module-fg116

The FG-116 is a perfect digital replication of the classic American FET limiter. From its trademark timing characteristics to the extremely musical sound of its transformer, the FG-116 captures every nuance of the beloved compressor/limiter. FG-116 gives engineers the musical, fat tone that has made the hardware so famous. Whether you’re using it on lead vocals, drums, or guitars, the FG-116 will always sound great.

GR Meter

Displays the amount of compression in dB.

Input/Output1

Increasing your Input Gain will result in more compression. To compensate for the gain reduction, adjust the Output Gain.

Ratio

Sets the amount of gain reduction. For example, if the ratio is set to 4:1, this means for input level 4dB over the threshold, 1dB will be output.

Attack

Controls the speed at which compression occurs after the signal has exceeded the threshold value. Turn clockwise for a fast attack, and counterclockwise for a slow attack.

Shift+Click the Attack knob to turn compression on and off. When set to off, the unit will bypass the compression, while continuing to process with the Input and Output Gains. This allows you to impart some nice transformer saturation, without reducing the dynamic range of the track.

Release

Controls the speed at which compression stops, once the signal has fallen below the threshold value. Turn clockwise for a fast release, and counterclockwise for a slow release.

Noise Reduction

Disables the modeled noise.

Mix

Blends between dry and wet signals. This is very useful to achieve parallel compression without any additional routing.

External Side-Chain

The FG-116 is a compressor with a fixed threshold; you normally increase the Input Gain to apply more compression to the sound without causing a corresponding drop in output volume. When using the External Side-Chain, it is the Side-Chain Gain that will determine the amount of compression on the signal; increasing the Side-Chain Gain will increase the compression, but the sound may drop in overall volume if you don’t also increase the Input Gain manually. Input Gain itself has no impact on the compression amount when using the External Side-Chain.

  1. Moving the Input or Output Knob while holding the Shift key will inversely link the two controls. It is very useful in Attack OFF mode to use the module as a line driver. ↩