All about compressors (links broken: sorry!)

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Effects Discussion
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MjCompressor is the one you're thinking of, b.

That reminds me to export some examples of Vienna Suite Compressor before my trial runs out...
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Ah yes, I need to run some renders as well. I've just been very busy again lately. I think I already lost the IK Tracks3 demo time.. damn. Oh well, there's always the studio computer left.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle
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Yeah, I've got a crazy weekend project plus a nice dose of the flu, but I'll get some renders going later. I think I already bounced some T-Racks stuff, I'll check.
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This will do the trick:

Image

:hihi:
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Ooh! That's at least 5:1 compression! :shock:
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10:1 :hihi:
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ya think that's how they got soft knees? :oops:
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I don't know, but there is definitely a look-ahead feature...
(I'll get my coat...)
It's not what you use, it's how you use it...
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Got 2 questions...

- What about Waves compressors? Are they good?

- Do you think T-Racks3 is useful used just like a single-track compressor?(i didn't try it yet...)

thanks
rob
-----------------------------------------
BoB
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If I may... :hihi:
robertozero wrote:Got 2 questions...

- What about Waves compressors? Are they good?
Personally, I'm a big fan of Waves, especially their newest "vintage modeled" bundles, such as JJP, API, and SSL; but I also really enjoy their Rennaisance Compressor, Rennaisance Vox and the L2/L3 series. The L2 is amazing for transparent limiting on tracks, and doesn't really use much CPU on modern machines. In fact, they're all pretty good for CPU.

My current favorite is the JJP Puigchild 670 (Fairchild emu); it's kind of a shame that it's Waves, because it would really satisfy a lot of KVR memebers' dreams for "character" compression. I can provide samples, if you like. :D
robertozero wrote:- Do you think T-Racks3 is useful used just like a single-track compressor?(i didn't try it yet...)
Personally, I say "No", but that may change when I get my new computer. The compressors are well-suited for tracking (The Opto Compressor sounds amazing, I must say!), but they used a ton of CPU on my present PC, and I felt the slightly cumbersome interface and high resource demands weren't worth the tradeoff at this point. I wanted to love it, but couldn't quite get there.
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bmanic wrote:Introduction:

Hi,

This has been long overdue but is now finally done. I've gone trough the whole old thread and decided to post all my audio examples from the Old Thread. I've also decided to link all the other nice folks examples here. If any of you want me to take the link away then just send me a pm.
I'd like this thread to work as a sort of library for people to check out how different compressors sound at various settings on all kinds of material (currently only my crappy drumloop but I'll try adding some more audio material). Feel free to comment on the sounds but try keeping it civil and respect other people's subjective opinion.

Note that the volume of each example can be drastically different so compensate before doing serious comparison. Okay, let's get the show started!

Code: Select all

** News & Updates **
26.05.2008: FabFilter Volcano2 is a filter plugin but it has everything you need to build your own compressor with it. An envelope follower and an output volume knob that can be modulated. Check out the examples to hear what this amazing plugin can do with your dynamics!

18.10.2007: More unique compression from Nebula3 beta version and custom program that I'm developing.

17.10.2007: Nebula, like you never heard it before! I've added some unique compressor examples from a beta version of Nebula (and an unreleased compressor program). It's work in progress but it shows some promise! Finally a plugin that can do things only analogue equipment could do. Listen carefully and try to mimic the examples with any other plugin compressor, I dare you!

22.07.2007: I've posted some teasers of a compressor plugin that may or may not be released in the near future (Upadte: the teaser was of course from FabFilter Pro-C).

02.06.2007: Added some examples of compression where the transients remain "round", even under heavy compression. This is a hard task for most digital compressors and is quite easily achieved with high end analogue compressors.

15.05.2007: Whee! Payday.. so I'm just having a bit of fun with Nebula3 and Ohmicide.

29.02.2007: I've added some audio examples from a very flexible, "tweakers dream" compressor, the BlueCat Dynamics plugin. When you know what you are doing you can create some very interesting compression. It also works rather well as a transparent compressor for all kinds of material.

31.01.2007: Kilroy provides us with some very interesting and "old school" compression examples. Waves C1 (it was basically the first seriously flexible plugin compressor. He also made a clip with Waves Renaissance Compressor which was one of the first serious, high quality, "vintage" wannabe plugin compressors. Kilroy also provided some examples of the quirky and sometimes unpredictable Cakewalk Dynamics plugin which was part of the old Cakewalk sequencer's plugin set. It's a "breakpoint" kind of compressor that lets the user 'draw' in the transfer curve.

06.12.2006: Finnish independence day and another update. This time the promised examples of Mid-Side compression techniques. Compressor used was Voxengo Crunchessor as it has a side-chain input.

29.08.2006: Wow! Nearly a year forward and there is finally an update. Hifiboom made some awesome compression examples of the Creamware Vinco (1178/1176 emulation)! Check them out, they are impressive very impressive indeed!

05.12.2005: Huge update! Wm sent me his single hit drums that he ran trough various plugin compressors, awesome work, thank you Will! Second, I've added examples of an original Urei 1176LN Silverface (revision H, one of the last made) compressing the heck out of my old drumloop and a new percussion loop. No where else on the net have I found examples of how the 1176 sounds when only two buttons are pressed in together. There are plenty of 'all button mode' examples (I've provided a few too) but this machine seems to sound really weird with say, 4:1 button and 20:1 button pressed in together. Finally I've also included a unique 'no buttons down' mode which produces some extreme results. Enjoy!

08.11.2005: Added some more vocal compression examples, this time from the Sintefex and one from Kjaerhus GAC-1.

08.11.2005: Fritzman posted a nice preset for the Voxengo Marquis compressor where he emulates the UA 1176LN. He used the accoustic guitar sample at the Universal Audio website, UAD-1 audio demos section, as source.

07.11.2005: I've added various Male Vocal examples (.ogg), including a 16bit 44,1kHz .wav file that you can use as source for your own examples.

07.11.2005: The latest additions will always be added to the top of the examples list and have a * marking them so that they are easy to find. 

07.11.2005: First news update! This will make it easy to follow the thread and see what's been added lately. Some native english speaking moderator can feel free to correct the spelling in this post at any time! Edit at will (by the way, thanks for making this topic sticky).

Here are the examples:
26.05.2008 - plugin: Fabfilter Volcano2
*Original drumloop
*FabFilter Volcano 2, compressing like there's no tomorrow!
*Volcano2 as a gate, on the above drumloop.

18.10.2007 - plugin: Nebula3
Original drumloop
Smack!
Pancake!
I can't breathe!!

17.10.2007 - plugin: Nebula3
Original "Dre Like" loop

Who said Nebula can't pump!?
Parallel compression, strengthens the middle riff nicely!
Subtle "mastering" balance, listen to how "controlled" the dynamics are!
Not so subtle mastering, punch!
Middle riff extracted!
Drum extraction!


22.07.2007 - plugin: Fabfilter Pro-C
"Round" compression on drumloop 1 (this is a bit subtle)
"Round" compression on drumloop 2 (this is a bit subtle)
Hard compression on drumloop 1
Hard compression on drumloop 2
"Center focused" on drumloop 1 (this is a bit subtle)
"Center focused" on drumloop 2 (this is a bit subtle)
"Cut Top" on snare in Cute Beat
f**ked Up Cute Beat (if you can't hear this you are deaf!)
Controlling the low-end of this "heavy" loop (very subtle effect!!)

drumloop 1, original file
drumloop 2, original file
Cute beat, original file
Heavy loop, original file

02.06.2007 - plugin: Nebula3
Fast attack, fast release, Nebula3 doing the compression
Medium attack, fast release, Nebula3 again
Original drum loop

15.05.2007 - plugin: Nebula3 and Ohmicide
Slightly over the top, no?
Original

29.02.2007 - plugin: BlueCat Dynamics
Snappy and tight compression on a beat, using BlueCat Dynamics
Unique pumping compression on a beat, using BlueCat Dynamics
Transparent leveling compression, using BlueCat Dynamic
Heavier "slam" compression (long attack), using BlueCat Dynamics
Unique kind of pumping, done with BlueCat Dynamics
Another unique kind of compression, using BlueCat Dynamics
Transparent compression on vocals using BlueCat Dynamics
Heavy compression on vocals using BlueCat Dynamics
Original beat sample
Original dry drum loop
Original dry vocal sample

Here are the presets for BlueCat Dynamics.

31.01.2007 - plugin: Waves C1, Waves RCL, Cakewalk Dynamics
Waves C1 on male vocals
Waves RenComp on beat
Cakewalk Dynamics on Beat
Cakewalk Dynamics on drum loop

06.12.2006 - plugin: Voxengo Crunchessor
Original clip, no compression
Ordinary stereo compression using Voxengo Crunchessor
Mid-Side compression using Voxengo Crunchessor
Mid controlling Side signal using Voxengo Crunchessor
(details of the routing and pictures can be found here)

29.08.2006 - plugin: Vinco for Creamware cards
Drumbus: Vinco,InputGain 6 Attack 0,5ms Release 30ms Compress 4:1, by hifiboom.
Drumbus: Vinco, InputGain 8 Attack 0,5ms Release 30ms Compress 4:1, by hifiboom.
Drumbus: Vinco, InputGain 8 Attack 0,5ms Release 100ms Compress 4:1, by hifiboom.
Drumbus: Vinco,InputGain 10 Attack 0,5ms Release 30ms Compress 4:1, by hifiboom.
Drumbus: Vinco,InputGain 10 Attack 0,5ms Release 100ms Compress 4:1, by hifiboom.

Will's compressed single hit drums, in a ZIP format.
Download, unpack and compare the .wav files in your favourite host or audio editor. Thanks for the files Will!

Drum bus: Urei 1176LN, 4:1 ratio, heavy compression (.wav)
Drum bus: Urei 1176LN, All Buttons mode, short attack and release (.wav)
Drum bus: Urei 1176LN, All Buttons mode, medium attack and release (.wav)
Drum bus: Urei 1176LN, 4:1 and 20:1 buttons together, fast attack and release (.wav)
Drum bus: Urei 1176LN, 4:1 and 20:1 buttons together, medium attack and release (.wav)
Original dry drum loop, 44,1kHz .Wav

Percussion: Urei 1176LN, 4:1 ratio
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, 8:1 ratio, same input gain as above
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, 12:1 ratio, same input gain again
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, 20:1 ratio, as you can hear, the difference is very subtle
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, All Buttons mode
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, 4:1 button + 20:1 button together
Percussion: Urei 1176LN, No buttons at all pushed in, very strange!
Original percussion sample

Male vocals: Kjaerhus GAC-1,Using the Fat Vocals preset, no tweaking done!
Male vocals: Sintefex,Tubetech CL1B model doing it's thing
Male vocals: Sintefex,Fairchild model with fast release
Male vocals: Sintefex,Fairchild model with long release
Male vocals: Sintefex,Focusrite Red Channel, Mic input, moderate compression

Male vocals: Blockfish, Agressive and up close, get the preset here
Male vocals: Crunchessor, using new U attack shape, nice! Get the preset here
Male vocals: Marquis, at it's best, t1+feedback+force, hot! Get the preset here
Male vocals: Marquis, Unlike above, t3, smooth and clean. Get the preset here
Male vocals: Sonalksis, SV-315, intimate and controlled. Get the preset here
Original dry sample, Download 16bit 44,1kHz .wav or .ogg (mono, 256Kbps)

Drumloop examples from old thread

Original un-compressed File (hq mp3)
Original File (44,1khz 16bit .wav), feel free to use as source
Sonalksis Compression Example
Crunchessor Compression Example
Blockfish Compression Example
Compadre Compression Example
Compadre Compression Example 2
Sintefex Custom 1
Sintefex Custom 2
Sintefex Custom 3
E-phonic Xpressor Compression Example
WWAYM Dynamix Compression Example
UAD-1 Fairchild at extreme settings. File provided by Urosh, thanks mate! :)
bmanic wrote:Got some new sound examples from a home built compressor that works on the Vari-Mu principle. It has 4 tubes per channel driving the thing and is the first prototype of what will maybe be sold commercially in the future. It's estimated cost is around the 3000-4000$ mark.

Here's how it sounds at quite extreme settings (it's real ace is doing subtle mix compression but as this whole thread is about compressors at extreme settings I wanted to keep it going):

Homemade Vari-Mu Compressor Example 1
Homemade Vari-Mu Compressor Example 2
Homemade Vari-Mu Compressor Example 3
Homemade Vari-Mu Compressor Overdriven, no gain reduction, just pure tube saturation
ModuLR wrote:I've quietly enjoyed this thread.. very educational and interesting! Thanks to all if its participants!
in any case, what do you think of this...
My example 3 attempt *EDIT: ModuLR accepted my challenge to replicate one of the homebuilt Vari-mu examples and he pretty much got it spot on with his Neodynium example presented here*
ModuLR wrote: so here is my attempt at example1...

example1 -> neodynium

and here is another example of neodynium removing the cymbols around the drums. I've always had a hard time doing this with regular compressors (tho I know it's possible). I do stuff like that to extract drums for layering and what not... kinda like a gate, but I like it better... :nutter: cos sometimes I just wanna push the surrounding sound further back but not remove it (tho I pretty much removed it in this example). :shrug: :hihi:

GatedTypeExample -> neodynium
All the above links should work but if any of them goes dead then please PM me. If somebody wants me to host some audio files then just PM me and we'll discuss details.

Have fun!
bManic

LOUVERLY!!!
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Hi bManic - any thoughts on this:

http://www.proaudiodsp.com/

It seems really quite special

Video demo here:

http://www.vimeo.com/2365432
Presets for u-he Diva -> http://swanaudio.co.uk/
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I've been following Paul Frindle's work ever since he created some of the classics of the Oxford bundle. Unfortunately I do not have the means to try out this plugin as I'm running windows. Once I get the chance to try it I will comment here for sure. The audio demos and the video are interesting indeed.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle
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I just requested a demo license, they said it'll be about a day or so (don't you love license requests?), so I can test it out for the iLok-shy when it comes in. ;)
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bduffy wrote:I just requested a demo license, they said it'll be about a day or so (don't you love license requests?), so I can test it out for the iLok-shy when it comes in. ;)
Awesome! Looking very much forward to your opinion on this.

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle
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