MTurboComp Requests

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Is it possible to have ms on attack and release and ratio instead of %?
Cause every other plugins use that and i'm very used to translate ms to what i will gonna ear, same is for ratio, while % is very confusing.

I have another request for this awesome plugin.
Is it possible to have an RCA BA-6A emulation? I see there is only Acustica Audio El-Rey to emulate this compressor. And it's pretty awesome, even with just 1-2db have a magnificent silky saturation/color that i cannot really find in any other plugin, tried lots of compressor and saturation from almost all companies and i can't even get near that sound, that sound so magical on vocals.

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The original units that MTC is inspired by, do not have accurate values. They often do not show any value at all, and if they have some basic values printed around the knobs, they often are very different from what you would see if you used an analyzer. MTC has the same workflow and behaviour as the originals, therefore you need to trust your ears when setting the controls.
If you need to see the actual values, I would recommend either going into the edit screen of MTC or using MDynamics.
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Thank you for your quick reply.

I understand what you say, but going into the edit mode for a more precise value will "break" the workflow. I mean the main value of emulations compared to digital compressors (at least for me) it's how quick you can get a sound in both dynamic and "color". If i want something fast with a certain sounds i can reach an 1176 or a distressor, and so on for other sounds/emulations.

I know every compressor have its how sound, mainly due his internal circuit, that i think you emulate with some kind of saturation (i don't know if every model have a tailored one or it's just something less specific), and also a different way to behave to sounds with dynamic.

Edit mote on MTC it's very powerful and it's amazing when you need to achieve something very specific, but for general purpose while mixing i need to be as fast as possible, you know ears get used pretty fast to sounds and after a while you need to rest them to be objective.

Maybe i'm getting old or i'm just too much used to different workflow i had with other plugins, but have a visual idea on what you are gonna achieve it's a huge help that make everything faster.

Last but not least some hardware have specific value on knobs like SSL other have numbers that looking for the manual correspond to value such fairchild, and so on.
Imo would be very welcome to have more informations and to bring that characteristic into MTC

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Any use?

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It'll take a couple of minutes to set up, for each Device.
-- go to the Edit screen
-- select the Attack Multiparm, change the Value Mode to "By first parameter"
-- repeat for Release
-- repeat for Ratio (you will also need to make the Ratio the first target parameter, up from second)
-- save the preset in the Presets Browser (on the title bar)

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The Devices (in the list on the left-hand side of the Easy screen cannot be changed.

Open the modified presets from the PresetsBrowser.
DarkStar, ... Interesting, if true
Inspired by ...

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Oh yes this is very helpful, thank you very much!

Would be nice to have a quick switch, an option, or just have this setup as default

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@Franke.T I know you're working on emulations, so remember that there is not any universally agreed upon method to define attack and release numbers. This exact numbers will be useful for comparison of Melda devices but it might not translate exactly to other hardware or software. In general attack is understood to be the time it takes to achieve 60 - 70% of targeted gain reduction, but again, there is no consensus on this. Release is even more complicated when dual slope optical style curves are considered.

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I know every hardware unit of the same model can behave and sound differently. As i know every plugin with the "same" values are not really the "same" values.

I did lot of tests and i got that concept, along the fact that even software sounds very different from each other even if they are supposed to emulate the same things.

I think having numbers can give an overal better idea on what you have on youir hands, but i know this is just because i'm used to this, not because it's something "true".

Anyway i would prefer a label "fast" "slow" on the opposite site of the attack and release knobs, cause in certain situation i had to check what's faster and slower, you know certain emulations like 1176 are faster when they are all way right, while others are the opposite.

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If someone knows this - are all the attack/release knobs in Melda Devices in TurboComp the same/coherent?

I mean 0% means fast (towards 0 milliseconds) and 100% means slow (towards max milliseconds)? I'm asking because 1) percentage confuses me on speed settings (100% attack is the fastest in my mind) and 2) I know the 1176 is backwards in other emulations.

Thanks!
Reaper | MComplete Bundle

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hello,
+1 for ms by default for att/rls.
Have a nice day.

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DarkStar, that advice is golden! Thanks.

Regarding the OP, I agree. Yes, trust your ears and all that, and I understand how everyone's labeling of parameters might mean something different, but for people like me who learned how to set up a compressor using a precision one like MCompressor, we have certain starting points. Like on a snare, maybe 5mS attack, 50mS release, 4:1 ratio, then I tune it from there as my ears tell me.

Without those initial familiar signposts, with a compressor like MTurboComp that deliberately seeks to have character, it can be hard to tell what's down to the "character" and what's down to our settings.

Also, the big knob for "Compression" is an unusual thing to have alongside all the usual parameters that I usually use to set the amount of compression. I think MeldaProduction's products and design philosophy tend to attract people who are more analytical in our approach to compression and EQ. We like to see the nuts and bolts. I only wish I could just twiddle knobs like my friend does, but my brain won't let me. I'd like to retrain it, but it's getting old for that.

For this reason, I hesitated to use MTurboComp until I got Plugin Doctor. Then I could see what all the knobs were actually doing and it made more sense.

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I see that I am not alone with the feeling that the knob´s units are less than optimal.
An analysis of the knobs on the front panel of the 1176 model.

Compression
:this is not part of the original design, but it is very useful. Thus using percents for the scale is appropriate. To my knowledge, compression is not usually tied to a certain unit. Most of the time, when people speak about so many dBs of compression, they mean gain reduction.

Starting from a center zero value makes sense, if you know that this parameter uses their “temp gain” parameter that intertwines input and output volume. This control is adjusted until the desired effect is reached.

Saturation:
as above.
Dry Wet: as above
Input, Output: in dB as expected

Ratio:
It makes little sense to me to try to painstakingly emulate the behaviour of a famous classic unit and then make the behavior of the ratio knob much different. Although somebody may want to dial in a ratio of 1.25 for this unit, this is likely not what those units are known and wanted for.
Even if I explicitly wanted to use such a ratio value, I would have a hard time to enter it unless I opened the respecive Multiparameter.

A 1176 for example has 5 possible settings for ratio, if you count the “all knobs” mode as a separate position: 4,8,12,20,all. It makes absolutely no sense to provide the intermediate positions for several reasons:
#1 from psychology, more options create more stress. In this light, the fewer the better. Thus more is less.
#2 this is not part of the original unit. Those classic units are chosen, because people have a certain mental sonic picture in mind to reach a certain goal, which you cannot reach with intermediate settings.
#3 the percent scale is hugely distracting because it creates the feeling that range increases in a linear fashion and with it compression. Truth is, that the degree of compression diminishes with increasing ratio. A logarithmic control law would reflect that better.
#4 percentage is always a relative measure. You never know what ratio value you have selected by setting the control to, say, 35%. Percent of what?
This cannot be argumented with “you have to listen”. Gain reduction is cumulative, but unfortunately not just additive, but multiplicative. You have to know your reduction or you will invariably overcompress. This is sparticularly dangerous for novices.

The strange thing is, this isdone correctly in the ratio bank table, but not conveyed to the front panel control. Suggestion: change this value to “by first parameter” and make the control stepped (5 steps).

Attack, Release.

Similarly with Attack and Release.
Melda arguments that “you should use your ears anyway”, but I´d rather read the values in milliseconds than in percent (again – percent of what?)

If all compressor models here had the same starting and ending values for attack and decay, then this would make more sense, but this is by far not the case. Giving the attack and release values in percent would also require the user to remember the actual values.
Of course, those values are not really to be taken for hard currency, and although the hardware units had just numbers from 1-7 written on them (where you would not know on which side was slowest and fastest) but giving them in percent is totally meaningless. So in the context of the encouraged flipping through of devices, attack and decay in ms seems more appropriate. Milliseconds will translate through the different models properly, since the same follower and processor cores are used throughout.

Side chain:
clicking on the button activates a function “under the hood” in the “follower” section, which is called “side chain”. This has potential for confusion because it suggests that the side-chain is switched on and off. It is not. A compressor has a side-chain by definition, but it may have an external side-chain activated, which is what this button does. But now we know.

Side chain filtering:
Also, the proximity of the low-cut and high-cut controls to this knob suggests that they are only activated when this knob is turned on. They are permanently on like the bell center filter, however they are dynamically disabled when in their default position.

The big knob with the bell over it obviously changes the gain of the center equalizer and is aptly gauged in “+/- dB”, however the control beneath can only be guessed what it is on first look. A look on the inside reveals that it is the bandwidth. Now giving bandwidth in percent again raises the question “of what?”. This choice cannot be argumented with “you have to listen” because manipulating frequency bands in the side chain is extremely difficult to hear for the untrained ear.
Moreover, high q´s can lead to ringing and distortion, so I´d better know what q my filter has.
Q would be a much better choice for this parameter anyway. Percent is totally meaningless in this context.

Fortunately, all of the above display's units can be modified to represent their original values by setting the according Multiparameter to “by first parameter”, as @Darkstar has outlined earlier. Even more fortunate, this can be done using the existing GUI. Note however that we cannot overwrite the existing models, you´d have to save them under “presets”.

Hope that helps.

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I'm having a real hard time trying to wrap my head around MTurboComp. I had 16.08 but I just installed the 16.11 build just to make sure there wasn't a bug or something. I was mainly interested in using the 1176. I checked out a few other compressors it offered and noticed similar issues to what I'll mention. First off the 1176 seems to be boosting the input by about 10db or so, not sure why. When I delta the plug-in, with compression at -100%, saturation at 0, ratio at 0, I have to turn the input down to -10.6 to get it to cancel out. Keep in mind, there's no reduction happening at this point, so as far as I can tell, the threshold isn't getting hit. But when I adjust the ratio knob, signal starts to come through... which is a little odd. Then I disable the delta check, and turn up the compression to about 35%. It's on a drum bus, and with the ratio at 0% this is getting me about a 6dB in reduction when the kick hits. So then I turn the ratio up to 50% and then the kick is only pushing a 3dB reduction. So I think maybe the knob is reversed, at about 65% it's only about 1dB reduction. So I'm just about to accept that the knob is reversed, at 75% almost no reduction. But once I cross 75% the reduction starts increasing again! At 100% ratio I'm now getting around 4 or 5dB of reduction. So I don't know what's going on. And I also noticed, when I flip the side-chain to external without any signal to feed it, the ratio knob affects the signal level (75% being the quietest). Is this as intended? It doesn't seem like there's anything about this in the manual.

On the mComp, the signal seems to drop by 6db with everything set to let the signal pass normally. It seems like ratio here also adjusts the volume a little too.

The compressors seem like they sound good, but it's just odd to me that it's hard to find a starting point. I feel like I'm either missing some important info to use this, or something is off. I typically like to start with a compressor that's doing nothing then dial it in, but it's not clear how to work that out with this.

I have the LE version, despite it saying only MTurboComp at the top and no LE mentioned anywhere. But I just confirmed my license is the LE version, so that was confusing too, was trying to figure out why I couldn't see it.

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I observed the same thing you mention. You have to attenuate the input substantially to be in a useable region.
This is particularly annoying if you expect a unit to be gauged to a -18dB reference or if you want to adhere to this standard for gain staging. The hardware units were definitely listening to signals at that level.

I went through all models MTC offers, not to "proof" them (I don´t know who could...) but to understand what they do.
It is a great idea to detach the "inner workings" of such a compressor unit from the user by offering an "easy screen", but they do it to an extent where you loose sight.

Due to the consistent layout between the model´s EZ screen front faces one would expect a comparable action by a comparatively labelled knob (which is the intention), but this is not the case. For example, the "compression" knob uses their "temp gain" feature (which is nothing than an input amplification coupled with an output attenuation of comparable magnitude) is used on most models, but unfortunately not by all. Some deviate from that scheme; so tweaking that knob only "kind of" achieves a similar action. It thus cannot possibly be true that you can browse through the models at a given setting to see which sounds best.

You have to go into the edit mode to see what goes on. There is no useful description.
I was looking into the hardware unit´s manuals I found on the web to see what they are driving at, but they have strayed from those as well.
I wrote to them over that matter, hoping to get more information on why they deviated from the hardware units on cases.

(And now I get round to your problem) They replied that they painstakingly modeled the real units (although somewhere here it has been said that they did not use hardware models, but respectable software units that are emulations themselves...).

I went through all settings of their models to see how it was done, and some are not explainable, and frankly, I don´t believe that the original models behave like that.

And that will be the end of it. I did not receive the impression that there is much more thought spent on that subject.

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Aquataur, thanks for your insights. I've also been playing with it more to see what I can learn, because I did like the results, even if some of the functionality seemed off. Unfortunately I only have LE so I only have easy mode, so I can't really dig into it to see what's going on. One feature I love is the link knob. I'm not sure how common that feature is, but I haven't seen it in the selection of compressors I have, so it's nice to have the option to blend between. Regardless of the quirkiness, I'm going to see how I like using this for a while. I hope in the future the UI/UX is improved, but I understand it must be a challenge to build a system and interface that can accommodate a variety of models.

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@fretnoize,

I have the full version, and it is great fun to dig into the MP (multiparameter) world. This is a genius idea and IMHO really sets them apart from competitors. But there is a downside: the MP language is buggy. Some things are just cumbersome to work around, but some are simply unrepairable. I wrote an extensive list of bugs that popped up and were obvious, besides scenarios that showcase them. I also crosschecked with Mixcraft (which is not on their official support list) and Reaper (which IS on their official support list).

Tracking down dangling vectors and inappropriately terminated variables and such is a time consuming and tedious endeavour. I have been a programmer myself. They are very friendly on the support, but I receive the impression that they don´t have the time or people to fix this.
The bugs have not been fixed in months and I suspect they never will.

This is a drag because being part of their core code, it will perpetuate through all their engines.
And that kind of nulls the advantage.

Also, there could be much improved on the user-friendlyness, thus useability, thus value of MTC particularly (I don´t have other modules...) by means of thorough training (read: explanation) on their modules. I could help. I have dived into the badly lit areas. I may not be able to provide the answers, but I can provide the daft questions...

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