Presswerk Public Beta

[Aiynzahev]

The sound reminds me of the ArtsAcoustics CL1 compressors, in a good way, because I love their sound.

This.

For me this is more of a problem than a good thing. In the "analogue" mode you can quite clearly hear the "flop flop" or whatever the way to describe the sound is when you are compressing hard, ticky, transients. It's a very particular sound and sounds like modulated allpass filter doing more harm than good.

The thing is, I've never heard this kind of sound on any analogue compressor. It's the same critique I gave the Arts Acoustic guys back in the day.

The positive effect of this method is that transients and things get really smeared in a good way but their shape is wrong or weird, causing the added "flop flop" sound. It's odd and quite distracting after a while.



I need to play a bit more with it but so far I prefer Presswerk with the Analogue button turned off. I've only used it on a few drumloops and stuff so it's very possible that it works wonders on vocals and other smoother sources, just like Arts Acoustic compressor suite.

Cheers!
bManic

I've always loved the CL series for that "artifact". Can't say presswork does the same thing though. I don't hear it so far.

[3ee]

you can hear the phase coloration easier when trying it on a basic saw low note.

Been playing with Presswerk for a while now and there are few things that I don't like about it...

The labeling for analog I simply don't like "ANLG" ..."anal" would also be a strange abbreviation I know...
Can it simply say "analog" or "phase" or "color" ?

Also, I'm not so sure of it's effect either, while it has some benefits, I usually tend to turn it off cause it's messing the sound too much in most cases... So I'll personally be happy to hear that the analog function had a bit more attention in the future.
For reference, I like the "trafo" coloration from bootsie's Thrillseeker VBL better?!
http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/201 ... t-limiter/

[Aiynzahev]

Oh wow it's really obvious on a saw you're right.

Actually I'm really happy to have the option as it's an effect I like sometimes.

I don't know why some processors do this. AA CL, Vengeance MB and now this.

It's stackable too. 7 Pressworks and I've got a proper zappy saw for a baseline.

It's an odd effect. I've spend a fair amount of time trying to figure it out. It really makes things sit nicely, but clearly screws up the sound a bit. This isn't such a problem in dance music though.

I know it's a phase effect. Maybe phase rotation and it is apparently the same effect used in radio stations.

[Aiynzahev]

First bar, 10 presswork's in total, 7 on the saw 3 on the master. Next bar none.

https://soundcloud.com/aiyn-zahev/presswork-out/s-2rF2L

Pretty interesting sound.

[aaron aardvark]

triple post, what is happening?

[aaron aardvark]

message deleted

[aaron aardvark]

double post

[3ee]

Hey Sami, a good idea (and it works with most convolution reverbs as they retain the phase, doesn't work with Waves IR) is to feed an impulse through the stacked effect and record it as an IR.

I'm working on an impulse response utility pack and I'll surely include this also.
In fact, I'm off right now to make some and post here asap.

[3ee]

Here's a small collection of Presswerk's IR samples: https://app.box.com/s/ju12ik91cjmm0khme5oo

1x
3x
5x
10x

Have the dry set to minimum in your convolution reverb (if you add the dry signal it will sound kinda like a static phaser effect)

[Synthetic Wav]

Oh wow it's really obvious on a saw you're right.

Actually I'm really happy to have the option as it's an effect I like sometimes.

I don't know why some processors do this. AA CL, Vengeance MB and now this.

It's stackable too. 7 Pressworks and I've got a proper zappy saw for a baseline.

It's an odd effect. I've spend a fair amount of time trying to figure it out. It really makes things sit nicely, but clearly screws up the sound a bit. This isn't such a problem in dance music though.

I know it's a phase effect. Maybe phase rotation and it is apparently the same effect used in radio stations.

you ear it in multiband , cause some can totally mess the phase with their crossover resulting in a simular sound. what do you mean with radio station? you may think to bbe sonic maximizer sound but really you don't want effect like this on all tunes,imo it's a crime to process great mixed tunes with stuff that are not transparent like this or these phase shift / crossovers sound ect

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

A few people have seemed to confuse the analog button as being some sort of high quality mode, when in fact, it's messing with phase. In order to avoid confusion in the final release, I'd suggest renaming the button. In fact, I'm not sure why "analog" would ever have been chosen as a name for this feature. The obvious assumption is that with analog turned off, the compressor is operating in a cleaner, "digital" mode, which just isn't the case here.

I'm not sure what a better name is for that button, but I think "analog" is misleading.

EDIT:

Perhaps just call the button "Allpass."

[zvenx]

BTW, I love the touch link controls. Elegant!

I on the other hand would have much preferred a link button/switch.
rsp

[kj.metissage]

ANLG is fine with me.

There is a manual, and people should read it if they're confused.

[3ee]

Found an easy "unique" way to always get easy and good compression with Presswerk.

unique in a sense that it takes advantage of the "exapnd" and auto-makeup gain feature.

Here's the starting point: 50/50% dry/wet, expand mode on, auto-makeup gain on, max about 4:1 ratio for starters

Setting the different parameters is a bit tricky since you can't really predict/think like using a normal compression because the expand mode mimics the inverted GR (shapes included it seems) ... but I found this way of using Presswerk special and easy with "dense" results

Here's a patch: https://app.box.com/s/rqqt0jvrdt4q2x9y92ev

[sascha]

A few people have seemed to confuse the analog button as being some sort of high quality mode, when in fact, it's messing with phase. In order to avoid confusion in the final release, I'd suggest renaming the button. In fact, I'm not sure why "analog" would ever have been chosen as a name for this feature. The obvious assumption is that with analog turned off, the compressor is operating in a cleaner, "digital" mode, which just isn't the case here.

I'm not sure what a better name is for that button, but I think "analog" is misleading.

EDIT:

Perhaps just call the button "Allpass."

Allpass is a technical term, and I suspect only more versed people know what it is doing (at least the term has a sex appeal of an old lady's surgical stockings). You basically don't need to know all this to operate a compressor successfully, that's why we chose a more familiar name.
One can argue whether this is analogue behaviour or not, but fact is analogue devices include phase shift to some extent.

With Presswerk, we let the phase shift act at certain tuning frequencies that we chose as to be good, to our ears and experience. The overall behaviour is pretty much as traditional phase rotation used in on-air processors: it reduces peak-to-peak excursions, best with asymmetrical sources such as the human voice or (acoustic) kick drums (on air is normally tuned to common fundamentals, we chose different frequencies due to the fact that we have the filter poles at different places). Transient reduction of 3 to 4dB is no problem without doing any volume compression / gain reduction.
A nice by-product is that the low end gets slightly 'bigger' (which is partly affected by ongoing gain reduction), and the sidechain catches lows faster than the main signal path, therfore the bass region stays under control. In contrast, the regular/digital mode treats all frequencies equally, which is okay if one wants it but not the way analog gear works.

One can also argue whether the ANLG mode is doing too much in some cases, but then it should be considered a 'flavour' switch; and you can always turn it off when the source doesn't ask for it. I personally like it for acoustic drums, and I could think of a thousand other sources. But I'm more a sound sculpturer and mixing guy than a mastering engineer...