That Vintage Sound

This Fairchild Model 670 stereo compressor lives in the equipment rack in Studio B at Ardent in Memphis. Dating back to the 50's, the 670 is the most coveted of the Fairchild compressors. Weighing in at 65 pounds, stuffed full of tubes and massive transformers, it's considered by many recording engineers as the Holy Grail. And they're priced accordingly - when they do appear (very rarely), a good example can fetch North of $30,000. Today you can buy a digital emulation as a plugin for your ProTools system, but for some, nothing but the original will do.