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Smart Research
Founded by British engineer Alan Smart, Smart Research grew from his extensive experience in professional studios, including commissioning and servicing SSL consoles, engineering at Blue Wave Studios in Barbados and designing custom systems for Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. Smart Research is best known for the C1 and C2 stereo compressors, which brought the fast, punchy behaviour associated with classic British console bus compression into dedicated outboard hardware, alongside specialist studio products including multichannel C2 systems and custom SSL electronics
At the heart of the C2 is a fully symmetrical analogue signal path using modern VCAs, high-slew-rate amplifiers and discrete high-current transistor outputs, with no electrolytic capacitors in the main audio path. Its flexible attack and release characteristics allow transients to pass before compression takes hold, producing the punch and cohesion for which Smart compressors are particularly renowned, while the distinctive Crush mode pushes the circuit into more aggressive, harmonically coloured compression. Designed and manufactured in England, Smart Research remains closely associated with classic SSL-style mix-bus compression while retaining a sound and engineering approach distinctly its own
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