A new compressor called Elatua.

[aliasant]

It is, as the name implies, an attemt to make an old style
Compressor / Limiter. Similar to LA2A and others.



Try the beta and let me know what you think. Its fully working.
I might make a bigger version with attack and release knobs but I kind of like this simple style. Very quick to use and light on the cpu.

It uses a very different engine then my other compressor Inerthia.
This one has a simulation of a tube ( I think) that I made a while back.
It sounds very analog anyways. That "tube" is what is making the gain control signal.
Sort off.

Have fun with it. And again, as usual. If you want to beta test it for me, report your findings and ideas and I will make sure you get all the future versions. That is all I can do to thank you guys.
http://martin.rodensjo.se/Plugins/Elatu ... miter.html

[John-E34]

Looks great, was going to give it a go, but when I saw the price for your compressor ($328) - I decided against it. For my budget I expect a full blown synth for much less...

[RunBeerRun]

Cool, I'll try it out and see what it can do.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I'll post some very initial findings here and PM you as well (as you didn't really state where you wanted them).

First, simply putting Elatua on a track (with the input gain set to 0dbs) increases the gain substantially. If the Input Gain is 0dbs, Elatua should not be increasing the gain.

Second, if I use the forward and backwards buttons to select my way through the programs, some programs will stop displaying the Env Mode setting.

To reproduce:

1. Open Elatua
2. Click the right arrow button twice to get to 3/16
3. Look at the missing Env Mode light/indicator
4. Click the left arrow button to get back to 1/16
5. Look at the missing Env Mode light/indicator

All the other patches display the setting.

Third, while the Slow and Med Env Mode settings sound good on just about anything (slow and med both work wonderfully for acoustic guitar, med works well on drum overheads), there's something about the fast setting that I don't like. It breaks up in an ugly way, and does so very early. For instance, Fast sounds way more distorted at moderate settings than Med does when pushed to extremes as far as input gain. It's break up sounds almost like a fast tremolo effect. To me it sounds like the attack time on fast is still slower than the UAD-1's attack on limit mode, but you're release is way faster (probably what's causing the tremolo like effect). I'd suggest taking a second look at fast to try and come up with something more generally usable and maybe make it less dirty.

Fourth, the mono button seems to do nothing (at least in Sonar 7.02 on a mono or stereo track it doesn't). The mouse pointer does not even change when over the button like it does when over the rest of the buttons, knobs, etc.

Fifth, can you make it just a little more difficult to open up a browser that goes to your page. It's too easy to do by accident and could be really embarassing if one were to do that in front of a client.

That being said, Slow and Med sound great, and I love one knob dynamic processors like these. I'll let you know if I come across anything else.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Sixth, clicking on the portion of the plugin that links to your page takes me to the page for Inerthia, not Elatua.

[aliasant]

Sixth, clicking on the portion of the plugin that links to your page takes me to the page for Inerthia, not Elatua.

Thanks for the report!

In knew about the mono button. There is no button yet =) Just the image of it. Sorry bout the confusion.
I also knew about the problem with the radio buttons and presets. Trying to figure out what I did wrong.
Hopefully that will be fixed in the next beta.
The link thing I will fix!. And maybe make the link areas smaller. I too have clicked it by accident to many times so
I fully understand the dilemma.

About the gain thing.

At default there is quite a lot of compression going on. Default is when both knobs are at 12 a clock.
Therefore a weak sound will sound a lot louder but a loud sound will sound about the same.
I will look at this. Maybe I can change the readings on the Input gain knob.

About the Fast mode.

Maybe I should make the releasetime a little longer... But it sounds pretty cool on vocals. But maybe a little bit to extreme?
The Attack is set at 3 ms now. Making it shorter makes it sound bad. Off course I could add a delay (Look a head)
to it but I want to avoid that as much as possible.

Im really glad you liked the sound of it =) I hope it can become useful. At least when its released.
I think the price for this one will be much less then Inerthia since this one is so much more specialized.
It has also been much less work to do it.

Ill get back to fixing those problems right now. Ill post something when there is a new version.

[bduffy]

Hey aliasant, thanks for the beta! I had a chance to test both Elatua Limiter and Inerthia, and I immediately loved the sound of them, although I do agree with Funkybot: a less aggresive initial setting would be cool; I can't stand +12dB of gain increase when inserting a plug-in; it's too much.

But I really loved what I was hearing, especially with Inerthia. It sounded brilliant on bass. Elatua has a nice character to it, but I swear it made my drums sound brighter; could just be the usual compression-raising-the-highs thing. Loev the GUI's too.

Drawbacks: First, the plugins take a very, very VERY long time to open in Cubase on my P4 2.6ghz. I know this is a SynthMaker problem, and apparently the newest version has fixed this a bit, I don't know if you know about that or not.

Second, the CPU is insane. I'm sure you're still optimizing, etc, but the loading time combined with the CPU would make this a showstopper.

This is not a $300 compressor yet (I don't know if I'd ever pay that much for a SM-made plugin, but it does sound great) but maybe someday. Really love the sound on Inerthia; look forward to more from you!

[BFunKu]

Looks great, was going to give it a go, but when I saw the price for your compressor ($328) - I decided against it. For my budget I expect a full blown synth for much less...

$328 for the full version! Just a tad overpriced wouldn't you say? Don't expect to sell more then about 2 of these Plugs at that price. Considering how competitive the Compressor/Limiter Market is.

For that price you could:

Buy the whole Sonalksis Bundle
Fly from New York to London(In baggage)
Buy Image-Line Maxiumus three times
Get about 10 Russian Prostitutes
Buy a small Dog that can work a kick drum
Buy the Fabfilter Pro-C three times
Buy half of the URS Classic Console Strip
Buy SynthMaker almost twice

[John-E34]

$328 for the full version! Just a tad overpriced wouldn't you say? Don't expect to sell more then about 2 of these Plugs at that price. Considering how competitive the Compressor/Limiter Market is.

For that price you could:

Buy the whole Sonalksis Bundle
Fly from New York to London(In baggage)
Buy Image-Line Maxiumus three times
Get about 10 Russian Prostitutes
Buy a small Dog that can work a kick drum
Buy the Fabfilter Pro-C three times
Buy half of the URS Classic Console Strip
Buy SynthMaker almost twice

You could also buy everything from Audio Damage, and still have change.

[Spin Boyz]

"Buy a small Dog that can work a kick drum"

[aliasant]

Buy the whole Sonalksis Bundle
Fly from New York to London(In baggage)
Buy Image-Line Maxiumus three times
Get about 10 Russian Prostitutes
Buy a small Dog that can work a kick drum
Buy the Fabfilter Pro-C three times
Buy half of the URS Classic Console Strip
Buy SynthMaker almost twice

LOL ! Ok ok.

Actually I set the price sky high so that I wouldnt have to sell to many. Sounds idiotic and maybe it is but
I wanted to make everything administrative work first. And to be honest, I havnt looked around at other similar products. Not looked at their prices I mean. I will. I promise!

Edit: http://www.sonalksis.com/index.php?section_id=17

Sonalksis prices seems a bit old.
I have set the price after last weeks exchange rate and sorry to say but the dollar has been falling quite a lot and will probably continue doing so. The US (privatly owned) FED is trying hard to keep it from freefalling but I dont think they want to continue doing that to much longer. On the other hand. There are a lot of other interests out there that wants to keep the dollar high. many big countries still have their currency reserve in dollars and they are finding it very hard to get rid of it since no one wants to buy it. Its a mess.

Anyways. I checked my webstore and found that I had set the price to be Net ( before any VAT) and that is why $264 dollars became $328.
Fixed that.

Get about 10 Russian Prostitutes

Really?? Is that true??? wow. Thats sad

Hey aliasant, thanks for the beta! I had a chance to test both Elatua Limiter and Inerthia, and I immediately loved the sound of them, although I do agree with Funkybot: a less aggresive initial setting would be cool; I can't stand +12dB of gain increase when inserting a plug-in; it's too much.

But I really loved what I was hearing, especially with Inerthia. It sounded brilliant on bass. Elatua has a nice character to it, but I swear it made my drums sound brighter; could just be the usual compression-raising-the-highs thing. Loev the GUI's too.

Drawbacks: First, the plugins take a very, very VERY long time to open in Cubase on my P4 2.6ghz. I know this is a SynthMaker problem, and apparently the newest version has fixed this a bit, I don't know if you know about that or not.

Second, the CPU is insane. I'm sure you're still optimizing, etc, but the loading time combined with the CPU would make this a showstopper.

This is not a $300 compressor yet (I don't know if I'd ever pay that much for a SM-made plugin, but it does sound great) but maybe someday. Really love the sound on Inerthia; look forward to more from you!

I will change the initial setting to a much less aggressive one.

About your drums sounding brighter. There are no filters or delays in Elatua so there is certainly a compression
related thing. This compressor has no threshold so it brings everything up, including the weak highs.
Thats just a part of the character.

About the loading time.

Hmm. I use the latest SM of course and on any modern computer it should load very fast. I think P4 is not working to well with SM stuff. Maybe I have to change the minimum system requirements to address this?

Its the same with the cpu problem your having. Sorry bduffy but I think you might benefit a lot from a new computer? I dont think there is a fix for this problem but I will look around.

Another thing about Synthmaker.
Most stuff in elatua and Inerthia is written in code. Its not modules like many seems to believe.
All the parts is made up from small "primitives"
A "primitive" can be anything from a simple "A+B=X" to a small or large piece of code. Actually. All my simple mathstuff is also written in code. Not used the pre-made primitives that comes with SM
The only part I didnt design myself (except the graphics) is the three way radio button that doesnt work
I used the same in Inerthia too and I need to make my own schematics for that today.

On my own mac this plugin doesnt even show in the cpu meters in Sonar 7.02.
Inerthia is a lot more demanding then Elatua (about 2-3x more on my mac) but it has a lot more in it so its natural.

Back to the drawingboard....

[eduardo_b]

A lot of compressor plugs out there, so setting a price is not only about the time and effort you put into the plug but how it performs compared to other plugs, some of which will be far less expensive than the price you've chosen. Using Sonalksis as a comparison doesn't make sense given that they offer hand-coded plugs using a language such as C++. I've never seen a SM or SE plug for anywhere close to your price. You won't have to be concerned about admin issues because you're not going to sell many of them until the price comes down significantly, IMO.

[ddummer]

A lot of compressor plugs out there, so setting a price is not only about the time and effort you put into the plug but how it performs compared to other plugs

I do not agree. It must be the difference a plugin make for the buyer.

A plugin could on the sum total suck but if it produce THAT sound in one situation then it is priceless.

//Daniel

[dreaddd]

as many already pointed out with such price the competitors are definitely more appealing to the average buyer than your brand, thats relatively new..i doubt you will sell much myself for that...
with that said though, i liked the inertia compressor demo though it was killing my cpu (a dual core...)...
myself i would advice to do some optimizing work on the cpu side...
and honestly, if i can advice you, since i think you have talent on developing plugs: if you cut the price towards your main competitors in terms of features and quality, that are not anyway the bigboys IMO(and, sorry, dont misunderstand me, if you get in competion with the brands that use your price tag, i think you'll only lose any sales), you could sell a lot in the future..but i guess its hard to cut the price or around 4 5ths...if you managed to lower the price under the 100 dollars tag, you could definitely create a solid brand in term of sale IMO...
please dont misunderstand me, i'm not trying to take down anyone, i m just stating what i think about the marketing of this kind of pluggies...
my 2 cents anyway

[krank]

Another thing about Synthmaker.
Most stuff in elatua and Inerthia is written in code. Its not modules like many seems to believe.
All the parts is made up from small "primitives"
A "primitive" can be anything from a simple "A+B=X" to a small or large piece of code. Actually. All my simple mathstuff is also written in code. Not used the pre-made primitives that comes with SM
The only part I didnt design myself (except the graphics) is the three way radio button that doesnt work
I used the same in Inerthia too and I need to make my own schematics for that today.
?

In that case, why not give up SM entirely? Keeps a lot of people from taking it seriously.