PSP MasterComp

[kilroy]

Thanks for the report Kilroy - and I thought I used long attacks! That is curious about the fixed ratios - I guess all we can do to lighten things up at low thresholds is to use the mix knob a touch - defeats the purpose of digging down that deep a little though maybe...

Well, I was trying to fake that Manley "audiophile" sound where those deep thresholds really fill the lows in nicely, yet the top stays open...you are not nipping the transients, or causing the top to droop on your mix. You get a more dense, "stacked" sound, but because the attacks are all there your mix depth does not collapse, and your stereo does not fold up on you.

I always was rather fond of the Timeworks CompX for it's deep threshold behavior, though I always wished for longer maximum attack times. Still, it is a wonderful piece of work really. That compressor preserves the penetration of transients extremely well, and imparts a similar, though slightly tighter, punchier blossoming character to the low end. High end preservation is also extremely good. A long time favorite of mine, is that plugin.

[bmanic]

Yes, I've also found that the psp compressor needs very large attack times (like I stated earlier I use a minimum of 50ms but usually more).

[off topic]
Kilroy, you'd definately like voxengo's polysquasher. Download the demo and set it like this:

Ratio, keep it at 1:01 (I'm serious!), threshold, depending on material but to atleast -35dB or more and full knee (-40dB knee). Then switch whatever mode you want, I usually like mode 2 the most but sometimes mode 1 softens the transients just right.

.. I really need to buy that puppy someday. I keep going back to that demo to check how it sounds on all things!
[/off topic]

Anyways, this was a discussion about the PSP Master compressor so carry on!

Cheers!
bManic

[kilroy]

Will check that comp out, bManic...

[hoffy]

f**k, i love VW on full mixes, i can't wait to try this new one... but i'm not going to bother for a year or so because my computer is too old to use it, seemingly...

[kylen]

Will check that comp out, bManic...

And the results?

[kilroy]

So far so good...I managed to download it with no problems.


Might get round to testing this tonight.

[Cryogenic]

Hi kilroy, why not post the audio results you came up with.
Let u s A/B the result.

Cheers.

[egarrard]

Oh, holy snit, but I'm screwed. I just downloaded the demo and strapped it onto The Grand. Jeez, what a sound! Big, fat, and ballsy!

How much is this thing again???

[Cryogenic]

Again. Any A/B'ing for us, to hear your amazing theoretics scribbled here?

[omo]

I have just compared it to RComp, BT CP2S, SV-315, GCO-1 and C1 at long attack and the release at around 500ms on drums and mixes. It indeed does very well at higher attack settings. There's some very nice smearing going on, very analog sounding. Sonalksis also does something similar but it lacks ability for longer attack and lower ratios. RComp is rather digital sounding, not in a bad way, but there's just nothing special. C1 was a bit better but there's something it does to the middle frequencies I didn't like on that particular sample. BlueTubes and Kjaerhus sounded very similar with a bit of analog feel, but I still like BT better at those settings. All in all I liked MasterComp the best for the job and I if Sonalksis was a little more tweakable it'd just as good or even better. It's a bit different story with parallel compression and Sonalksis was my favourite here followed by PSP. GCO-1 in Smooth-2 mode comes a bit closer to those two, but still not there. What a pity Sonalksis and PSP aren't as tweakable as C1. I think this comp will find its place in my rig, but I'm yet to have a closer look at some UAD-1 comps.

[egarrard]

Again. Any A/B'ing for us, to hear your amazing theoretics scribbled here?

Instead of being a dick and attacking the other posters, why not just download the demo and try it yourself? Our applications may not be what you'd use it for and you'd still whine, whether it worked or not. Try it on something of your own. You may hate it or you may love it, but you won't know until you try it.

[kilroy]

Will check that comp out, bManic...

And the results?

Right, *finally* got round to spending some uninterrupted time with this Polysquasher comp.

Now then, I'm not a big fan of these adaptive attack/release designs, but this is probably the best adaptive attack/release implementation I have heard...it seems to work fairly unobtrusively over a reasonably broad range of settings. And that is good news...because you are not given the option of defeating it. And that I think is too bad, especially for a mastering tool...because there goes a couple of useful controls you would otherwise have had for creative texturing. For instance, the reason you set up a compressor with long attack times is to allow the transients past in order for you to work on the body of the mix. That could be a bit of a trick if your compressor is "concentrating" too closely on riding those transients. It might not necessarily cooperate with your creative vision, because it has a prime directive of it's own, as it were. In other words, you either like the settings it chooses for you, for the given threshold/ratio setting, or you do not. Personally, I would have liked an option to either scale the "involvement" of the adaptive attack/release, or preferably, have a means of resorting to a fully manual approach for those values.

The hi pass filter is a good addition...especially since I almost always preferred the sound of this compressor whilst using it to one degree or another. As with PSP's Master Comp, the addition of a selectable band cut option would have added alot of power to this compressor. So very useful, yet so very not there...*sigh*

I realize this is all very much a personal thing, but I have never really understood the whole point to a dry/processed mix capability for a tool being used to master a full mix. I can *maybe* sometimes see the use of multing certain mix elements and blending a dry/processed balance, I have certainly done it occassionaly, and I know engineers who I respect that do also. But consider how at odds this approach is in a mastering scenario. Basically, you are after control to some degree...you are bending the mix, even if just a little, to get that control, that texture. Why then, would that approach include mixing back in some of the dynamics you were trying to contain and shape in the first place? You see the conundrum.

In the absense of user configurable attack/release settings I had good fun playing with the knee on this comp. In fact, I rather liked the knee 3/4s to 2/3rds soft on some mixes I recently finished up that feature a *very* hyper active bass/drummer rhythm section. The following settings gave extremely good control and a particularily vibrant and articulate texture to the performances...

Side HP 40hz
Threshold -36db
Ratio 1.10:1
Knee 34db
Dry - inf db
Mode 1

Incidently, these settings very closely follow those of Bmanic's previous suggestion...deep threshold/very low ratio...a particular strong point as far as this compressor is concerned, in my view. I also tested the Polysquasher's shallow threshold/hi ratio chutzpa on an *extremely* aggressive drums/guitar/Chapman Stick trio. I did not record these chaps, but the bloke who did got a wee bit carried away on the drums buss compression...too much motion from the kick drum was swinging the mix a little hard. The following setting steadied things down nicely without bending things up itself. Impressive I thought, when you consider a similar setting on many compressors would have had this mix smashing and pumping with mad recklessness.

Side HP 40hz
Threshold -10db
Ratio 10.00:1
Knee 26db
Dry - inf db
Mode 2

This compressor is unlike any typical compressor. It does not really have what I would call a familiar signature...and I would not think that an entirely bad thing. It requires some exploration, but it is capable of some pretty transparent compression and some nice textures that's for sure. Now what I *really* wonder, is what this one would be like if you could jump in with your own attack and release values and scale the response of that adaptive A/R algo...and maybe a more feature rich sidechain detection design.

I'm going to purchase it anyroad. So what will that be ...four of five VSTs for kilroy?

[Cryogenic]

Again. Any A/B'ing for us, to hear your amazing theoretics scribbled here?

Instead of being a dick and attacking the other posters, why not just download the demo and try it yourself? Our applications may not be what you'd use it for and you'd still whine, whether it worked or not. Try it on something of your own. You may hate it or you may love it, but you won't know until you try it.

It's about calling out the audiophile-bullshit. Dickhead.

"that big, fat sound", "open tops" filled lows" "articulate texture" "blossoming" and on and on and on...

Show me the money i say.

[kylen]

It's about calling out the audiophile-bullshit. Dickhead.

"that big, fat sound", "open tops" filled lows" "articulate texture" "blossoming" and on and on and on...

Show me the money i say.

Oh - I think I understand your position now. What have you found after trying the demo - in your own words or something downloadable that describes your findings?

[kylen]

This compressor is unlike any typical compressor. It does not really have what I would call a familiar signature...and I would not think that an entirely bad thing. It requires some exploration, but it is capable of some pretty transparent compression and some nice textures that's for sure. Now what I *really* wonder, is what this one would be like if you could jump in with your own attack and release values and scale the response of that adaptive A/R algo...and maybe a more feature rich sidechain detection design.

I'm going to purchase it anyroad. So what will that be ...four of five VSTs for kilroy?

Thanks for the nice review and examples kilroy - maybe Voxengo would allow a backpanel with attack/release settings that include some maximal or center range for the adaptive algo to deviate some percentage from when it "thinks" it is necessary. Ploysquasher seems mostly transparent and colorless and characterless to me, not in a bad way - I was wondering what you thought. The "mix" knob allows some original transients and body back in too if you like, you're just not sure you need that in a Mastering Comp. That feature is nice for me - expecially in something like PSP MixPressor. Thanks!