Designed for pro mixing applications, the Heritage Audio Successor is a stereo bus compressor that makes use of a diode bridge as the gain reduction circuit. This design was originally made famous by a certain renowned British company in the days before IC chips made VCA compression possible.

The diode-bridge circuit provides both dynamic control and a sweet, warm, and rich sound. Apply it to your entire stereo bus during the mix stage, or to instruments such as drums and guitars, groups of which can sometimes benefit from stereo compression.

Ratio, attack, release, and threshold are on hand, as is a sidechain-detection filter that goes beyond high-pass filters to let you target the midrange or the extreme high end. You can also input your own sidechain detector signal by means of the unbalanced 1/4" send/return inputs on the rear. When you've secured the amount of compression you desire across the mixer, raise the gain back up with the makeup gain knob, and then quickly a/b the processed and unprocessed signal with the dynamics button.

A blend knob is featured prominently on the right of the unit, making parallel compression a cinch. You can even compare parallel compression to the dry signal by pressing the Blend On button. Anything from a heavy, aggressive sound reminiscent of FET compressors to a more exacting, yet rich VCA sound is possible with the Successor, which takes up 1 RU of rackmount space.