Have you ever noticed that its pretty rare to find two identical Harley Davidson® motorcycles parked in front of bar you’re playing? Yes, they may be the same model, but the exhaust pipes are different, the handlebars are different, the seats are different, the fenders are often different, the wheels are different, and the paint schemes are rarely ever the same.

Welcome to the UBK “FATSO”. Gregory Scott (a.k.a. UBK), is a dear friend of the Empirical Labs family who took it upon himself to “modify” his beloved Empirical Labs FATSO to have some very interestingly different character options.

While the UBK “FATSO” is similar in nature (overall potential for amazing sonic quality, lack of power supply noise that can get in the way with other devices, and impeccable reliability) its like putting a new set of pipes on a Harley® which can help with performance, overall volume, and / or tonal character of the sound of that motorcycle.

The UBK “FATSO” brings seven (7!!) unique and versatile compression curves to the table via 4 “name” presets with 3 “hidden gem” additions. There are the “Splat”, “Smooth”, and “Spank” options which can combine the best parts of “Smooth” and “Splat” to create “Glue” (and who doesn’t love sniffing a little “glue” every now and again?). “Splat” was designed to give you a stunningly similar character to an API® inspired compressor while “Smooth” is intended to give you a “tracking style” classic limiter texture. Add these two together and you achieve that “Glue” which can lock the bass into place while adding clean, clear, and LOUD all at the same time.

While not a replacement for the original Empirical Labs “FATSO”; the UBK “FATSO” permits the user to go from incredibly smooth and easy going at moderate settings to aggressive extremes (especially in “looped dance music” situations) which can sometimes result in “too much” compression, but pretty much never results in “bad” compression (and we’ve all experienced “bad” compression more than a few times in our career!).

At the end of the day Gregory’s interpretation of the Empirical Labs “FATSO” is an incredibly musical device that will help you bring your product to life without many of the audio sacrifices often found in more pedestrian compressors / limiters. Add these wonderful features to the already famous collection of “warmth” and “transformer” capabilities and you have yourself a lovely walk in the park that just makes your job easier while granting the music the necessary lack of dynamics to sound competitive in the marketplace.

The UBK “FATSO” has the same linking and I/O capabilities of Empirical Labs “FATSO” with different sonic options that make the two units go together in any studio like chocolate and peanut butter.