This is a coveted piece of history, with a few scratches on the front panel and top panels.

The vintage Eventide Omnipressor, first introduced in 1973, was a groundbreaking and unconventional dynamics processor that pioneered creative audio effects beyond simple compression. Rather than just controlling dynamics, it was designed as a "special effects unit" to be used as an experimental sound design tool. The Blackface (Model 2830), redesigned by engineer Jon Paul in 1974, is more user-friendly and reliable, featuring Eventide's own VCA. It is the more coveted of the two vintage styles. Unlike standard compressors, it was a "special effects unit" designed to manipulate the dynamics of a signal in creative and often unusual ways, including expansion, gating, infinite compression, and a unique effect called dynamic reversal.

Key features

• Recent Service: Serviced at Studio Electronics, Inc. located in Burbank, CA.

• Function knob: This single control allowed users to sweep through a continuous range of dynamic effects, from gentle expansion to extreme, infinite compression, and even into dynamic reversal.

• Negative compression (dynamic reversal): One of its most distinct features, this function attenuates the loudest signals more than the quietest ones, effectively reversing the natural envelope of a sound. This function makes percussive transients like drum hits or plucked strings decay more rapidly, giving a reverse effect.

• Infinite Compression: At a specific setting on the Function knob, the Omnipressor could achieve infinite compression, essentially making the output signal's level completely flat, regardless of the input.

• Dynamics as an effect: this model is one of the first studio hardware pieces that treats dynamics as a creative, rather than corrective, tool. It combines multiple dynamics functions in a single box, including compression, expansion, limiting, and gating.

• Sidechain: One of the first compressors to feature a sidechain input, allowing the unit's detection circuit to be controlled by a separate audio source.

• Gain and Attenuation Limits: The unit included separate controls for Gain Limit and Attenuation Limit, which allowed engineers to precisely control the maximum amount of boost or cut applied to the signal.

• Lookahead processing: The dynamics processor anticipates and acts on incoming audio

• VU meter: A large VU meter provided visual feedback for gain reduction and expansion, with a 60 dB range