Cytomic 'The Glue' Compressor

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The Glue

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A quick news update: I've got a full simulation of the DIYRE G Bus compressor up and running, with the main audio path VCA using a full DBX202 model, and the sidechain VCA using an idealised model. Next week I'll write an article on the webpage, and include screenshots of the schematics, and have some audio examples, but here is an image of the DBX202 VCA that's in the main signal path that will be able to have every parameter of the entire thing customisable, so it can be perfectly matched, or randomised to have mismatches and so more drive:

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I've switched over to using KiCad, which is a much faster and more feature rich schematic editor, and it's taken a little while to get used to the new workflow. Once I got the simulation working in KiCad, it took a day or so to update CCS (Cytomic Circuit Solver) to parse the slightly different syntax KiCad uses for the .subckt command, but once I exported the netlist it simulated the full compressor first try. This is the largest ever circuit I've simulated in realtime, and it worked first time! The system of equations has 130 unknowns (voltages and currents), and so the matrix is 130x130 in size and looks like this:

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The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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130x130.. dude that's nuts!

Looking forward to trying this out. Very nice of you to expose the whole VCA. This will be able to give us some really interesting results I think.

Cheers!
bM
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle

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bmanic wrote: Sat Nov 01, 2025 8:19 pm 130x130.. dude that's nuts!

Looking forward to trying this out. Very nice of you to expose the whole VCA. This will be able to give us some really interesting results I think.

Cheers!
bM
I'm keen to have a listen to this as well to what changing the DBX202 values will do, hopefully there will be wide variety of tonal changes, from clean and matched through to more dirty and stereo. I'll also offer an "idealised" and perfect VCA like there is in The Glue.

One of the results if you randomise enough is silence (DC), as the DBX202 needs to be finely tuned! I'll most likely add an IC specific random number scaling so that you can reduce the randomisation applied to Integrated Circuits vs the rest of the components.
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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I am looking forward to V2 not only for it being a great sounding compressor plugin, but also for a tool to see what are the details that produce analog mojo. And I am totally ready to find out that I actually prefer "ideal" VCA.

One small question - what about noise? I read some texts on VCAs and it was said that early VCA models were very sensitive to the noise in the DC voltage. And the hybrid feedback/feedforward architecture of the SSL quad comp resulted in the audio VCA working off the very noisy control voltage. But I am not an electrical engineer, so...

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All this talk of ver 2 has finally got me round to buying this after using the one in Live all this time.

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Wow. Amazing stuff. Looking forward to this.

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I've got the full model processing audio, and it's sounding great! Here are the first audio examples of some drum loops, one with a very loud room, and with a very loud kick. The samples have Dry, Glue 1, Glue 2, Glue 1, Glue2 with settings as close as I can match them. I randomised all component values in the Glue 2 with 0.1% variation, and hand tuned the left and right symmetry (dc offset) of the DBX202.

From what I can tell there is a little more sizzle from the drive on The Glue v2, and also the attack transients have a little more natural sounding and fuller thump to them, which is especially evident in the second example where I deliberately exaggerate this with the compressor settings and using a loud kick sample.

Attack 1ms (8.2k), Release 0.2S (270k), Ratio 4
Loud Snare with lots of room sound
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/snare- ... -g1-g2.mp3
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/snare- ... -g1-g2.wav

Attack 30mS (270k), Release 0.1S (180k), Ratio 10
Loud Kick
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... -g1-g2.mp3
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... -g1-g2.wav
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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And this is the same kick example but switching between dry, Glue 1, Glue2 dbx202, Glue2 ideal

Attack 30mS, Release 0.1S, Ratio 10
Loud Kick
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... 2d-g2i.mp3
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... 2d-g2i.wav

This is the residual when you subtract the Glue 2 ideal from the Glue 2 dbx202 processing done above. This way you can hear what the full dbx202 is doing differently to an ideal VCA model with otherwise identical settings (with perfectly matched components in the dbx202):
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... sidual.mp3
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... sidual.wav
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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very impressive !
Decisions create art. Options create anxiety.

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Exciting. Thank you for sharing and your work on this in general. When can we give something a spin?
Aiynzahev-sounds
Sound Designer - Soundsets for Pigments, Repro, Diva, Virus TI, Nord Lead 4, Serum, DUNE2, Spire, and others

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Very excited and looking forward to the release ;)

Is there a chance that The Glue 2 will come to Ableton Live in any form later?

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kinkajou wrote: Mon Nov 10, 2025 12:54 pm Very excited and looking forward to the release ;)

Is there a chance that The Glue 2 will come to Ableton Live in any form later?
I am not licensing The Glue 2 to Ableton, much like I haven't licensed many of the circuits and non of the HD models of The Drop, but The Glue 2 will be a free update to everyone that purchased The Glue 1 from cytomic.com and still owns their license.

(edit: From Ableton's point of view it only makes sense to license lower cpu / less detailed models since built in devices need to not only run smoothly on people's studio machines, but also run on embedded / mobile devices like Push 3 / Move / Phones.)
Last edited by andy-cytomic on Wed Nov 12, 2025 12:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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Aiynzahev wrote: Mon Nov 10, 2025 12:45 pm Exciting. Thank you for sharing and your work on this in general. When can we give something a spin?
I don't know. These audio examples are from the first working prototype of the compressor and there is still lots of work to do for a beta version.
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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Here is a little example of deliberately adjusting the "symmetry" trim to get some cross-over distortion (a difference between positive and negative parts of the waveform so they don't quite match up in the amp when they switch), compared to the ideal VCA. You'll hear it as more "rattle" in the quieter parts of the drums, the main compression characteristic of the transients sounds pretty much the same:

Ideal, DBX, ideal, DBX
30ms Attack, 0.1S Release, Ratio 10, slamming compression
Loud Kick mismatched sym control
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... dbxsym.mp3
https://cytomic.com/files/forums/kick-l ... dbxsym.wav
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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Now that I've got a model up and running my next step is measuring each component and soldering together my kit DIY-RE G-Bus compressor, which is the main schematic I've based my model on. Before doing that I thought I'd have a quick comparison to my SA4000mk3 compressor with DBX202C recreations. Here is The Glue v2 compared to the SA4000mk3 both processing one of my favourite demos provided by fjolle from KVR, with basic threshold and makeup matching, but not detailed component level matching and since I don't have the schematic for the SA4000mk3. There will be differences in the two circuits, but the overall sound is definitely a match.

Attack 3mS, Release 0.3S, Ratio 4
SA4000mk3:
fjolle-doof-sa4km3-att3-rel0.3-rat4-b.wav
fjolle-doof-sa4km3-att3-rel0.3-rat4-b.mp3
Glue v2:
fjolle-doof-glue2-att3-rel0.3-rat4-b.wav
fjolle-doof-glue2-att3-rel0.3-rat4-b.mp3
Last edited by andy-cytomic on Fri Nov 21, 2025 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Glue, The Drop, The Scream - www.cytomic.com

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