What can rival the Sonalksis SV-315 compressor in 2020?

[Shane Sanders]

I'm totally not hip to the developer scene and how things are connected in terms of intellectual property...so, TDR is where the guy who did the Variety of Sound plugins went to go commercial?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

I'm totally not hip to the developer scene and how things are connected in terms of intellectual property...so, TDR is where the guy who did the Variety of Sound plugins went to go commercial?

Bootsie is the Variety of Sound guy. He worked with TDR on one plugin, but he's not a regular part of the crew. The regulars are Fabien and VladG.

[Shane Sanders]

I'm totally not hip to the developer scene and how things are connected in terms of intellectual property...so, TDR is where the guy who did the Variety of Sound plugins went to go commercial?

Bootsie is the Variety of Sound guy. He worked with TDR on one plugin, but he's not a regular part of the crew. The regulars are Fabien and VladG.

The plot thickens! Thanks for the info. It's almost like we need a family tree for all this stuff.

[JerGoertz]

I'm no compressor expert, but maybe give U-He Presswerk a try. It's flexible and good-sounding, from what I've heard.

[jens]

Like I would claim amp sims are about as good hardware , in some cases better(less noise, morr features).

Which I think is true. Bluecat Destructor for instance surpasses the dynamic behaviour you can get out of a real amp.

[MogwaiBoy]

I would say DMG based on Sonalksis' genealogy - although I don't own either the Sonalksis or DMG comps.

Sonalksis were way ahead of their time doing true 64-bit.

Their GUIs could really use an update.

[pinki]

Im a huge fan of the SV315. I use it everyday on every project. It has a sound I adore.
But I had no idea DMG are led by the guy who coded It...heading there now.

[chagzuki]

Let me know what you think of it, pinki. I'm going to try out the demo but with my current machine I don't have the sonalksis plugin on that for a proper comparison.

[bmanic]

Current state software comps are about as good hardware, in some cases better (less noise, more features). Dave Gamble coded the SV-315 and he's the guy behind DMG Audio, so the DMG Audio's TrackComp2 is probably a good starting point.

Let's not misrepresent history here. Dave did NOT code the original SV-315 compressor.. that was all Sonalksis original team that created the back then revolutionary plugins SV-315 and the EQ (whatever SV that was called).

Dave only joined Sonalksis later and coded the "one knob" plugins and as far as I know, the Gate plugin.

He did however help bring out the Mk2 versions as I recall, but didn't actually touch the original algorithms behind them.

DMG Audio is this NOT some kind of spiritual successor to Sonalksis nor it's founding roots. Two different companies and very different strategies/ideas.

I'm sure Dave himself can elaborate on all this.

@chagzuki: Dynamics processing has moved along tremendously in the past 15 years. In my opinion the current pinnacle of clean compression (which SV-315 did very well) is Unisum from Tone Projects (who also had plugins you may remember from back in the day, under the name OtiumFX. The plugins were Compadre: Beat Puncher and Sonitex STX-1260).

You've also got the famous Weiss DS compressor in plugin format available through Softube.

Then of course awesome free option is TDR Kotelnikov and the very affordable Gentlemans Edition of that same compressor. Both represent the absolute cream of the crop in terms of dynamics processing.

For "mojo" you have tons and tons of options.

[chagzuki]

Yes, I remember OtiumFX, and Compadre. I think generally clean is what I'm after... back in the 2000s most developers assumed that in order to make compressors sound less sterile the trick was to add valve saturation emulation (and there were loads of variants of that, IMO none of them sounding particularly good), but I think Sonalksis showed that that wasn't really what was lacking in software compressors, rather it was the dynamic behaviour... and I have no idea what it was in a technical sense that Sonalksis nailed, but the dynamic behaviour was organic, and like a coiled spring. Exactly what you need to make something sound sonically like you're trying to hold down a wild animal... hard to put into words.

The youtube explanation of the TDR Kotelnikov looks very promising.

[AudioAlien]

Dave has come a long way since the Sonalksis SV-315,
Track comp is a good example.

[pinki]

Interesting stuff.
Thanks for clarifying bmanic.
To be honest once I find a ‘holy grail’ plugin I just stick with it. I see no reason to change nor carry on the search. It just makes everything sound better in a truly powerful way. It comes down to personal preference for sure...but I cannot imagine anything better.

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Current state software comps are about as good hardware, in some cases better (less noise, more features). Dave Gamble coded the SV-315 and he's the guy behind DMG Audio, so the DMG Audio's TrackComp2 is probably a good starting point.

Let's not misrepresent history here. Dave did NOT code the original SV-315 compressor.. that was all Sonalksis original team that created the back then revolutionary plugins SV-315 and the EQ (whatever SV that was called).

Dave only joined Sonalksis later and coded the "one knob" plugins and as far as I know, the Gate plugin.

He did however help bring out the Mk2 versions as I recall, but didn't actually touch the original algorithms behind them.

DMG Audio is this NOT some kind of spiritual successor to Sonalksis nor it's founding roots. Two different companies and very different strategies/ideas.

I'm sure Dave himself can elaborate on all this.

How sure are you of that?

Left for Sonalksis, built all their shipping products (except CQ1 and DQ1), although I’d built tbk1 years before and they’d been selling it.

From: https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/20 ... ve-gamble/

[bmanic]

I'm absolutely 100% sure of it. That blog post is incorrect (strange how Dave according to that got it slightly wrong too. I mean, he did work on the mk2 versions but not on the actual algorithms, the originals).

The original Sonalksis products were SV-517 EQ and SV-315 Compressor. Then they came out a few years later with the CQ1 and DQ1 multiband/dynamic equalizer. After that I assume is the time Dave joined Sonalksis and helped bring out the mk2 versions of the two original plugins.. and add additional plugins like the gate and all those with a single knob. He also made the dither and stereo widening plugin thing.

The actual algorithms from the EQ and Compressor remained unchanged but probably got some internal improvements by Dave (this is pure speculation on my part though). I know the compressor got external sidechain capabilities in the mk2 version.

I had some email correspondence with the original coder back in the day.. unfortunately I can't check the emails as they are long gone (was before I had gmail available so probably on my university email account).

[Ploki]

Other excellent compressors on a similar analog modeled trip: Kush Audio (Novatron, AR-1), UAD (if you have the expensive hardware), Fuse Audio, Black Rooster Audio, DDMF's MDE and Pulsar's Mu are also excellent. Unisum is a clean, mastering-grade, style compressor but has a depth and just gorgeous sound that makes it incredible across the two-buss.

Lots of really just incredible stuff out there if you know where to look.

Just a note on Unisum: driven hard with Hygge enabled can make it less "clean" and pretty naughty.

I'm using Groovy Mu mode preset as a starting point with Hygge to replace Mu until pulsar fixes NaN bug. Which is another compressor i also love.
Fuse Audio VCL-515, and in general his tube / Mu comps are super unique and very flavourful. love them.
and u-he Presswerk... often underappreciated for some reason.