otiumFX has released Compadre, a dynamics processor designed especially for use on beats, drumloops and other percussive material.

Compadre is the result of more than one year of research, development and countless hours of listening tests. The final product is "a quality compressor that not only delivers a highly optimized sonic behavior, but also drips with it's own character". It has its own unique sound with a quality response optimized for a dedicated purpose - drums, but it's flexible enough to be useable on many other types of tracks as well.

Furthermore Compadre features extensive sidechain control through external key input and flexible filtering. This allows for techniques such as synchronized gating, ducking and frequency dependant compression.

Features:

• Feed forward RMS compressor with high quality characteristics.
• Multiple compression modes for expanded flexibility.
• True stereo sidechain. (4 channel input; 1+2=audio, 3+4=Sidechain).
• High & lowpass filters on the sidechain.
• Further 9 filter models featuring presets with key frequencies in drum mixing.
• Adjustable low-level controls to finetune the compression characteristics. ("Snap", "Linearity" & "Envelope").
• Dry/wet control allowing easy "parallel compression".
• Optional extra "Crunch" by enabling a built-in second compressor on the output stage.
• Optional limiter on output.
• Zero latency.
• 80 categorized presets included.

Compadre is available as a VST plug-in for Windows and costs US$49.