Antelope Audio Tubechild 670

The holy grail of tube compressors in the most faithful digital form

Modeled after the most expensive and sought after tube compressor/limiter of all time – The Fairchild 670. This legendary beast from the 50s features a unique circuitry of 20 carefully matched valves and an array of 14 colorful vintage transformers that have shaped the sound of more hits than any other piece of gear in the history of music.

Upfront in the mix

The unique topology of the Fairchild 670 gained its popularity by being able to ad unparalleled character, thickness, and natural warmth to tracks and being able to glue mixes together like nothing else. Furthermore, the 670 can put any track in-front of your mix, whilst preserving its musical smoothness. That has made it an essential tool for music makers in any genre or era, starting with the vintage pop & rock of The Beatles, Pink Floyd, and Motown to the modern metal hits from Erik Valentine as well as almost every other pop & hip-hop producer/engineer today.

The 670 has a unique ability to grip transients firmly and level any source material with unobtrusive gain riding. No artifacts, no pumping – just natural and pristine-sounding lush compression, which has made this tool is a must for every hit-maker today.

Lineage

The era (early 50s), which gave birth to this iconic piece of engineering was one where hiss, artifacts, and low level were common struggles for recording engineers. Developed by the American console-maker & inventor Rein Narma, the Fairchild 670 was designed to provide maximum level control with clean and pristine natural sound.

For the first decade of its life, the 670 was used as a protective device for cutting vinyl as well as broadcast limiting. It’s after those units made their way to Abbey Road and became the weapons of choice for The Beatles that the legend began and engineers and producers embraced this compressor as a tone-shaping machine.

How we did it

We found one of those well-preserved rare beasts and deconstructed it to its bare bones. We measured every single component from the valves and transformers down to the wires and the unique non-linear relationship of the internals. We then individually re-created every one of those components in a digital form and using the original blueprints for the hardware we put together the Tubechild670 – the most faithful and accurate modern recreation of a vintage classic.

Instead of using basic EQ and harmonic saturation to color passing signals, our unique modeling method allows you to accumulate the vintage color and mojo of the 670, by running your signal through every single valve and transformer, just like the original.