PreSonus DCP-8

The DCP-8 is an eight channel... dynamics unit? Its difficult to put a label on this unit. Its basically an 8-channel dynamics unit, offering compression, limiting, gating, volume control, muting and master fading. Its like a hybrid between a DBX DDP and a TC Finalizer, but not as deep as either unit. Its very easy to use, its a 1-space rack with a button for each parameter. There is a big knob on the right that changes the parameter youre editing. Its pretty straight-forward to use, you push what you want and use the dial to change it. The manual is well-written but doesnt say much about the unit itself, its more a book like, "This is a compressor. These are the things a compressor does. This is how you do that." Its certainly not going to win any technical awards for the manual. But it is easy to read, i'll give it that.
My unit has 1.3 firmware. I beleive its a remanufactured unit, I got it from a guy who owns a big studio and he got it direct from Presonus. But it seems to be fine.

Well, I unfortunately cant answer this right now, I will in the future though. (ill explain in a moment) I bought this unit to use on my Mackie 8 bus as kind of a master-fader/dynamics unit. Im an electronic musician, and the way I work is I usually do one live take of all the electronic parts and mix down on the computer the seperate 8 tracks (I use a MOTU 2408 into the computer) I bought the DCP-8 to clean up the 8 track inputs and also use as a master-fader, because since Im adding live elements now, Im mixing back to the mackie and down to 2-track DAT. So I wanted to use the fader/muting capabilities of the DCP to make life easier. Of course, all this would be great if it werent for one thing... My computer died a week ago (the day before I got the DCP) and I havent been able to use it in a mix yet. So when I do, I'll post a follow-up review. However, that doesnt mean I havent gotten to try it out at all, the compressors are quite nice and clean, they dont add any noise or color to the signal at all. It was really designed to be a front-end for a digital recorder, and it works great in some reguards that Ive been able to try so far.

The top of the unit seems a bit shaky, I can press down on the front top of the unit and it gives significantly, I dont think there is any support there. As long as its in a rack, I dont think it would be a problem. One thing I must say, Im easily pleased with aesthetics, and Presonus makes some cool looking equipment, but they must not have hired any cool designers when they built this thing, because its just plain FUGLY. It reminds me of those consumer-grade DBX products, 3BX, from the 80s... its just so UGLY!!!!!! Look at a pic at www.presonus.com and compare it to the VXP! Its like looking at an old hag and a princess!!

Dont know. Never needed to contact them. But I hear they're good.

Definately a useful unit, if you want to use it in a similar setup, I would reccomend it, or if you just want a computer-controlled compressor (i think i forgot to mention EVERY parameter is controllable via MIDI) then I would say pick one up. They seem to be decently priced on the used market these days.