A secret weapon to some, a hidden treasure to the rest, the Valley People Dyna-mite is a Swiss Army knife limiter/expander design with incredible sound and unique character that has inspired engineers to be inventive with their dynamics processing for decades.
That said, it’s always been a bit of a pig to deal with. It’s anything but user-friendly. Genius, but impossible.
So we’ve boiled it down into a simple, modern package. Meet Dyna-mite Slam, and Dyna-mite Gate!
Updated & expanded
Paul Buff built custom gear for Frank Zappa. Need we say
more? The cool factor is tangible. By the time he patented his TA-101 VCA (‘The Electronic Gain Control Device’ – the heart of the Dyna-mite) in 1980, his reputation was already unimpeachable.
The Dyna-mite is essentially a limiter or an expander, but through a near-unfathomable combination of switch positions, it is capable of more or less any manipulation of dynamics from gating to RMS compression, from keying and ducking to ridiculously extreme levelling.
Now, however, the user can find all of these magical combinations easily with two new plug-ins, Slam and Gate. Slam takes care of all of the downward stuff – the compression and limiting – in as close to a one-knob format as Dyna-mite could ever become, while Gate deals with the upward operations – the gating and expanding. Control bleed in a subtle manner, add punch to a snare, crush a rock vocal into submission, or duck a synth bass around a kick. All these great functions and more, and no need to read the manual.
The original plug-in is included (with a slightly updated look) for experts, but all the joy of the Dyna-mite, and crucially, none of the headaches, come forward in Slam and Gate. And best of all, existing owners of the original plug-in will get the additions as a free upgrade!