Yes, exactly. Except the two don't sound anything like one another.badass_billy wrote:So in other words, it's like a distressor.plexuss wrote:Novatron apparently take the compression characteristics of a number of different compressors and offers a sort of blend or morph through their parameters as you sweep the controls.
I have a lot of experience with both, so I'd offer a few thing:
Both are excellent. But Arousor is not a Distressor clone - it can get close with careful setup but don't try matching settings, the ratios don't even correspond. 6:1 on Arousor best corresponds to 4:1 on the Distressor if my memory serves me well. Also, there's no Opto mode in Arousor as of yet.
Arousor is also all about control. Need to control peaks? It'll do it. Shape the perfect attack? It will do it. But at the same time, Arousor is easier to screw up. If you're new to compression, Arousor leaves you enough rope to hang yourself. Each ratio is basically it's own compressor, and there's a lot of ratios. And I'm serious. Different knees, slightly different gain staging, the difference between 2nd/3rd order harmonics change a bit, heck, the release shapes even change a bit. Arousor also has very wide attack and release ranges,, then there's the quirky mix knob implementation, attack mod, saturation, sidechain EQ's, etc. There's a lot there to get a handle on. It's top-shelf compression, no doubt, but it can be a bit much. On the other hand, it's a compressor toolbox and excellent.
Novatron, on the other hand, is all about the sweet spots for me. It's the easiest compressor I have to setup IMO. Any time I slap it on a track, I know it'll just work at it's default settings, and at that point it's just a question of good vs. better. If I'm mixing, I'll adjust it to "Mix" unless I'm looking for something more brutal. Want something dark? Set it to Dark? Airy. Set it to Airy. Then just adjust the compression level, give the attack and release a quick a spin (they seem to sound good everywhere), add a touch of the input transformer, drive the output tranny a bit. Everything is super intuitive.
I don't think either compressor really sounds like other compressors. Sure, both can get fast, but they're not as erratic as an 1176, and both can get smooth, but they're not quite an LA-2A (technically neither has an opto mode), and they can do snappy VCA style compression, but not exactly in that over-easy DBX way, and even at slow releases, Novatron never quite sounds like other Mu style compressors. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that both are offering compression flavors inspired by other pieces of gear, but each is very much their own thing. They don't even sound like each other.