Auburn Sounds releases Lens - Spectral Multi-band Compander (incl. Free Compressor)

[Andreya_Autumn]

I'm very impressed with this so far! Great job Guillaume.

[DJErmac]

One of the most promising developpers today. That’s just amazing work. Thank you so much.

[Guillaume Piolat]

Thanks. See the corresponding Gearspace thread for plenty of tips!

[chagzuki]

Just trying it out with the free version. How come there's no bypass button for A/Bing what it's doing? Using the host enable/disable causes delay compensation glitches.

[sokoleski]

anyone using this ?

Verdict ?

[sinkmusic]

anyone using this ?

Verdict ?

It's a very good one (like other Auburn plugins). It's easy to overdo it (so you shouldn't abuse it), and it's cpu-hungry and adds latency (so you won't use it on every track), but in a mastering situation it's a very interesting device (you can go light or bold, and it gives quite different results than other compressors, so it's a really nice tool to have i your arsenal).

[perpetual3]

I think this is a spectacular plugin. I use on busses and in mastering, always in a parallel configuration.

[MJACau]

I think the closest this plugin is to Melda's MSpectralDynamics or Baby's Smooth operator.
Lens is a powerful sleeper like tool.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Sleeper indeed.

[ispot]

Bought this yesterday, don't want to necro but this plugin is awesome and deserves more attention. Sounds friggin' nice and expensive if dialed in carefully. Like 5k hardware comp nice. If it had Weiss on it and costed 250bucks it probably would sell like hotcake One of the most innovating and clever plugin from last 2y imho, kudos auburn!

[perpetual3]

I totally agree. Boggles my mind the lack of hype.

[Andreya_Autumn]

Yeah, and while the expander section does sound nice, honestly most of the best features are in the free version. Outstanding plugin.

[bmanic]

Bought this yesterday, don't want to necro but this plugin is awesome and deserves more attention. Sounds friggin' nice and expensive if dialed in carefully. Like 5k hardware comp nice. If it had Weiss on it and costed 250bucks it probably would sell like hotcake One of the most innovating and clever plugin from last 2y imho, kudos auburn!

Weiss earned their reputation with good reason and it took a long time too.

No, it is not as simple as labeling it something else and it suddenly sounds "like 5k hardware comp nice" and sells like hotcakes.

I won't comment on the plugin itself as I don't have much to say about it (yes I've tried the plugin back when it was released) but their audio demos on the website are still the same as they were in the day and they are not at all impressive. On the contrary, they sound rather mediocre at best, to my ears. That is not a good way to sell things.

and it gives quite different results than other compressors, so it's a really nice tool to have i your arsenal.

This I can agree with and that does give it added value for sure, provided that you like the way that differing result sounds like (which is entirely subjective).

[perpetual3]

I use it exclusively in parallel.

Bought this yesterday, don't want to necro but this plugin is awesome and deserves more attention. Sounds friggin' nice and expensive if dialed in carefully. Like 5k hardware comp nice. If it had Weiss on it and costed 250bucks it probably would sell like hotcake One of the most innovating and clever plugin from last 2y imho, kudos auburn!

Weiss earned their reputation with good reason and it took a long time too.

No, it is not as simple as labeling it something else and it suddenly sounds "like 5k hardware comp nice" and sells like hotcakes.

I won't comment on the plugin itself as I don't have much to say about it (yes I've tried the plugin back when it was released) but their audio demos on the website are still the same as they were in the day and they are not at all impressive. On the contrary, they sound rather mediocre at best, to my ears. That is not a good way to sell things.

and it gives quite different results than other compressors, so it's a really nice tool to have i your arsenal.

This I can agree with and that does give it added value for sure, provided that you like the way that differing result sounds like (which is entirely subjective).

[Guillaume Piolat]

Hello,

Thanks for noticing Lens.
Lens is discounted on PluginBoutique right now!

Apparently it gets lot of use in podcast voice (I guess the multiband sound is desirable there) and as a bass compressor.

Users sometimes ask how to get more from Lens on the master bus, since it takes quite a bit of training to get consistently good results with it.

So this is a personal list of tips for the master bus.


The result is always coloured and rather transformative, this is not a surgical process.

I'd say for acoustic music: higher Comp Link Band will make it seem the instruments leave more space to each other, while lower Comp Link Band will "balance" them but they won't listen to each other as much.
For more electronic music, opening the Comp attacks will help smash later processors like clippers and limiters, it can help with punch.