Presswerk beta compressor modes

[Ploki]

Any chance we might see those make a comeback?

i mean these

[lunardigs]

Interesting ...
The Presswerk beta was before my time, so I never saw any of this.
I wonder if these models are in the final product somehow?

[dangayle]

Those would be cool

[sascha]

Won't happen.

Towards the end of the beta we've voted against these modes. While one could get in the ballpark of emulating some hardware devices, it never was spot-on. Not because we couldn't do it but more because the plugin is a building-block approach to all kinds of compression tasks and signal-routing & processing layouts.
If we were to imitate a certain unit 100% we'd have to go a different route, and omit the idea of having a 'compression toolkit'. You can have it one way or the other, but not both concepts. This just became morer obvious in the beta, thus the decision.

You can still emulate all kinds of devices with Presswerk to a certain extent, and we still encourage that somewhat, but you'd still end up with the plugin's own sonic DNA. Which we still find a good thing, as much as its general UI and the workflow-specialized 'views' we added thereafter.

[Ploki]

thanks for the insight sascha

Any sneak-peeks on what can we expect in the future of Presswerk?
It's still my favourite compressor by far. Desert-island thing If i could only keep one, it would be Presswerk without hesitation.

[sascha]

Sure we have already filed feature requests and potential improvements etc., but that applies to all products of our catalogue. Thing is, we can only work on a small amount of projects at a time, and this is a very special time right now.

[dangayle]

Won't happen.

Towards the end of the beta we've voted against these modes. While one could get in the ballpark of emulating some hardware devices, it never was spot-on. Not because we couldn't do it but more because the plugin is a building-block approach to all kinds of compression tasks and signal-routing & processing layouts.

I don’t get the difference between these and the other models you have. Is it that these two look like specific real world models and the ones you kept are generic? Or is it application, e.g., you created models by application (vocals, drums, etc) instead of by topology/technology?

[lunardigs]

To me, looks like the top image is suppose to be a Teletronix LA-2A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LA-2A_Leveling_Amplifier
The bottom image, a UA 1176: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1176_Peak_Limiter

[Ploki]

Won't happen.

Towards the end of the beta we've voted against these modes. While one could get in the ballpark of emulating some hardware devices, it never was spot-on. Not because we couldn't do it but more because the plugin is a building-block approach to all kinds of compression tasks and signal-routing & processing layouts.

I don’t get the difference between these and the other models you have. Is it that these two look like specific real world models and the ones you kept are generic? Or is it application, e.g., you created models by application (vocals, drums, etc) instead of by topology/technology?

i guess that during beta, going "emulation" way would make the "mothership" Presswerk to complicated for any practical use, so they abandoned the concept and went with the "ballpark" models to keep flexibility, fwiw simplicity, and ability to go from "macros" back to the mothership page.

[Urs]

The reasoning is as follows:

Presswerk's macro modes use the underlying engine of Presswerk, but nothing else. Such that, as is with Presswerk now, one can switch from a specialized mode to the full Presswerk feature set and get the very same sound. The same is true for the beta modes.

Now, by showing these modes in a way reminiscent to vintage hardware, people would expect these modes to sound identical to the hardware. But they don't - simply also because Presswerk does not adhere to the limitations of back-then technology (e.g. why stop at 2 follower stages when you can have 6?). Hence, to pre-empt the false impression that Presswerk somehow emulates those vintage compressors, we removed the visual equivalence of these modes.

In other words: We didn't want to deceive you ("woah, I expected this to sound identical to a LA2A") - even though we thought in good faith that the imagery would help using Presswerk ("Hey, this looks like a LA2A, so it serves the same function and is operated the same way").

[dangayle]

The reasoning is as follows:

Presswerk's macro modes use the underlying engine of Presswerk, but nothing else. Such that, as is with Presswerk now, one can switch from a specialized mode to the full Presswerk feature set and get the very same sound. The same is true for the beta modes.

Now, by showing these modes in a way reminiscent to vintage hardware, people would expect these modes to sound identical to the hardware. But they don't - simply also because Presswerk does not adhere to the limitations of back-then technology (e.g. why stop at 2 follower stages when you can have 6?). Hence, to pre-empt the false impression that Presswerk somehow emulates those vintage compressors, we removed the visual equivalence of these modes.

In other words: We didn't want to deceive you ("woah, I expected this to sound identical to a LA2A") - even though we thought in good faith that the imagery would help using Presswerk ("Hey, this looks like a LA2A, so it serves the same function and is operated the same way").

Thanks for the explanation. That does make sense.

[lunardigs]

There's plenty of LA-2A emulations anyway. It's better that Presswerk is something novel.