Fabfilter Pro C2 vs Presswerk

[mholloway]

I own both.

I use Presswerk regularly. It's one of my go-to, frequently reached for tools. I love the UI, the sound, the workflow with it. Love it on drums and on bass, it's a key part of my rhythm section mixing.

I can't remember the last time I loaded up Pro-C2. I should probably sell it. I'm sure it's fine, but I have no need for it. Honestly it doesn't seem to do anything better than what I can achieve with Ableton's native compressor (for my needs, that is, so don't come at me with BUT IT HAS... ) other than I suppose slicker UI, but meh.

Presswerk is golden, imho.

[AdamWysokinski]

I've tried both, got TDR Kotelnikov GE.

[pekbro]

I have them both. IMHO, Presswerk is definitely a more comprehensive, flexible
and ultimately more interesting compressor than Pro C2.

However, if none of that particularly matters to you, I would certainly get Pro C2.
While IMO, it's not the finest compressor available, it definitely is not a bad one.
I doubt many would argue that it wasn't at least in the same league as any competition
they'd be willing to pit it against. While, in terms of shear visual feedback about
what it's actually doing to your audio, it's likely, 2nd to none. Add that to great sound,
precision, usability and efficiency, you can't really go wrong.

If what you want is a great, 'go to' compressor, Pro C2 is a fine choice and
certainly one of the best. Overall, Pro C2 ranks very high, make no mistake.

-Cheers

[epiphaneia]

I always hated compressors, as I never got anything useful out of any of them - and I tried literally dozens. Sometimes the sound bothered me, sometimes the GUI, sometimes I just couldn´t stretch things as far as I´d have liked to.

However, I still followed the advice of a friend to give Presswerk a try anyway, and I decided to buy it after 30 minutes of demo-ing. It´s transparent when I want it to, and it colors the sound drastically when I want it to.

It boils down to a question of taste/personal preference though. Fidelity wise, I hold Fabfilter in equally high regard as u-he.

[Caine123]

I got c2 now too... even i got already too many but it makes so much fun to also see what happens. Soundwise i dunno how transparent it is. I start to not give a cent anymore and concentrate more on workflow, fun. If i want to saturate i use some saturation plugins.

[timwest]

I love presswerk! The saturation section can make some delicious sounds! So sexy Pro-C, I'm guessing is good for the clean stuff.

[dangayle]

For what I do, I put Presswork on my master with VCA-type settings. For individual tracks, I tend to use one of the Glue (Ableton or Cytomic) compressors or Pro-C2. Pro-C2 mostly on vocals for some reason, like if I’m editing voice overs or podcasts. But to be honest, I don’t really get excited about using Pro-C2, even though I really really love Pro-L2.

[elxsound]

They are simply different tools...

I don't own Presswerk anymore, but I actually want to buy it back again.

Pro-C2 doesn't have saturation. This is the one of the biggest differences beyond the obvious UI. Pro-C2 has several different compression modes, which means different curves for attack/release, but it's not a 1:1 hardware emulation with modeled hardware saturation, so the different modes just affect the way it attacks and releases.

In addition to that they've added Auto Release (very useful and Presswerk does have an auto-adapt release), a "listen" mode to hear exactly what is being compressed, a stereo mode (so R/L can be compressed independently for dynamic stereo sources) and a number of other features for better controlling and visualizing how compression is applied. Overall, Pro-C2 is just a clean work-horse compressor.

I honestly think you need both, especially if you've already placed Presswerk with saturation, but realize you need more compression. Pro-C2 in series is great here.

[nicksohn]

analoguish work - presswerk
non-analoguish work - pro-c2

[plexuss]

analoguish work - presswerk
non-analoguish work - pro-c2

That's a good way to put it!

[MogwaiBoy]

Analog character isn't strictly about harmonics. Despite having a reputation for being comparatively "clean", Pro-C2 does actually have a lot of 'character' in the different style modes.

[sqigls]

the envelopes have character.

I'm tempted to think if you owned Presswerk and Pro-C2, you'd have all compression bases covered.
but my Dynamics plugin folder would tell a different story

it's like, an artist doesn't just have one red in their paintbox... it's good to have different shades on-hand

[jlgrimes11]

Fabfilter has a cleaner sound and imo a bit easier to get the hang of.

Can be used for anything but it isn't the best in terms of analog emulation (although would be great and more flexible than a typical VCA compressor as it is highly tweakable and visual). Probably best use is for sidechaining as you can easily get a visual feedback of what compressor is doing and usually wouldn't want coloration. Clean and Punch are my favorites for vocals. That said I usually use something colorful in conjunction with this on vocals. Mastering while I don't like for vocals sounds great for heavy drums using heavy settings. This compressor isn't known for color, but can sound great for drums with heavy handed settings, where a vintage sounding unit can start falling apart. This is a somewhat overlooked compressor as I think most people prefer color and probably rely on DAW compressor for surgical tasks but this is generally more tweakable than a DAW compressor. It is basically a Pro Q3 but for compression.


Presswerk is probably more tweakable especially in terms of saturation and has more control of feedback, rms size but it is pretty deep. It is kind of the diva of compressors. It does a better job of emulating la2as, 1176, Fairchild. I love the SSL channel preset (I'm not fond of most SSL Channel VST compressors but this one sounds great) Probably not as inspiring as using dedicated emulation but the vintage presets sound amazing IMO. The presets are almost necessary on this unit to get good starting points, but it also includes different GUIs, to make compressor easier to tame. This compressor is probably more versatile than the Fabfilter as it can do the analog as well as clean but fabfilter is better for surgical tasks mainly because of visualization. This compressor is sort of overlooked as well I think because of the complexity and that it doesn't do 1 to 1 emulations. But everything this does try to emulate I do enjoy the results.