ReaComp vs every other compressor plug in ever?

[ghostwhistler]

Was thinking about getting a cheap license transfer for a different compressor, possibly one of the arturia ones having demoed them.

But do they do anything or sound better than ReaComp? I don't have any other compressors and not sure I need any?

(Reacomp is Reaper's stock compressor)

[Igro]

ReaComp is very good clean comp. It sounds on par with Melda MDynamics and FruityLimiter. If you need a transparent comp, it will do the job.

[martiu]

Reacomp is excellent and very efficient also, stay with it and be happy

[yzcoruhT]

FL Studio user here: I don't think that Fruity Limiter is good compressor. In my opinion is ReaComp much better stock plugin. I like some Patcher preset "Compressor plugins" made with FL Studio stock plugins (Buss Compressor made by Frank Pole ), but Limiter itself? On the other hand, I use only this Patcher preset, Sonimus TuCo (the only payware compressor), FAST Compressor (part of FAST bundle - "a gift" in past) and free FirComp. All I want and need.

REAPER has great stock plugins. Much better quality than FL Studio in my opinion.

ReaComp? Top notch free compressor. But I'm just hobbyist.

[ghostwhistler]

ReaComp is very good clean comp. It sounds on par with Melda MDynamics and FruityLimiter. If you need a transparent comp, it will do the job.

What do you mean by transparent?

Arturia has three different compressor plug ins modelling individual devices. I don't know enough about compressors to know if there are fundamental differences between them (in the way, eg, a phaser and a chorus are different) and I don't really want to own all three. Surely one decent compressor plug in is enough?

Reacomp seems good, i've used it thus far. I have a sidechain preset. It's all good

[Igro]

FL Studio user here: I don't think that Fruity Limiter is good compressor. In my opinion is ReaComp much better stock plugin. I like some Patcher preset "Compressor plugins" made with FL Studio stock plugins (Buss Compressor made by Frank Pole ), but Limiter itself? On the other hand, I use only this Patcher preset, Sonimus TuCo (the only payware compressor), FAST Compressor (part of FAST bundle - "a gift" in past) and free FirComp. All I want and need.

REAPER has great stock plugins. Much better quality than FL Studio in my opinion.

ReaComp? Top notch free compressor. But I'm just hobbyist.

I meant a compressor part of the FruityLimiter. I tested with the ReaComp side by side. Sounded identical, cuz both are strictly digital compressors.

[concealed identity]

ReaComp is very good clean comp. It sounds on par with Melda MDynamics and FruityLimiter. If you need a transparent comp, it will do the job.

What do you mean by transparent?

Arturia has three different compressor plug ins modelling individual devices. I don't know enough about compressors to know if there are fundamental differences between them (in the way, eg, a phaser and a chorus are different) and I don't really want to own all three. Surely one decent compressor plug in is enough?

Reacomp seems good, i've used it thus far. I have a sidechain preset. It's all good

There are people who love collecting compressor plugins, because they all work slightly differently and have their own different ways of subtly coloring the sound ("transparent" means it colors the sound less, which in some cases is more desirable).

As someone who collects way too many plugins, here's the advice I can give:

1) If ReaComp is doing everything you want it to, then stick with that. There's nothing better than a plugin that you know how to use well and gives you the results you want.

2) You still MIGHT want to look at other plugins just to see what they do differently and maybe give yourself some more creative options. You can demo the Arturia ones if you want to keep it simple and not spend a lot of time trying out others.

3) However, there are a ton of good, free compressor plugins out there. TDR Kotelnikov and Molotok, a few different Acustica ones (Grey and Tan2), DC1A and MJUC jr. by Klanghelm, the plugins that do compression in the free ToneBoosters v3 plugin collection, a few by Variety of Sound (ThrillseekerLA comes to mind), RoughRider3 by Audio Damage, and I'm sure loads of others that I'm forgetting. So you might just want to try a bunch of free ones, see if they do anything for you or convince you need to look deeper, and take it from there.

TLDR; you're good with ReaComp. You just might want to look at some others to expand your creative palate if that's something you want to do.

[yzcoruhT]

FL Studio user here: I don't think that Fruity Limiter is good compressor. In my opinion is ReaComp much better stock plugin. I like some Patcher preset "Compressor plugins" made with FL Studio stock plugins (Buss Compressor made by Frank Pole ), but Limiter itself? On the other hand, I use only this Patcher preset, Sonimus TuCo (the only payware compressor), FAST Compressor (part of FAST bundle - "a gift" in past) and free FirComp. All I want and need.

REAPER has great stock plugins. Much better quality than FL Studio in my opinion.

ReaComp? Top notch free compressor. But I'm just hobbyist.

I meant a compressor part of the FruityLimiter. I tested with the ReaComp side by side. Sounded identical, cuz both are strictly digital compressors.

I got the point. In my opinion compressor part of Fruity Limiter is not as good as ReaComp. But 1000 people, 1000 opinions.

[vitocorleone123]

Try Trackcomp2 and Pro-C2 for some very different compressors.
Not free, though.

[EfreetiSultan]

dan worall made a good video about reacomp. he compared it to other compressors. it seems it can do pretty much anything. Perhaps the best stock compressor there is?
Since I have the fabfilter bundle I havent used any other compressor other than Pro-C2 since it can do everything every other compressor can do.. But reacomp seems preeetty close to C2. Pretty much only the UI is different.. soundwise they probably are identical. I say "probably" and "close" as Ive not personally nulled them to test this. But im 99% sure with settings matched they would null completely.

[Danilo Villanova]

ReaComp is super dope. If you use oversampling it gets snapier transients and a better overal sound.

But some freebies available are top notch and it might get you "there" quicker. Why try to copy the curves of a LA2A plus the saturation when you can just use an LA2A?

TDR Molotok adds some great saturation and its attack is super snappy. TDR Kotelnikov has M/S processing, dual release time and a lot of other tricks that ReaComp can't do. FirComp is possibly one of the best compressors ever, software or hardware. And the free Acustica comps mentioned earlier add tons of analog vibe and preamp emulation that is VERY hard for other plugins to imitate.

ReaComp plus freebies is basically all you need. Also, don't sleep on the JS plugins that come with REAPER. The 1176 is as good as IK Black 76 (did some tests).

[JerGoertz]

You can get Softube VCA compressor free with any purchase at audiodeluxe until June 30. AFAIK this is a pretty good one.

[kritikon]

Compressors pretty much all sound very similar unless your obsession lies with compression. There are better ways to spend your money on plugins IMO. Definitely there can be differences, but using 2 different synths will give you a huge amount more difference than same synth with 2 different comps. There's also a lot of advertising and hype about things like saturation etc. You have to really hit a compressor to get any amount of saturation you can actually hear. I still occasionally use my old LA4C when I want to really scrunch things up or do some character heavy bass compression or fancy frequency specific compression but if I'm really honest - at normal compression levels I can't hear the difference. At all. So I use stock plugin compression 90% of the time and am perfectly happy with it.

I tend to use TDR Kotelnikov rather than stock Cubase ones but that's more for the features, such as delta for actually hearing the compressed portion and for choice of RMS, peak etc, fancy shaping options etc. But again...for a couple neat digital dB gentle squishing of an every day synth sound or even already-processed drum samples...not enough audible difference to waste your money on fancy comps. The point of difference where the average punter is going to hear the difference is something like slamming a drum buss to smithereens. And that's more akin to outright distortion, which is not my thing. Also GUI makes a difference - compression can be a lot more intuitive if a GUI clicks well, so I have to admit GUI is part of my reason for using Kotelnikov too (and I have to say that Reacomp GUI is fugly in the extreme...where's the barf emoji?)

From what you say...stick with Reacomp, save your money. I use Cubase and it has several compressors, most of which I don't even use. I have 3 hw compressors from years back and I don't even use 2 of those because the hassle just isn't worth it for infinitesimal gains. Not saying these fancy comps don't do thing ever so slightly differently, but unless you're obsessed with it I suspect you just won't hear it. TBH I class Eq in the same bucket. Most differences are down to q settings rather than actual sonic difference. Give me 3dB Eq gain at identical width on 5 different plugins and I have no idea that they're not the same. Desks are obvsly different - mostly because of q at normal usage.

[lobanov]

A better / more special / the best compressor... This route is very, very dangerous. You are running to risk of getting bogged down to infinite demoing of new models from different developers.

Do you really need a better compressor? May be, yes. But only if 1) you cannot achieve something with the compressor which 2) you really know and 3) use all the time (in your case it's ReaComp). All three points are important.

[t.o.t.s.]

reacomp is great if you are staying in reaper. im on a few dif platforms so i prefer to use 3rd party stuff to keep a somewhat consistent workflow across DAWS. as such i tend to use Pro-C2 for a utility comp the most. Because I teach this stuff for my 9-5 I'm always looking at potential free options for students. Some of the ones I like (and others have mentioned as well) would be 1) Bertom Voice Compressor 2) TDR Molotok 3) TDR Kotelnikov 4) Klanghelm DC1A 5) Klanghelm MJUCjr 6) TDR Nova in wide band mode. 7) Melda MCompressor.

A lot of times some comps can sound similar but present different workflows which can be valuable. Other times they can add some saturation which can be nice or pump in interesting ways. I've got a grotesque number of comps i keep installed (49 currently)but this is also because i love nitpicking the details and differences between them and because im doing everyday it also keeps me from getting bored. Reacomp is a great comp and honestly, if they released VST3 and AAX versions of it I'd be plenty happy to use it everywhere.