KVR Audio

Valvestat · Post by **Valvestat** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:14 am

Hi there,

I'm in the process of Ebaying a few of my rackmounts & switching to software... after hearing my mates Protools setup I was dead impressed & thought I'd go with the digital trend.

What I'm looking for is a good compressor, multiband or otherwise. I've heard good things about Waves & Voxengo products but I'd really like to hear your opinions.

Also, I'm sure there are alternatives of traditional compression out there - something a little experimental. So any advice would be welcome.

I'm looking to spend up to £300 on a decent compressor, so anything in that price range is great.

Thanks guys / gals,
James

Valvestat · Post by **Valvestat** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:15 am

I should say, I'm a Cubase SX v1 user on the PC.

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:29 am

Compressors come in so many different flavors, it's pointless trying to find the perfect compressor. It makes much more sense to have a collection of different sounding compressors, and that fortunately free and easy to do with VST plugins. Don't be snobby about free VST's - they can hold their own with the commercial stuff. Don't be swayed by flashy looking GUI's - although they are nice, it's the sound that matters.

Definately worth having at any price are:

Camelphat free from www.camelaudio.com - unique colored sound. Only limitation is it's mono - get SuperCamelPhat if you like this a lot.

All the stuff from www.digitalfishphones.com - many people say that Blockfish is their favorite compressor. I can't totally agree, but it depends on the source material and whether you like this very analog-based sound.

All the freebies from www.kjarehus.com - and try the demo's of the commercial stuff.

The voxengo stuff is great too, in a different way.

Both kjaerhus and voxengo stuff annoy me with their GUI interfaces. If you like being able to set knobs very precisely, they may annoy you. If you don't like to find essential knobs missing, some of the Voxengo stuff will annoy you. If you don't like lots of confusing knobs and buttons that appear to do little or nothing, some of the Voxengo stuff will really annoy you.

Some great, clean sounding, simple to setup plugins are at www.anwida.com

No doubt many people will recommend UAD-1 - but that's really hardware for the soon-to-be-extinct PCI card platform. I can't recommend it for that reason. Plus people are very influenced by flash looking GUI's, brand names and high price tags. In my opinion that's not necessary.

Valvestat · Post by **Valvestat** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:40 am

Thanks for your reply Green,

I'll check out everything you've suggested.

As far as the appearance of the plguin goes.. I'm really not that bothered as long as the required controls are there, I'll jusdge it on sound. & I suppose precise alterations would be preferable.

I've also heard good things about UAD cards but that's something I've got to do some research into.

Cheers man,
James

Programentalist · Post by **Programentalist** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:47 am

Definitely check the Digital Fishphones stuff... Blockfish is the compressor I use the most for sure, it's not always what I end up with but I always start with it on everything.

I don't understand your point on PCI-cards though greendoor? You do realize PCI-express has arrived and basically throws all limitations of PCI out the window, and that's it backwards compatible? PCI ain't going nowhere!

brianbrian · Post by **brianbrian** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:52 am

greendoor wrote:
Both kjaerhus and voxengo stuff annoy me with their GUI interfaces. If you like being able to set knobs very precisely, they may annoy you.

What are you talking about? Hold shift on any Voxengo product for extremely precise knob setting.

Voxengo Crunchessor is extremely versatile and is one of the best compressors I have ever used on certain drum applications.

Soniformer is a great multiband compressor, and could be used in many nontraditional ways. It has the unique "fluffy" mode, multiband panning and stereo width, and the ability to compress some areas and expand others at the same time. You can get very interesting results with these features, and this plugin is definately not to be used exclusively for mastering applications.

Blockfish is great, but only for a very specific sound.

Vanilla Compressor is extremely smooth and can be tweaked pretty heavily (several release modes, RMS/peak detection), plus it features a wet/dry balance for parallel compression.

Coolredguitar · Post by **Coolredguitar** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:53 am

I really like the sound I get from Kjaerhus and Voxengo compressors...they really work well. My favorite that I have been using alot lately is the Golden Compressor from Kjaerhus but it takes awhile to get used to. You just have to start turning the knobs with the different presets to know what each does for your sound. The manual explains it but I always end up just turning the knobs until I hear what I like. You really have to push these compressors hard to make them sound bad. The most transparent one that I have used so far is Voxengo's Polysquasher...very easy one to use. Sonalksis also has great compressors but the cost is alittle on the high side. There are so many free ones in here also that sound great..you cant have too many compressors as each sound different.

ResonantOrder · Post by **ResonantOrder** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:57 am

When I'm not using UAD or Creamware for compression, I use Voxengo. Blockfish and it's siblings are probably the best freeware compressors out there.

Valvestat · Post by **Valvestat** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 12:58 am

Again, many thanks guys, I'll check out everything on here to see what fits the bill.

I've had a quick look at the Fishphones site but can't find any demos of the Blockfish. But I'll probably give it a thorough going over tomorrow.

diverdee · Post by **diverdee** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:01 am

Blockfish is free & it's part of the 'fish fillets' pack:
http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.p ... &subItem=5

Valvestat · Post by **Valvestat** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:06 am

Cheers Diver

greendoor · Post by **greendoor** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:22 am

What are you talking about? Hold shift on any Voxengo product for extremely precise knob setting.

Sorry - I shouldn't have lumped Kjaerhus and Voxengo together like that. This is my take on the issues I have with both:

Kjaerhus - I may not have the latest versions, but the versions I have (both free and commercial) all annoy me in that they can't be set very accurately. From memory, I've I decide I want a 3:1 compression ratio, I might have to settle for 3.07 or something like that. Possibly not important, but it annoys me. Especially with the EQ - there is a huge difference between 49, 50 or 51 Hz. With my version it's not possible to set this accurately - although I think there might be a newer version that fixed that.

The thing I love about Kjaerhus stuff is that they are modeled on conventinal hardware designs, so if you are familiar with real hardware you should get along great.

Voxengo tries to be unconventional, which gets annoying. For example, Polysquasher is a good sounding compressor, but it doesn't have attack or release controls. If you know anything about setting a real compressor, this is a major oversight and renders this unuseable. The Voxformer compressor is also good, but also lacks attack and release, making it a one-trick pny. The newer Crunchessor has these controls, but I had already bought Kjaerhus Golden Compressor, and in my A/B tests with the demo I found some annoying artifact sounds so I didn't bother buy Crunchessor.

Soniformer is the other extreme - it's now got so many controls, and they aren't labled conventionally so I haven't got my head around how to use it yet. Probably it's because I understand hardware compressors very well, I find Soniformer frustrating. I need to spend more time with it, but the time i've spent has got me confused. If I apply a preset, it does nothing - because the threshold is too high. But I pull down the threshold parameters, and still nothing seems to happen, which is confusing. There's a knob that seems to skew the frequency range, but It's not intuitive what this is or how to reset it to default ... anyway, just venting some of my frustration. The sound quality of Voxengo stuff stands out from the rest ...

duke4e · Post by **duke4e** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 1:35 am

try PSP WintageWarmer - my favorite

soma · Post by **soma** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 2:41 am

Vintage warmer/mixpressor and GAC are both very good. Mj compressor and the digital fishphones are also good and free.

Torben · Post by **Torben** » Tue Apr 26, 2005 5:00 am

greendoor wrote:Kjaerhus - I may not have the latest versions, but the versions I have (both free and commercial) all annoy me in that they can't be set very accurately.

It was fixed in the last version

Torben

Experimental Compression