Basic Compressor for Sidechaining

[echosystm]

Hi guys

I need a basic compressor with sidechain support, for bass ducking in EDM tunes. The compressor that comes with my DAW is RMS only, so it doesn't work well. I already own Pro-C and The Glue, but Pro-C is too program dependent and release times on The Glue are not precise enough.

It's crazy, but I've struggled to find a compressor that works as well as the default compressor in Ableton, Logic or Cubase. It seems like 3rd party compressors always try to do something fancy that makes them a poor choice for this purpose. I already have VolumeShaper, so I'm not looking for an LFOTool style plugin.

Thanks!

[aciddose]

Try either the compressor or limiter from Xhip Effects.

http://xhip.net/effects/

Both of these I designed specifically to do the job in the basic format I need with none of the additional stuff that always gets in my way.

Just note the compressor in mode A is going to be high distortion, a little difficult to control, not very accurate. Exactly like a pedal compressor.

Mode B is going to be more accurate and lower distortion. More like a more complicated hardware unit with proper log and division (not easy to do reliably in electronics.)

The limiter though is designed to be more surgical, when you want an exact limit of -20db and exactly 50ms attack time, it will give that.

One feature still lacking however is that it doesn't include latency compensation, so if you use massive amounts of look-ahead you'll need to manually compensate. Latency compensation requires typically adding a fixed delay/latency to the plugin which equals the maximum look-ahead time. This is one of those pain-in-the-butt features that I usually do not want.

Although I hope to add it as an option in the future, with a separate copy of the plugin. "xhip limiter latencycomp".

Another thing to note, these require side-chain support that as far as I'm aware Cubase doesn't have. Reaper will do it no problem. Most hosts will.

[echosystm]

If you added latency compensation to your limiter, this would be an extremely useful tool for a lot of EDM producers.

Generally I want ducking to occur immediately, so I set the attack as low as possible. However, that can result in a bad sound due to everything just cutting out. With look-ahead, we can set smoother attack values and still have the audio duck at the correct time. I actually bought VolumeShaper purely so that I could achieve this outcome.

[aciddose]

Well it has look-ahead already, I've just commented the compensation out because I haven't had a chance to test whether it works correctly. I'll upload a version with it enabled...

Oh actually, you should be able to automate it on. The switch just isn't on the GUI. I think it should work okay.

It'll be the last automation parameter, "LTC-comp"... lookahead time compensation comp? edit: Oh, duh, L-T-C, la-te-ncy comp.

If it plain doesn't work that might be because I've made a mistake somewhere, in which case I'll need to test it myself and get it to work correctly.

[Moonwrist]

How about Reagate. Free and easy to use ducker.

http://www.kvraudio.com/product/reagate ... os/details

[aciddose]

It seems to be RMS as well, and is possibly a little more complex.

The gate in Xhip effects is a little more simple and includes a few features which seem to be missing from reagate.

[Loki Fuego]

I need a basic compressor with sidechain support, for bass ducking in EDM tunes.

Try Big Blue Compressor by 112db. It's not basic, but works pretty well. It has variable look-ahead, knee and choke functions. Switchable between RMS and peak modes High- and low-pass filter in sidechain circuit. Should satisfy any side-chain needs.

[camsr]

ReaComp

[TIMT]

There´s no change in dynamics to worry about in that bigroom EDM crap so i think you should get what your after with just a volume shaper(i know you said your not looking for one but this is what you are after). a compressor only makes sense when you have fluctuating peaks and troughs and considering most of those are dealt with even before you use sidechain,the volume shapers should be enough to achieve the pseudo-dynamics aka ducking






TIMT

[do_androids_dream]

Reacomp
Molot
Martin Eastwood Compressive Pro
Slim Slow Slider Side Chain Compressor
Density MkIII

all have sidechain capabilites

[camsr]

a compressor only makes sense when you have fluctuating peaks and troughs and considering most of those are dealt with even before you use sidechain,the volume shapers should be enough to achieve the pseudo-dynamics aka ducking

That's a good point. Most of the time, sequenced stuff won't need a compressor, so use volume automation instead, unless you want to key in the sidechaining by hand.

[Dr.Gunjah]

I've tried several comps for this task, like The Glue, Pro-C, Compassion, Mpressor and many others ... Though imho the best for bassdrum driven ducking is Klanghelms DC8C2 in expert mode. It's extremely flexible yet comfortable to set up (unlike Compassion :/ )
Not to mention it's cheap.

[aciddose]

A compressor is essential when you don't merely want volume variations "ducking", but want compression. All the distortion and variability that comes with it.

Of course we could all just use plain old sine tones and forget about all this synthesizer business, right?

[realmarco]

xfer LFOtool

http://www.xferrecords.com/products/lfo-tool

[do_androids_dream]

[thread hijack]@ aciddose - Only just got round to trying your effects plugins - very nice compressor with an insanely low cpu hit [/thread hijack - sorry!]