Sonalksis TBK3 review: The TBK3 is a compressor unlike any other. If you have a fetish for anything that sounds hard this compressor is exactly what you are looking for.

From a structured point of view, creating music is a two-stage process. We have the creative phase where the actual material is created, and there is the production phase, where the material gets shaped and improved.

In my opinion one of the keys of successful music making (and here I use the word successful as in creating material of good quality) is to have a clear distinction between the two phases. There is nothing more effective to kill a creative session than spending time looking for that perfect setting for the compressor – or that perfect kick drum. It's an instant sleeping pill. The gourmets should hold their horses until the production phase. Creating is about generating new material.

Three Big Knobs
One company that clearly have realized this, is the Liverpool-based firm Sonalksis. While Sonalksis made their initial fame from studio-grade compressors, their series Creative Elements takes aim at producers who wants as little hassle as possible while creating music. As up to summer of 2009 the Creative Elements has three members: TBK1, TBK2 and TBK3. TBK is short for The Big Knob and is a good summary of what these plugs are about. Although there are some parameters the user can set, most of the work is done via The Big Knob at the center of the interface. While the first two TBKs where quite simple creations – the first being a filter and the second a bit-crusher, the third is takes a different path than its predecessors. While the TBK3 is essentially a compressor, it's as much compressor as a Hummer is a car. You don't buy a Hummer to simply go from point A to point B. And you definitely don't buy TBK3 to smooth out the peaks of your recordings.

Under the simplified interface lies a fully modeled analogue compressor, but instead of accurately replicating the behavior of analog circuits, Sonalksis have chosen to extend the analogue circuit design far beyond their normal physical capabilities (Sonalksis own words). What this means in plain English is that TBK3 can be pushed harder than a normal compressor.

Nine steps to the stratosphere
TBK3 is almost silly in it's simplicity and if you've ever felt intimidated with compressors, you will feel just fine with TBK3. All in all there are nine controls: input gain, compression, noise, fierce, timing, side-chain, output, clip and bypass.

The compressor already starts to reveal its sinister nature at the input gain. Just by turning up the input gain brings on a very nice distortion. Compared to the rest of TBK3, this distortion is somewhat subtle. You have to crank it up to max to feel the drive kicking in. At first I was slightly disappointed by this, but later I understood that there is a calculated reason behind this. After passing through the TBK3s abnormal circuitry, the distortion gets amplified as well.

TBK3 is a lot about distortion and the way it handles distortion. Distortion comes either via over compression or a too hot signal. The signal is held back via a built-in limiter. The only controls the user have over the sound of the limiter is the three modes for how the limiter clips. Each of the three buttons gives a different favour of distortion to the clipped signal.

Forget about the Big Fat Knob in the middle
As with the other TBKs, using TBK3 is all about turning the big knob in the middle. The big knob simply controls the amount of compression and a red indicator around the knob gives you an indication of how much gain reduction is taking place. But although the big knob is the center of the TBKs – this is not where the real action is. The true strength of TBK3 lies in the combined use of input gain, clip, timing and sidechain. You can gladly set the compressor to two o'clock and leave it there while you start setting the character of the compressor. Activate 'Fierce mode', set the timing to anything you feel swings. The same thing with the sidechain setting. Then start turning up the input gain – switch between the clip settings and... voilá. You have now become the alfa of alfa of all cats in your neighborhood.

Any certified audio ninja knows that the true secret of compressors lie in the use of the attack and release settings, and therefore the limited possibilities with the TBK3 may come as a unpleasant surprise. There are four settings for the compressors responsiveness. No – not four dials or parameters. Four. Fixed. Settings.

Thankfully – the settings are only fixed from the twitching hands of the user. Internally the settings are adaptive and varies according to the audio signal. The four settings are: Instant, Pop, Slap and Pump. The Instant setting has extremely quick attack and release setting. Pop and Slap have longer attack times and Pump has a longer release setting.

Sidechain without sidechain
The sidechain switch lets you set the compressor in four different modes that sets the characteristics of how the compression is made. The settings here are None (bypass), Top, Bottom, Lump and Scoop. Neither of those names gives you any clue of what to expect and the only thing to do here is to try them out how they work on your material.

If you felt a rush of expectation when you read the word sidechain, I have some bad news for you. The sidechain setting in TBK3 has more to do with how the compressor reacts to different frequencies than the classical ducking effect we all learned to love, abuse and hate: there is unfortunately no way of controlling the compression via an external signal. Due to the nature of the simplicity of the TBKs, Sonalksis sees little point in adding a sidechain input to the TBK3, a decision I understand but don't completely agree with.

There are two more options worth mentioning: the Fierce mode and the Noise button. Fierce mode sets the compressor in it's hardest setting (what Sonalksis call Über compression mode) and depending on the material you are working with, this can be anything from a clear hit to a total miss. It's very dependent on the material you feed it. Vintage compressors naturally colors the sound and bring in some noise – while most people go to extreme lengths to eliminate sources of noise, for sound designing purposes, noise can actually be very useful. The noise button gives the user the choice of disabling the noise from the modeled circuits.

Finally, the output setting is primary used to set compensate for the difference in loudness after the compression, but you can also (mis)use this to bring on some distortion that is very different from the input gain distortion.

One is simply not enough
While TBK3 is great on its own, it really lifts when you're using it in serial: two units after each other. The first TBK3 to create the the fundamental sound and a second TBK3 to forcefully push it over the edge. Put in a decent distortion unit in between and you land somewhere on the moon. Ohmforce's Ohmicide is my personal favorite as it lets you distort individual bands and have a dry/wet knob for controlling the amount of distortion which comes real handy in situations like this.

Another trick that TBK3 really benefits from is to turn it into a poor mans multiband compressor. Make two identical copies of the track. On one track you filter out the high ends so you only are left with the bass, and on the second track you cut away the bass. With this method you can compress the bottom end quite far without the higher frequencies turns into white noise.

Like most compressors, TBK3 works on all kinds of material, but it shines at its brightest on drums. The combination Microtonic and TBK3 is nothing but genial. But if you want to give your acoustic drums some artificial oumpf, TBK3 is indeed a useful tool.

The flipside of TBK3 being such a specialized compressor is that when it works it works great, and when it doesn't – it sounds rubbish. At times TBK3 can feel like an advanced random generator – it is impossible to predict how it will treat the incoming signal. Either it works – or it doesn't.

Conclusionry
Since the TBK3 were released in June 2007 the plugin hasn't been developed further. While most people are in one way or another infected by the the upgrade frenzy that sweeps the internet: if a plugin gets updates, then it's good. If not, it's bad. Although one could imagine a few developments in the TBK3, such as sidechain input, an expert mode where you could control all internal parameters in detail or even a multiband version. But I'm hesitant if developments like that would actually make the TBK3 better. I'm leaning against that a added sidechain input would be bloody great – but apart from that, the TBK3 is perfect as it is.

TBK3 is a compressor that you either will love or don't understand. Nothing about the TBK3 is about transparency or vintage emulations. If you are into any musical styles where distortion and hardness are other names for Good, you would be crazy not to get TBK3. It's not close of being cheap. But it's a unique and very powerful tool for bringing out the worst/best from any percussive material.

Sonalksis TBK3
Web: www.sonalksis.com
Price: 138 Euro.
Good: An unique and brutal compressor that is very easy to use.
Bad: Although it's easy to use, it's very difficult to predict how it will react. It would be nice with a sidechain input (but it's not essential).