DOCtronIMC-500 500-Series Mastering Chain

DOCtron IMC-500

Bring the rich and hard-hitting sound of an analog mastering chain to your live sets with the IMC-500 from DOCtron, an instant mastering chain in a single 500-series module. Designed in collaboration with international techno artist Martin Stimming, the IMC provides a full mastering chain to bring out the best of any mix in live and studio settings. Perfect for dedicated live rigs, front-of-house engineers, and so much more, the IMC-500 gives you everything you need to make the most of a stereo mix, delivering depth and presence of a studio master in a form factor built for the road. Combining high and low shelf EQs with a flexible VCA based compressor, the IMC-500 provides a vast range of processing capabilities in a streamlined interface, making it easy to get a powerful, detailed sound on stage that works with your music.

With fully-balanced input and output stages, the IMC first takes your signal through a bypassable EQ with low and high shelves, giving you an effective tool for adjusting your mix to suit a live sound system or sculpt sounds in the studio. Passing through a discrete op amp stage, the stereo signal is then processed through a VCA compressor with selectable feedback or feedforward modes, giving you the choice between gentle vintage squeezing and aggressive, modern compression. The included sidechain input and output provides even greater flexibility, letting you add an EQ or other processing to affect the compression character to your needs. Onboard LEDs provide valuable feedback about signal level and peak indication, making it easy to set levels for your mix, and saving you time on stage.

After compression, the signal is balanced and sent to the premium Lundahl transformer-coupled outputs, bringing the rich sound studios trust to every live performance. The Drive control adjusts how much the circuit saturates into this transformer stage, giving you a wide range of thickening from totally transparent to the self-explanatory "nuts?" setting. Whether you're racking together a 500-series system for dedicated studio mastering or adding the final touch of special sauce to a live set-up, the IMC-500 from DOCtron is sure to enhance your mix with powerful analog sound in any setting.

IMC-500 Features

• Analog stereo 500-series processor provides full mastering chain in a compact package
• Enhance depth and presence of live sets and studio productions
• British-style low and high shelf EQ with dedicated bypass
• THAT VCA bus compressor with selectable feedforward or feedback detector path
• Lundahl output transformer
• Drive and gain reduction controls for fine-tuning saturation and thickness of output signal
• Balanced input and output connections
• Compact, 2-slot 500-series format module