In 1973, Eventide Clockworks introduced the Omnipressor, the first studio product to encourage the use of dynamics for special effects. It joined the Instant Phaser and, shortly after, the Instant Flanger in studios worldwide. All were used on countless recordings and are now considered truly classic products. Unlike the Phaser and Flanger, the Omnipressor, with its still- unique dynamic reversal, infinite compression, variable gating, and separate "sidechain," was discontinued a few years later. It had become difficult both to obtain some exclusive parts and even more difficult to explain it to an industry that was much less sophisticated than it is today. Mistake! As the few hundred original Omnipressor units found homes with rabid fans or suffered unspeakable fates at the hands of entropy, they became so scarce that the few that were available on resale markets have multiplied in value by many times if they could be found at all. The original Omnipressor was born from an idea Eventide's founder, Richard Factor, got while talking to Mark Weiss, one of the scientists investigating the "18-minute gap" of the Nixon Watergate scandal. The sidechain idea that emerged enabled feats of compression that would be impossible (and unstable) with the compression architecture of the day, but doable with the more modern hardware of the 1970s. The earlier "white face (Model 2826)" Omnipressor was not just hard to explain, it was hard to use, and it yielded shortly to the "black face (Model 2830)" unit designed by Jon Paul, another ex-colleague of Mark Weiss. This version, after selling another few hundred units, in its turn yielded to the darkness of commercial necessity - what we now call "supply chain" - and so became a legend to collectors and a desideratum to recordists worldwide. The Legend Returns In those few years of production, the model 2830 was a success! Engineers and producers discovered what was possible by using dynamics as an effect. Many of the original units are still in operation today. They rarely come up for sale; when they do sellers are asking north of $6k! A clamor from those coveting the unique Omnipressor dynamic effects resulted in Factor developing first a hardware emulation using VSIG for the Eventide Orville, and later Eventide's development team creating an Omnipressor plug-in for Pro Tools. Fatefully, in an episode of the Gear Club podcast, Factor impulsively suggested that Eventide would reintroduce the rack mount classic. Someone listened! Today, Eventide announces the golden anniversary Omnipressor Model 2830*Au. The original hand- drawn schematics were in the Eventide archives and the new model is a faithful replica designed with the same circuitry and the same sound as the original 2830. With supply chain issues resolved after 50 years, you can now find the 2830*Au for sale and priced about the same as the original*.
