Fairchild 670 Better Official

If you ask an engineer to describe the sound of a Fairchild, you will often hear the word "sweetening."

The 670 features a "Lat/Vert" switch. This is a holdover from the vinyl cutting era. When cutting a vinyl record, the lateral (left-right) groove movement holds one channel of audio, and the vertical (up-down) movement holds the other. fairchild 670

Properly set, you can go from “clean vari-mu” to “dirty tube limiter” without changing gain reduction. If you ask an engineer to describe the

If I had $8k–10k for a clone, yes — for a stereo drum bus and vocal chain. If I had $40k for an original, no — I’d buy a clone + a second high-end compressor and a new microphone. Properly set, you can go from “clean vari-mu”

While the hardware units are now museum pieces that cost as much as a luxury sedan, the "Fairchild Sound" is more accessible than ever. Whether you are using a Universal Audio plugin or a hardware clone like the Tube-Tech CL-1B, you are chasing the ghost of the 670.

Because the Fairchild doesn't react instantaneously, it allows the initial transient—the crack of a snare drum or the consonant of a vocal—to pass through the circuit before the compression engages. This retains the punch and life of the source material, while controlling the sustain. It is the definition of "glue."