Cytomic 'The Glue' Compressor

[living sounds]

This sounds interesting. Can you post an example of the compression, like running an electronic drumloop with a lot of low end kick through it at - say - 4:1, 30 ms attack, 0,1 ms release and a fair amount of threshold? That's where the difference between hard- and software gets very obvious to me.

If this sounded as good as the real thing I'd be perfectly happy. I find the SSL compressor works great on a variety of sources and does the aggressive punch thing better than most other compressors.

Now I'd like to beta test as well and shoot it out against the hardware.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Hey Andy,

I'm a big big fan of the underated BFD2 Buss and Channel compressors so I'm looking very forward to any of your future offerings. Aside from the mentioned changes, anything else particularly improved on this new Buss Compressor sonically? Anything else in the pipeline you'd like to share? I was always hoping I'd get an LA2A (for BFD2) as good as those other two compressors.

[K-Slash]

Hey,

Can you put a link to the original video you're talking about please ?

[dusted william]

excellent!

I can't wait!

dw

[aud.io]

I think the video is on the latest future music magazine dvd. Here's a teaser:

[Compyfox]

I just wrote with the developer a bit to ask some more in-depth Q's, and since he said he has no problem talking about all that in public, I hope it's okay to share.

Some keydata:
- Compressor is more aimed at the G-Series rather than the E-Series, however it is "best of both worlds"
- plugin will be released on Windows (VST/RTAS) and Mac (VST/AU/RTAS) *unibin*
- Copy protection: serial only
- Release date/screenshot: will be announced soon
- Price: will be announced soon


This should cover the most common questions. Though the developer is still interested in what you want to "pay" for such a plugin at an unknown firm. If he really pulls off the pricerange from my personal opinion, it will be VERY affordable (think brainworx plugins, or UAD ones on sale). But nothing is set yet, this is why I wrote "price: will be announced soon".


Hope this info helps for the time being.

[living sounds]

Though the developer is still interested in what you want to "pay" for such a plugin at an unknown firm.

This depends entirely on the sound. If I can leave the hardware off, I'll certainly be willing to pay more than the power I save.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I think $99 to $149 USD is a realistic and fair price for a compressor. Just please don't peg to the Euro (or even worse, the GBP).

[shamann]

(think brainworx plugins, or UAD ones on sale)

Aren't brainworx plugins in the $300-$400 range for a single plugin? Is that what folk consider very affordable? I may be out of touch then, that would be in my "very expensive plugin" range.

For me, for any compressor plugin, I doubt I'd be inclined to pay much more than $150. There are a lot of really good, low cost or even free compressors in this world. I have several already, so would only really be inclined to get another if the price didn't give me pause and it sufficiently differentiated itself from the pack. As a musician rather than an engineer, maybe I'm not the target market, so there's that to consider. And I even think the Sonalksis compressor is way too much at $250, so there's also that.

If I think about Sound Toys effects, for instance, people have stated here that the price is high, but its $400 for the Native bundle (less than $100 per plugin) and you get 6 really good, really deep effects.

I understand not every company is comfortable pricing things like u-he and Audio Damage, but I know for a fact they're doing alright at those prices. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

I've long been an admirer of Andy's work going back to the Vellocet fx, so I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

[BASSDRIVE]

Deadmau5 is the king of rhythm. It's rare that I don't like a beat of his.

[BASSDRIVE]

I think the video is on the latest future music magazine dvd. Here's a teaser:

That song playing kicks ass. Love that shit. Sounds so simple, but there's so much good rhythm going on.

[SWAN808]

Hey Swan808,

I coded all the algorithms for the new FXpansion D-CAM Synth Squad, and the mystery compressor you are asking about.

I am starting up my own company called Cytomic, and have gone and re-written the entire compressor algorithm from scratch, improving it on the way. It is based on a very famous mix bus compressor by a British company (if you read the article you will get a hint), but I have given it two little extras essential for mastering: an ultra fast attack time of up to 0.01 ms, and a Range knob which backs off the compression to give incredibly transparent results.

Stay tuned for the official press release, but if you have been searching for a decent native compressor that is reasonably priced your wait will soon be over.

All the best,

Andrew Simper

Hi Andy - great to hear from you - I'd all but given up on this thread!

Im really interested in this compressor you are working on. I have actually been considering going Duende for their Buss Compressor - so if you were cooking up a hot native model - that would suit me very well - and Im sure a lot of others...

I have bought a few of Sebastien Legers tracks in the past - so that is good feedback for me

I wonder if this compressor will have a highpass filter - or maybe if it handles the low end fine it will not need it? For dance music tho I need to not loose the low end too much when applying compression...

So do we assume you are bringing out your own version / further developed from FXpansion? Are they ok with this?

As far as pricing - I think if you produce a top quality compressor - and are authorising via serial - you would do well not to price it too high - as that would doubtless lead to lots of piracy.

There are many plugins that market themselves with a 'high end' price scheme but arent that special atm - but a bigger market I think for high quality native plugins at affordable prices people will pay. If you have time look at the response U-He has got from the release of his new Uhbik plugins - high quality plugs he has priced fairly - looks like its flying off the shelves!

If it is very very good at a price like $100-$150 I think it would sell like hot cakes. However there is a lot of competition from the likes of Stillwell so it would have to be a cut above the rest to command a decent price when coming from a new developer..........

Thats just my take tho others around here (such as compression guru Bmanic) will prob have a more comprehensive outlook on this...

Looking forward to hearing more - and also hearing your work on D-CAM for FXpansion!

[andy-cytomic]

Exact details on some questions I have to leave till the media release, which is coming out soon, so please be patient.

Hi Andy - great to hear from you - I'd all but given up on this thread!

Im really interested in this compressor you are working on. I have actually been considering going Duende for their Buss Compressor - so if you were cooking up a hot native model - that would suit me very well - and Im sure a lot of others...

I have bought a few of Sebastien Legers tracks in the past - so that is good feedback for me

Sebastien is an ultra cool guy, and writes some amazing tunes. I have been double checking all the builds with him and Deamau5 and a bunch of other very close testers and musicians for a while now, making sure they are spot on - all good so far.

I wonder if this compressor will have a highpass filter - or maybe if it handles the low end fine it will not need it? For dance music tho I need to not loose the low end too much when applying compression...

Yeah, it has a built in sidechain highpass filter specifically designed to ease off pump from kicks and other low frequency content. But you will probably not need to use it too much since the "Range" knob already does this in an ultra transparent and natural sounding way. It also has an external sidechain button, if you want pump from a kick to give rhythm to other parts.

So do we assume you are bringing out your own version / further developed from FXpansion? Are they ok with this?

This is all fully cleared with FXpansion, a single compressor on it's own is way too small a project for them to bother with. As for the code, I have done a complete re-write of the algorithm from scratch and added extra cool things like an ultra fast attack, which the other algo can't do without blowing up. It's also more optimised so it will use less cpu. So there isn't one line of code that is in other FXpansion products. I must say doing the whole thing again was way easier the second time, and I have been able to fill in loads of little details I didn't previously have time to do.

As far as pricing - I think if you produce a top quality compressor - and are authorising via serial - you would do well not to price it too high - as that would doubtless lead to lots of piracy.

Yeah, agreed, I will definitely be keeping the plugin around the USD 100 mark. I want it to be affordable to people, the only thing I'm worried about is that the plugin will be perceived as being lower quality because it's less expensive. Too bad, I'm making mine affordable to people and hope they use their ears to judge and not the price tag.

Thats just my take tho others around here (such as compression guru Bmanic) will prob have a more comprehensive outlook on this...

Looking forward to hearing more - and also hearing your work on D-CAM for FXpansion!

Nice one! Thanks for the feedback. I'm really looking forward to the D-CAM: Synth Squad coming out too since I want to use the finished thing in my productions as well. I basically built my 3 fav synths that I wanted, one cool bass/lead one, a triple osc crazy audio rate mod one, and a proper divide down string synth with lush chorus and formant filter. The feedback from testers so far has been awesome, and having Strobe already used on the number one singles on beat port is pretty friggin amazing for me. Bring it on!

Andrew Simper

[andy-cytomic]

This sounds interesting. Can you post an example of the compression, like running an electronic drumloop with a lot of low end kick through it at - say - 4:1, 30 ms attack, 0,1 ms release and a fair amount of threshold? That's where the difference between hard- and software gets very obvious to me.

If this sounded as good as the real thing I'd be perfectly happy. I find the SSL compressor works great on a variety of sources and does the aggressive punch thing better than most other compressors.

Now I'd like to beta test as well and shoot it out against the hardware.

I'm still working on the examples. There will be many examples completely abusing the compressor at the hardest settings with the most difficult material. I'll make sure I cover the exact case you are talking about, the actual plugin will only have 0.2 ms release as the fastest, but I can do an example to demonstrate at 0.1 ms how it sounds if you want.

All the best,

Andrew Simper

[living sounds]

I'm still working on the examples. There will be many examples completely abusing the compressor at the hardest settings with the most difficult material. I'll make sure I cover the exact case you are talking about, the actual plugin will only have 0.2 ms release as the fastest, but I can do an example to demonstrate at 0.1 ms how it sounds if you want.

All the best,

Andrew Simper

Great! BTW, what I meant of course was 100ms release, the fastest setting on the SSL compressor.