Intro

CHANDLER LIMITED® IS ONE OF THE MOST RESPECTED MODERN BRANDS in our industry, and their authorized recreations of classic Abbey Road Studios® units such as the Curve Bender and Zener Limiter have already become true studio classics. The design of these units are equal part Darwinian (if they didn’t sound this good, they wouldn’t be around anymore) and a very intelligent design, where Abbey Road engineers spent years trying to perfect the shape of EQ curves and analog designs, and Wade Goeke at Chandler Limited® expanding on this options for a modern workflow. The result are two units that are extremely musical and you need to try really hard to make them sound bad.

As always, the work flow is a very big part of the result, and by molding these two units into the Console 1 work flow you’ll get the best of two worlds: the Chandler Limited® sound and the hands-on workflow of Console 1, and the versatility of the digital world.

For users familiar with the Zener Limiter and Curve Bender, this channel strip will offer no big surprises, although we’ve taken careful steps to improve the workflow, while maintaining the original sound.

 

Input Section

The input section is using the filters from the Curve Bender. These are also available in the EQ section, if you set the EQ Type on the Low or High band to CUT.

 

Shape Section

The shape section is empty, using the SSL SL4000E Shape section instead.

 

Equalizer Section

The equalizer is modeled form the Curve Bender, but we’ve renamed the parameters to match the Console 1 paradigm (Presence 2 is now Low Mid, etc). We also combined the functionality of both the +/- 5dB “Mastering Edition” of the Curve Bender with the normal +/- 15 dB “Mixing Edition” into a single unit. For low gain values, you’ll get the 0.5 dB precision of the “Mastering Edition”, but if you crank up the gain on an EQ band you will be able to reach the full 15 dB.

 

Compressor Section

The Ratio knob will switch between the different compressing modes (COMP 1, COMP 2, LIMIT), and instead of having separate input and output volume controls, we’ve made those into a single Threshold control without affecting the sound or operation of the unit.

 

Drive Section

The Drive section is modeled from the THD section of the Zener Limiter, and gain staged the same way as other Console 1 strips. Drive Character emphasizes upper mid distortion when turned clock wise (great on vocals!), while cleaning up the distortion in the upper mids when turned counter clock wise. It’s neutral (pure Zener Limiter THD) at 12 o’clock.

With Drive at 12 o’clock the unit will start to distort at around 0 dB, which is a good starting point!