Comptroller Stereo Dynamics Processor

Full disclosure out of the gate – Sam Winston, who is Squarewave Industries, has been a good friend for many years. He brought the initial breadboard version of the Comptroller to my studio a few years ago to play around with component values as he was putting the initial circuit together. Sam has my total respect as an equipment designer/engineer, as well as a genuinely excellent human, so call me a little biased if you must. Many of his designs are for clean, mastering-style situations, but the Comptroller is a different beast; it is a stereo VCA compressor followed by a JFET limiter. This is not a generic “gently-control-dynamic-range-and-keep-things-sounding-pretty” dynamics processor. It can be gentle, but it’s much more fun as a spotty, snarling processor!