Rane MC 22
A dual compressor that Rane's own advertising promised would end the guessing - the "Mojo Squeeze" that put program-dependent settings in front of engineers who'd rather be working.
Overview
The MC 22 arrived with a slogan attached and never quite shook it. Rane's own advertising billed it as the "Mojo Squeeze," a cure for confusion, pitched at engineers tired of agonizing over compressor settings. The copy in EQ Magazine (July 1996, p.49) framed the MC 22 as part of a broader Mojo Series push - American made, inexpensive, and built to outperform "bargain" brands. This wasn't a flagship mastering compressor. It was a working tool, priced to move, aimed at people who wanted compression to stop being a puzzle.
Per the documentation that survives, the MC 22 is a dual compressor. The Studio Sound 1997 gear directory lists it as a "dual comp" alongside Rane's DC24 and VP12. Rane's advertising leaned hard on noise reduction, simple operation, and program-dependent settings, and the company claimed no compressor/limiter could compete with its design and sonic qualities. That last bit is marketing, not a measured verdict. The program-dependent angle is the interesting one. Rane was selling the idea that the MC 22 adapted to the material, so the user didn't have to dial in every parameter by hand.
EQ Magazine (May 1997, p.31) ran the MC 22 under the headline "Compression headache relief," repeating the same core promise: quit guessing, get on with your work. Whatever one makes of the ad copy, the positioning was consistent across the campaign — the MC 22 was Rane's answer to the engineer who wanted compression to be a set-and-forget proposition rather than a tuning exercise.
The hard numbers are thin. The surviving documentation establishes the MC 22 as a dual compressor with program-dependent behavior and noise reduction, sold under the Mojo Series banner. It doesn't give a full spec sheet. No published threshold range, ratio figures, or frequency response numbers turn up in the material available here. Anyone chasing exact measurements will need the owner's manual, which isn't part of what's been gathered. What can be said is the identity: a two-channel Rane compressor, American made, positioned as affordable, and marketed on its program-dependent operation.
The same advertising blocks that pushed the MC 22 also pushed the MX 22 and MX 23 crossovers and the MH 4 headphone amp, all under the "More Than Music... It's An Attitude!" banner. The MC 22 sat in a lineup of utilitarian signal-processing boxes rather than a prestige line. It was working gear from a company that built its reputation on signal processing for the music industry, sold at a price that made it accessible.
The MC 22 is a Rane compressor from the mid-1990s with a memorable ad campaign and a straightforward dual-compressor brief. With no detailed published specs in the available record, the assessment rests on the design intent: program-dependent compression, noise reduction, two channels, built in America, sold cheap.
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