Drawmer at NAMM: FET & Healthy

Drawmer has expanded its compression offerings with the new Drawmer 1970 Dual FET Compressor and Pre-Amp. Engineers will notice the similarity of the 1970’s layout to the company’s flagship 1960 Mic Pre & Vacuum Tube Compressor, and it is destined to fit a similar role in applications where transparent preamps and punchy FET compression fit the bill. 

Ivor Drawmer and his team of engineers combined the best of old and new analog technologies via lessons learned across decades of innovation to make the 1970 tremendously flexible and unfailingly musical in a modern digital workflow. Like its siblings, the Drawmer 1970 is designed and handmade by Drawmer in the UK using a rugged steel chassis and an aluminium front panel.

Like the 1960, the Drawmer 1970 Dual FET Compressor and Pre-Amp features two channels of preamplification and compression that can operate independently or in true stereo-link mode. The 66dB pre-amps are built around the latest THAT Corporation technology and are incredibly clean and transparent. In addition to phantom power, the preamps offer matched impedance for unpowered microphones at 200, 600, and 2400 ohms. Like the 1960, the 1970 offers an instrument-level direct input with gain, boost, and newly-engineered bass and treble adjustments. Users select from among the mic preamps, line-level inputs, and instrument-level input as the sources for the compressors, with phase-reverse and a high-pass filter for even greater flexibility. The compressor section includes fine control over threshold, ratio, attack, and release, and the 1970 incorporates “BIG” and “AIR” processing to enhance deep lows and sparkling highs, respectively. The output section includes wet/dry mix, make-up gain, bypass, and a pair of analog VU meters.  

“The Drawmer 1970 Dual FET Compressor and Pre-Amp is designed and built to be a reliable workhorse that imprints its analog magic on any signal,” said Brad Lunde, president of TransAudio Group.  “Whereas the 1960 has a ‘tube’ sound on both the preamps and the compressors, the 1970 has transparent preamps and a punchy ‘FET’ sound on the compressors. Users will find a huge range of applications for the 1970, including bass and other DI instruments, preamplification and compression of vocals and other instruments, and line-level compression for individual channels during mixdown or, with the stereo link on, stereo compression of the master bus or stems.” 

The Drawmer 1970 is now available in USA at a MAP price of $1,497