Best bread and butter compressor (so far)?

[h66]

Easy to use, does what he should. Thanks

addendum: low cpu
(FL Studio)

[The Noodlist]

Acustica Tan?
Works well on buses and individual track.

[NinjaToon]

Low cpu? Zero Latency?

Pro c 2
Psp Twin L/old timer/fetpressor
Sonimus Tuco
Empirical Labs Arouser
Fuse VCL-4

Everyone is just gonna list every compressor ever made. You should probably specify your needs.

[FapFilter]

Which DAW do you use? Quite a few have very good ones.
I can vouch for ReaComp if you are on Reaper, but Logic's compressors are supposedly superb aswell.
Free, awesome, but not that light on your CPU: Kotelnikov

[The Noodlist]

Free, awesome, but not that light on your CPU: Kotelnikov

TDR Molotok, too. Try it on bass.

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I expected quite a few nods towards FF.

Klanghelm DC8C is a Swiss army knife.

[Qkimat]

There's a lot of amazing sounding compressors. However, some delightful sounding dynamic processors have a very specific tonal characteristic to them. Say, Fuse Audio stuff - great, but I wouldn't call them bread and butter. Any good FET compressor (eg. BRA, or PA FET style offerings), will do a lot for your drums, but I don't like them on vocals.
If I were to only use 1 compressor from now on, I would go with either MJUC, which sounds great on anything, but still has character, or the compressor in my DAW, as those tend to have a neutral sound, but can go from very fast to very slow.
If you're looking for an all around compressor as your main tool, get MJUC. It's just a very good compressor, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

[Jkist]

FAST compressor by Focusrite in "Detailed" mode. Doesn't have all sorts of crazy settings or UI or menus and stuff. Its simple, its easy to hear and see what exactly is happening, and it has all the basic controls you'd need. It also possesses no specific character of its own, so when just need compression and exactly that, thats exactly what it gives you.

[Passing Bye]

https://jonvaudio.com/fircomp/

[Trancit]

Easy to use, does what he should. Thanks

addendum: low cpu
(FL Studio)

Is there any reason you don´t use the Fruity Limiter??
For bread and butter stuff it´s already more than capeable of...

[fese]

Define “best”.

[cryophonik]

I thought FLS came with a compressor? That's probably going to be as bread-n-butter/low CPU as you could ask for.

[donkey tugger]

I thought FLS came with a compressor? That's probably going to be as bread-n-butter/low CPU as you could ask for.

https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3049/

Is about the same CPU, and it's great - very clean for when you want something unobtrusive. In fact don't know why the SenderSpike stuff doesn't get more lurve all round. All the plug-ins are top notch and verrry low CPU, but the tape sim and delay are also standouts.

[Havok]

DC8C 3 - incredibly flexible, fully featured compressor that sounds great, has easy and expert modes for when you just want to get something quickly or really get into the nitty gritty and tweak the hell out of it. Can do clean or coloured compression - and it only costs €23

https://klanghelm.com/contents/products/DC8C.html

[heavymetalmixer]

TDR Molotok. It has the basic controls of any compressor and a very good color inside. It's not CPU-light because of the sound quality but IMO the trade-off is worth it. Also, it allows to do side-chain compression.

The old Molot by Vlad G (Molotok's grandpa) is even more versatyle but also harder to use. I have both compressors mostly because they sound different in both compression and color.

TDR Kotelnikov. The complete opposite to Molotok as it's more complicated to use and it's as clean as you can get. Also, it was made as a mastering compressor so it's very smooth (dynamic-wise), and it can actually be used when mixing on individual tracks.

The three compressors are free, but not crappy-sounding at all.

[ShawnG]

Probably the one you already have in your DAW but you never think about actually using?