The API 2500 Bus Compressor is the go-to stereo bus compressor for many of the world's top producers and mix engineers. Widely considered the best of Paul Wolff's API circuit designs, the famed API 2500 adds energy, movement, and character to stereo mixes and subgroups.

The API 2500 Bus Compressor for UAD-2 hardware, Apollo interfaces, and LUNA recording system is a ubiquitous Universal Audio emulation of this classic bus compressor. Brent shows he uses it on a drum bus to achieve some glue and a more heavy-handed approach using the blend mix knob. The API 2500 Bus Compressor's tone section, where you can adjust the 'type', 'thrust', and 'knee', gives you a great deal of control when shaping tone.

The 'Knee' determines how sharply the compressor engages at the threshold point. With hard mode, you get an aggressive compression knee, whereas medium and soft are gentler.

The 'Thrust' control allows more low energy to pass through the circuit, loud being punchy, and normal is a little more subtle. Thrust is an API patented circuit that adjusts the sidechain frequency response, so each octave has the same amount of energy. Essentially, it's creating a unique compression effect that reduces any pumping to help you maintain unch from the compressor.

The new and old Types are different styles of compression circuit, with the new using feed-forward compression, which is much more aggressive, and the old uses feedback compression, which is a more smooth and gentle.

In this video for Production Expert, Brent using API 2500 Bus Compressor inside LUNA on a drum bus and his main mix bus compression scenarios and talks us through his process, highlighting some of the great presets bundled with the API 2500.