u-he

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:14 am

Had a quick tryout/comparison with my 160 patch.... are you sure that RMS window needs to be set at max (30 ms) ?
Cause it seems to sound great/about right with smaller values... like within 7 to 10 maybe?

Plus, within that range, the sidechain delay doesn't require negative values anymore, but a tiny bit positive ones + release recovers more faster (no pumping.. but that faster, a bit more aggressive recovery that I know 160 for)

aaron aardvark · Post by **aaron aardvark** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:30 am

double post

aaron aardvark · Post by **aaron aardvark** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:31 am

ORS,
Thank you for replying!

Strangely, I could download the dbx160 patch, but my iMac would not let me open the API patch.

OneRoomStudios · Post by **OneRoomStudios** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:47 pm

aaron

How are you opening it? You should just put it in your presets folder (on a mac: Hard Disk>Library>Audio>Presets>u-he>Presswerk). Then it will show up in the presets menu of Presswerk.

OneRoomStudios · Post by **OneRoomStudios** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:54 pm

3ee

I think you might be mixing up models of DBX 160. The DBX 160 VU (the original, "old" one) is not a fast compressor. It has a hard knee, a medium/slow attack and is very colored. It pumps very easily. The DBX 160A, which is arguably far more common, has the famous "overeasy" soft knee, faster attack times (down to 3ms program dependent), and far less color/distortion. It can behave as a very fast and fairly transparent compressor. In either case, though, they are both based on pure RMS detectors.

OneRoomStudios · Post by **OneRoomStudios** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:59 pm

Aside from the details though, I want to point out that obviously, whatever sounds best to you is what you should use. I'm trying to mimic classic hardware for fun, but that doesn't mean that those settings will be right for your audio. In fact, a lot of these old boxes were very limited.

From the brief amount of time I've spent with Presswerk, I can say that it's an amazingly flexible, and unbelievably great sounding compressor plugin. I've used and/or owned all the great plugins from Waves, Sonnox, URS, Softube, UA, etc, etc, and I can honestly say that this is the first compressor plugin that gets close to the way that analog behaves. Is it an exact match? No. It's it an awesome compressor plugin that I will be using from now on? Yes.

So...tweak away, do whatever sounds good. Have fun making cool music. I'm being anal just because I can.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 5:40 pm

^ Yeah, sure... + I'm having fun + learning/refreshing memories about classic compressors and their use as well as gain a better understanding how that all relates with Presswerk's parameters. A bit time consuming but great stuff!

Thanks for the 160 info, will take into account.

btw, if anyone's interested, here's a test tone I just re-made: https://app.box.com/s/2cdi9q8bz8o5qntfs3or

about 100 dbs are clean 1k sine wave tone.
1st part is a sudden level increase of about 10 db for checking the compressor's time response and the 2nd is to check out the compression transfer curve and knee also distortion/dynamic distortion. (linear volume increase from silence to -0.1 db)

So, run these tests through your compressors and record the result to check out how it reacts.

imagine2014 · Post by **imagine2014** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 7:20 pm

Hey!

Awesome work! Looking forward to check out the presets and compare them to the "originals", e.g. some other plug-in emulations I use.

As I see, Presswerk is an extremely versatile and fine compressor!

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 8:23 pm

Made a significant improvement with my 160 emulation, here's the update, same link: https://app.box.com/s/qf8jtkidi5yqjafn1q6e

Btw, a thing I just found out about the knee in Presswerk.
Even if at minimum, it's about 0.5 db soft knee, so no need to give it that slight offset for -analogness- when setting a hard knee.

OneRoomStudios · Post by **OneRoomStudios** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:02 pm

Another thing to keep in mind about the knee - there are very few (if any) analog compressors that have a fixed knee. They almost always change shape with ratio, threshold, incoming signal, attack time, etc, etc. Here's a graph of compression ratios of an 1176: http://www.masonaudio.org/img/diy/fig/U ... ratios.jpg

As you can see, it has a very soft knee at 4:1, and a very hard knee at 20:1. All presets in Presswerk have to either emulate a specific setting on a given compressor, or they have to compromise between multiple curves. Giving an otherwise hard knee compressor a slight offset (in addition to the existing 0.5dB) is one way to "fudge" the curve to make it applicable in more situations.

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:07 pm

^ interesting... thanks, will take notice!

imagine2014 · Post by **imagine2014** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:28 pm

OneRoomStudios wrote:Another thing to keep in mind about the knee - there are very few (if any) analog compressors that have a fixed knee. They almost always change shape with ratio, threshold, incoming signal, attack time, etc, etc. Here's a graph of compression ratios of an 1176: http://www.masonaudio.org/img/diy/fig/U ... ratios.jpg

As you can see, it has a very soft knee at 4:1, and a very hard knee at 20:1. All presets in Presswerk have to either emulate a specific setting on a given compressor, or they have to compromise between multiple curves. Giving an otherwise hard knee compressor a slight offset (in addition to the existing 0.5dB) is one way to "fudge" the curve to make it applicable in more situations.

I have checked out the ratios 4:1 and 20:1, here are the screenshots of the Normal view after setting the ratios 4 and 20 in the FET Peak Limiter view. The knee indeed changes and threshold as well.

4:1

20:1

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:35 pm

OK, since I have two emulations of the channel G4000 compressor, I think that will be next....

But 1st, I really need to fine-tune the SSL G4000 bus and the API 2500 compressors some more, see you in a couple of hours

3ee · Post by **3ee** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 9:39 pm

imagine2014, thanks for the pics... but don't take the simple view conversions too literally as they aren't intended as a precise emulation and they seem to need more fine-tuning.

When will work on the 1176 emu, I'll probably have 3 patches
-a normal 4:1
-a harder one
-an All buttons in smash one)

imagine2014 · Post by **imagine2014** » Thu Oct 30, 2014 10:10 pm

3ee wrote:imagine2014, thanks for the pics... but don't take the simple view conversions too literally as they aren't intended as a precise emulation and they seem to need more fine-tuning.

Sure, I just wanted to point out that the knee character changes when you change ratios in the FET view.

3ee wrote:When will work on the 1176 emu, I'll probably have 3 patches
-a normal 4:1
-a harder one
-an All buttons in smash one)

Exactly what I would suggest. Looking forward to hear them in Presswerk. Keep up the good work!

u-he

KVR Audio

Presswerk patch/emulation area + inits