Balcony Left

‍

Greg Wells' Signature Sound - Now in Your Mix!

A one-of-a-kind vintage FET compressor with 30 years of hit records in its circuits...

• Faithful capture of Greg Wells' personal vintage FET hardware

• Artist-crafted presets for vocals, drums and mix-buss

• Available for Windows and MacOS in VST3, AU, and AAX formats

Resource Price:

Balcony Left

$117.60

$90

$117.60

Resource Btns:

Balcony Left

What Producers and Engineers Are Saying

Josh Gudwin

(Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa)

"Here's a good gauge of plugins for me... I know I like a plugin when it's already on a gang of my mixes!"

Joe Chiccarelli

(The Strokes, Morrissey, Weezer, Beck)

"All compressors are not created equal. Even ones that are the same model, same vintage, they all have a unique sound. I'm not sure what was going on up on balcony left, but this compressor has a vibe. It excels on vocals, guitars, drums... It really brings some magic."

Andrew Scheps

(Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Adele)

"I've often said that we don't need more 1176 plugins. I was wrong. Greg Wells' Balcony Left feels different to every 1176 I've ever heard (hardware or software), while still definitely being an 1176. It's awesome to have a different take on something that I've used on pretty much every project I've ever done. Now we just need to unearth Balcony Right..."

Sage Skolfield

(The Weeknd, Playboi Carti)

"This thing's got the mojo! Instant urgency and attention, not commonly found in most emus. In heavy rotation here."

‍

Mike Avenaim

(Lil Nas X, Bebe Rexha, Zac Brown Band)

"This is an unbelievably musical compressor. Everything you run through it comes alive. Present, in your face, slammed, subtle, you cannot make this thing sound bad!"

‍

From a Church Balcony to the Big Stage...

Since being pulled from a church balcony in St. Louis in 1995, this one-of-a-kind compressor has become a signature piece in Greg Wells’ work for nearly three decades - from shaping vocals on The Greatest Showman to adding intimacy on Adele’s “One and Only.”

Why Balcony Left? A piece of tape on the faceplate reading “balcony left” nods to its humble origins in a Missouri church. As a preacher’s kid who grew up playing a church organ, Greg felt a special connection.

What set Greg’s unit apart was not just its circuitry, but how it made music feel. Rather than flattening or shrinking a sound, it revealed its character. It enhanced what was already there, adding presence and emotion while allowing the speakers to disappear and the music to take over.

Capturing that experience in software took over a year of careful work. The result is a faithful recreation of the sound and feel Greg has relied on for decades, to the point where even he could no longer reliably tell the difference.

Balcony Left is not about recreating a piece of hardware. It is about preserving a creative relationship and making it available to anyone who values musicality over mechanics.

The Story of Balcony Left

Hear the Sound Greg Trusts

Hear Balcony Left in real-world mixing situations – using the same approach Greg relies on when working across vocals, instruments, and full mixes.

‍

Includes presets from contributing artists and engineers Joe Chiccarelli, Josh Gudwin, Chris Tabron, Mike Avenaim, and Sage Skolfield.

‍

Lead Vocal Demo

Drum Buss Demo

Built for Modern Sessions

Internal oversampling with anti-derivative anti-aliasing keeps everything clean, even when pushed hard. Optimized DSP means you can run dozens of instances without watching your CPU meter. Mix and headroom controls add flexibility the hardware never had.

Designed to Stay Out of the Way

Musical defaults and practical control ranges help you work quickly, stay in flow, and focus on decisions that serve the song rather than the settings.

Hybrid Modeling Architecture

Modeled using a hybrid of circuit modeling and machine learning. Timing behavior and transformer saturation was found in this unit that has not been seen in any other - characteristics that are fully captured in the plugin.

Balcony Left Walkthrough

Jason Soudah has used 1176s on nearly every project since his days at Hans Zimmer's Remote Control Productions - enough to earn the nickname "1170 Suda." So when he tested Balcony Left across vocals, bass, drums, piano, and mix bus, he knew what to listen for.

What surprised Jason the most was what he heard: low-end girth and subharmonics on bass that he hadn't found in any other plugin, top-end detail without digital brittleness, and a sense of space and texture that made a 15-year-old mix feel new. "You start using your ears and your gut and your heart," he says. "That's what Balcony Left is for me."

System Requirements

macOS 10.13 or later with native Apple Silicon support
Windows 10 or later
AU, VST3, and AAX formats
Internet connection for activation
8 GB RAM recommended

Guarantee: Try it risk free for 15 days. If Balcony Left is not the right fit, we will refund your purchase.

FAQs

Find answers to common questions about Balcony Left.

How do I install Balcony Left?

After purchase you will receive a download link and installer. Run the installer. On first launch you will be prompted to authorise your license.

How many devices can I install it on?

You can install Balcony Left on up to 3 of your devices.

Is there a free trial?

Yes. You can try Balcony Left free for 15 days with no feature limitations.

What is your refund policy?

If you are not satisfied within 15 days of purchase, we will refund your order. No questions asked.

Which plugin formats does Balcony Left support?

Balcony Left is available as AU, VST3, and AAX plugins.

What makes this different from other compressor emulations?

Most FET compressor plugins model a reference circuit or an idealized design. Balcony Left models one specific piece of vintage hardware – and we found characteristics in Greg's compressor that don't match any other examples we've measured, particularly in the timing circuit and output transformer behavior.

Our approach combines traditional circuit modeling with machine learning trained on the actual hardware. The ML doesn't replace the modeling – it captures everything the traditional approach can't explain. The accumulated character. The "mojo." Whatever you want to call the thing that makes engineers say this compressor sounds different.

It took nearly 18 months to get the plugin to where Greg couldn't tell it from his hardware. That's the bar we set.

Balcony Left

• Modeled using a hybrid approach of combining component-level modeling with machine learning technology

• Artist-crafted presets for vocals, drums & mix-buss

• Available for Windows and MacOS in VST3, AU, & AAX formats