KVR Audio

Shabdahbriah · Post by **Shabdahbriah** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:03 pm

This is quite 'timely', as I'm in the throws of "testing" a good dozen+ other compressors at the moment.

Thank you

I'll play with this (these) tonight...

Mac of BIOnighT · Post by **Mac of BIOnighT** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:08 pm

Don't know much about compressors (I basically never use them), but the ones marked LQR seem a bit more transparent to me, they hurt the sound less...

pc2000 · Post by **pc2000** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:31 pm

@ Loser... I came across this thread at Rekkerd's site and decided to check it out. After reading the responses you've gotten thus far, no one seems to understand your rhyme & reason for this plug-ins test.

I totally understand the conception; which seems to be [Blind testing] to get an unbiased and more subjective evaluation of the various settings. People are already biased about guitars, amps, keyboards as well as plug-ins, and tend to look at things differently once they find out something wasn't what they thought it was.

An example of this would be a mind blowing guitar solo that was done with a guitar, that you assumed was a certain model. The solo was kick ass until you found out it was done with a guitar you absolutely hate! Now... what sounded killer at first has gone to sounding mediocre because of the guitar and how it would've sounded much better had guitar [x] been used instead.

I've had people in the past hear some tracks I made and was into it because they thought is was something commercial. When I informed them I made it, their attitude changed and suddenly... it wasn't real music anymore! People can't help but be biased. Some of The earlier responses to this thread is a good example of that.

I will give a thorough test and report my unbiased perceptions. I know this is about research than anything else and have the willingness to test. It's the least I can do for all the freeware that many developers has graced the music community with. Good luck on finding willing testers!

steffensen · Post by **steffensen** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:53 pm

wrong thread post.

Mac of BIOnighT · Post by **Mac of BIOnighT** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 8:37 pm

pc2000 wrote:People are already biased about guitars, amps, keyboards as well as plug-ins, and tend to look at things differently once they find out something wasn't what they thought it was.(etc)

All sadly true

People...

Compyfox · Post by **Compyfox** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:20 pm

I do not feel pointed fingers at... Not at all.

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Tue Sep 01, 2009 11:04 pm

Here are my quick first impressions while noodling around with each mode. Sorry for not being more descriptive but I just wanted to test this out real quick.

Material: Mid-Tempo Rock Drum Buss (drums are Platinum Samples JSD pack)

Settings: 4:1 Ratio, Attack 30ms, Release 100ms, the Threshold I'd play around with to listen to the compression

1 HQR - Lets lots of kick and snare through, sounds pretty good, fairly transparent compression

2 LQR - more aggressive than 1 HQR but also lets lots of kick and snare through, sounds like a slightly more aggressive take on mode 1, sounds good on a tom fill where other modes choke, less open sounding top end than 1 HQR

3 HQR - pumps like a bastard on the initial transient, ducks cymbals very hard (might be good on drums with a HP filter in the sidechain), in these settings it brings up the room a lot, lots of pumping on the kick transient, very distorted sounding kick and snare with snare getting choked a bit

4 LQR - Like a less open sounding version of 2 LQR, pumps, smoother pumping on the kick attack than 3 HQR, release feels slower than 2 HQR

5 HQR - sounds choked with a deep threshold, it tightens up the kick a lot, but is nothing particularly great or bad

6 LQR - lets some kick through at the expense of the snare transient, tom fills sound good, cymbals sound darker, doesn't do extreme in any kind of useful way, works ok at moderate settings

7 HQR - has a "clicky" spastic sounding pumping attack, only useful at lighter thresholds, with deeper compression it's just not good at all, completely ruining the kick. Release seems multi-stage, may just be the material and deep threshold though.

8 LQR - makes the kit sound smaller on deep settings with a lot of pumping high hat fades in and out in a weird way too, works better than 6 LQR at moderate settings just with more pumping

9 HQR - release feels slower, pumps in what can be a good way with light compression, not very good at any heavier settings on this material

10 HQR - nothing to write home about, high end feels darker, seems kind of generic sounding, pumps a bit after the kick hit but the kick sounds ok with light settings, causes some distortion on the low end, sounds kind of hard and edgey in the cymbals

11 HQR+S - chokes cymbals and kicks in a bad way with extreme compression, also darkens the highs, sounds a little muffled

12 LQR+S - Tightens up the kick a bit, but lets lots of snare through, not great, not bad

13 HQR+S - Chokes the kick a but with lots of ducking on cymbals, darkens the highs, not too great

14 LQR+R - Distorts the lows a bit while ducking the cymbals but has a cool aggressive character. Brings out the attack in both kick and snare. Not bad considering I didn't like the last few.

15 HQR+S - Not a big fan of, lots of compression artifacts, more of that spastic sounding attack on the kick, lots of ducking on the cymbals

16 LQR+S - Just kind of vanilla sounding with way too much ducking going on with the cymbals, none of which is too useful IMO

17 HQR+S - Lets lets of snare through, considerable pumping, chokes the kick a bit, not great better than 15 and 16

18 LQR+S - Wierd attack on the kick again, snare was pretty good, tom fill was good, this one I also liked better than 15 and 16, better ducking on cymbals, cymbals sounded more "swooshy" but in a natural way,

Conclusion:

In this example I think 1, 2, 3, 4 & 6 were probably my favorites.

I will try different source material when I get the chance and report back. My initial impression is I liked the earlier modes on this material, and after mode 8 or so just really stopped liking most of what I heard.

LOSER · Post by **LOSER** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:29 pm

Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote:Here are my quick first impressions while noodling around with each mode. Sorry for not being more descriptive but I just wanted to test this out real quick.

No reason for an apology since every little impression has lots of information. Even only the statements about what material you used it on and which modes you preferred would have had enough value (for me). So thank you very much for participating.

Also thank you very much Mac of BIOnighT.

Hopefully others will participate as well, so I can (if anyone is interested) write a little review about the results and also an attempt at explaining why people heard what they heard.

robenestobenz · Post by **robenestobenz** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:42 pm

Excellent idea for a plugin. I hope lots of people take part in this, I'd be very interested to see what analysis brings out.

I'm no expert and don't tend to use a huge amount of compression, but I'll write up my layman's take when I get the chance.

ccosta · Post by **ccosta** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:58 pm

Really good compressor(s) !

And in a 40k only file ?

The HQR+S are my favs.

They can pump, be "transparent", Ive listen somethings that others never did.

I understand thats maybe not you goal but
just give us a nice gui ( keep the sliders please, is so much easier to setup ), a limiter ( changing modes can overload ) and some metering.

Thanks.

shanecgriffo · Post by **shanecgriffo** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 1:29 pm

i just had a quick play on a dry (no compression recorded) acoustic drumloop
and liked the sound of mode 4 best for this. you could hear it grabbing but not overly so.

shogger · Post by **shogger** » Thu Sep 03, 2009 2:22 pm

Drums, smashed: 13
Vox, male: 13
A-guitar: 17

In general:
- the HQR sounds better then the LQR ones, always. On their own the LQRs did sound good sometimes but in the mix, where I wanted to get soft sounds in the particular mix they didn't work.
- The HQR + S do sound better than without. With increasing number the HQR + S ones are getting softer. This would be nice to have as a dial in a "real life" comp.

Now please do the same with feedback.

And then put the best stuff into a real life compressor. And then I want to get it, please!

Shogger

Debutante · Post by **Debutante** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 1:08 am

LOSER wrote:
Debutante wrote:f**king Awesome!
What mode exactly is "f**king Awesome!"?

All of it. The whole idea. Just having this much at hand. This will REEEEALLLY help sharpen my hunt in compressors. I tried it only for a little while on a loop and single instruments. I'm thinking of it more as a reference tool than anything else...

Marando · Post by **Marando** » Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:36 am

What a nice idea!! I'm more then happy to give this one a go!!
Before I start testing later today, do you have some suggestions I put this compressor on? i.e. do you want it on a stereo (drum) bus or would you like to hear my opinion when I use it on single instruments and vocal leads for example??

Marando

Midiworks · Post by **Midiworks** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 10:56 am

Overall, there are some very useful compression modes.

I preferred the high quality modes.
But I'm not that happy with the envelopes,
the audio file, but I have been using has looks of crashes
and the envelope is doing strange things to them.

It sounds a little bit like different transient shapers to my ears.
Still, overall some nice and useful compressors in that bundle.
The higher the mode number in high-quality the more I liked the compression.

Thanks a lot for all the nice stuff!

By the way, is there a way to get my hands onto your old
VSTPlugInBunlde_1915 or higher versions but not the latest ones?

Cheers,
René

ABX Compressor Test VST