I asked Wayne Vaughn from Earth, Wind and Fire , on the day he came to speak at the Los Angeles Recording School, if he knew the Fairchild device. He replied: “The compressor? - Yes, I do.” I asked him if he owned one and again he said: “Yes, I do.” Stunned, I queried what he could tell me about it, and he answered: “All I can tell you is that it makes my shit sound good!” LARS Sound Foundation instructor Reverent Doctor John Bartlein could only agree with him. John set down with me for a few minutes and told me his view on the Fairchild compressor: “It’s brilliant!” he said. “The various tubes color the sound beautifully, and the many parameters stretch the power of control, erasing problems in the dynamic of the wave. Running a signal through it creates a lucent and present sound.” Graphically, the curve of where the compression starts, finds itself in the beginning of the signal, instead of being somewhere in the middle like other compressors. One does not hear the compressi