What do you think of them?

I dunno. Don't have a Fatso.

I do have a Distressor. It's great. I use it just about every time I record with a mic.

Get one!

So I guess it does what it advertises...Sales dude I need to process mp3's. You know of anything better? Marky do you use it often? What do you usually use it on?

I think spending so much $ on a device to process MP3- files is a waste of money.....

but then again...i wish i had one...
Go to www.gearslutz.com and do a search on Fatso. Lot of info there...

regards

Thanks for the link, yeah they are mp3's... I would also use it for other things.
I don't think I have a read a bad review yet. I guess the complaint I hear is that it only has presets on the compressor.

The Distressor is pretty much industry standard, but the Fatso isn't quite as established yet. The user feedback I've heard is that sometimes it can make things almost too bland. I'm sure it's fairly subjective, but if you're processing mp3's which are obviously already compressed files to begin with (ie. they've already lost some of their life), something like the Vintage Warmer plugin might be better suited. I think if you're going to spend all the money on a Fatso just to run an mp3 in/out and re-rcord the WAV/AIF and compress it to mp3 again you're going to be disappointed.

I gotta try one out. I do plan on going from mp3 to wav but not back to mp3. But I think the song would eventually end up on someones mp3. When you say the Vintage Warmer might be better suited is it beacause of the price?

Vintage Warmer just sounds really good and give nice control. Not to mention if you needed a little EQ you can add an EQ instance before/after the warmer. In the hardware world you'd end up buying even more hardware to do the same thing.

if you're going to use the Fatso to process mp3's, i hope you have quality A/D-D/A conversion.

Lynx, Benchmark, Mytek, etc.
anything less would be just a waste.

Hardware is a slippery slope. and in the high end its a game of inches.
To actually get your money's worth in a high end compressor and hear what makes a $2200 compressor sound worth the money you pay for it, you gotta drop at leat 2g's on converters.

I will try out Vintage compressor. Im also after that "tape emulation"
Adamjay, I noticed the RME fireface wasnt on you list...

Contrary to widely held popular opinion, well-encoded mp3s at 192kbits or above are usually quite difficult to distinguish from the original. Most people can't do it at all.

You are right though that the *last* thing you want to do is re-compress to mp3 again.

exactly. if you are using a lifeless DA to send the decoded audio (which could be argued is already lacking life) to your fatso, and then back through a lifeless AD to record the result......well, in a way you are fooling yourself and not getting even half your money's worth. Not sure how much a fatso is, but say its over 400 bucks....you should certainly consider picking up a quality AD/DA to get the most out of your 'outboard' gear, first.

its $2250, hehe!

for that you can get an 8 channel converter, that to my ears beats Apogee's Rosetta and AD series converters. the Lynx Aurora 8.
strap it to your current soundcard/converter with the LT-ADAT card and still have $25 left over.

ahhh.. i'm rambling but my point is if "warming with analog" is the mission, i'd rather run a $225 FMR Audio RNLA through $2k converters than a $2k+ compressor through lesser converters.

amen