60Hz is a little too low for me. Luckily, there is also an external sidechain feature. So, I hooked up stereo equalizer and then I could tune in to what ever sidechain curve my heart desired. But at the end of the day, I always come back to 120Hz (for the high pass) almost every time. Sometimes having too many choices is overwhelming and you really only need one or two options!
I had heard about a trick Bob Katz had shared on a mastering engineering forum, so I contacted him and it turns out he built XLR cables with 2 100nF capacitors installed in series on the leads all inside the connector. It was that simple.
What’s even more cool is that you can use the external sidechain with the internal sidechain to get another sidehchain frequency of 160Hz. Three different HPF values, plus the Sibilance Boost!
See image below for how to wire it. ↓ You can experiment with different cap values - and I implore you to try! Just make sure to test and measure them. I had to go through about 25 caps to find 4 that were within 0.5% tolerance.
It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done.
*In the final flavor adjusting of compressor, the listening team and Chris Muth must have been in a fast-compressor mood and picked the manual timing capacitors to be of a low value. This makes the attack and release times quite a bit short (so they don't match the front panel etching, at all). If a user really wants the times to be accurate to the panel values, an 805 sized SMT 2.2 uf capacitor can be tacked on top of C61 and C78 and soldered in place.
