Arts Acoustic CL Series compressors- no love?

[lordnielson]

I think these are some of the best plug comps I've heard.

I can however get close enough with existing ones to such an extent, that these are simply priced too high (for me).

[JeffSanders]

ArtsAcoustic raised the bar with their reverb (the first to get VST reverb right and still as good as the best reverb plugins). And they've worked the same standards with this plugin, imho. On par with any UAD compressors, imho.

[audiosabre]

I made a little noise about these on Arts Acoustic's little space on KVR. I do really like them; they're snappy and versatile. I think they are a little 'pricey', but I thought that about AAR when I bought it

I'll deffo be taking advantage of the upgrade offer for AAR users. I'm just waiting on 2 things: recovery of my bank balance & mouse wheel support for FL Studio. All in good time though, mac support is obviously more important at the minute, not that it affects me.

A little OT: replace the input saturation with an instance of soundtoys decapitator whilst you still have a chance (if you don't hate pace). Whilst the saturation in CL is cool, decapitator makes it really shine. It's effing brutal.

John

[eduardo_b]

Maybe there's oversaturation on the top-quality compressor market but maybe not the reverb market?

Probably not expensive enough.

[sellmestory]

I think AA deserves a salut.While we are drowning in VST compressors
emulating almost everything there is out there,AA comes up with the CL series compressor,and it sounds like.......nothing else out there.
Its great,its a tool,unik sound, congratulation AA ,well done.





sell

[Igro]

Sounds really common for me. Don't have this "WOW" effect. I know some freeware that sound the same. IMO.

[brok landers]

Sounds really common for me. Don't have this "WOW" effect. I know some freeware that sound the same. IMO.

??? taste is one thing, but here i beg to differ extremly ... i'd really love to hear any comparsion files that prooves your statement, as i personally think they sound not only awesomly analog, but also extremly unique ... and before someone comes up bashing me: yes, i am biassed as i work for artsacoustic, but that has nothing to do with my saying here ... i'd really like to hear any plugin that sounds comparable, especially on extreme settings ...

[visa tapani]

Not nearly versatile enough for my demanding dynamic processing needs, too expensive for my basic compression needs. I own and love AAR, but this product has next to no interest to me, even if it sounds good.

Still waiting for someone to do a really versatile dynamic processor (having for example detailed control over attack and release shapes). I can't understand why no developer fills in the gap while everyone just aims at the same oversaturated spot in the compressor market...

[contrary]

Not nearly versatile enough for my demanding dynamic processing needs, too expensive for my basic compression needs. I own and love AAR, but this product has next to no interest to me, even if it sounds good.

Still waiting for someone to do a really versatile dynamic processor (having for example detailed control over attack and release shapes). I can't understand why no developer fills in the gap while everyone just aims at the same oversaturated spot in the compressor market...

Wow !!
I read that thread VT , and I appreciate you obvious passion for getting into the details ( as opposed to those who only brave a quick stroll through the presets !!) . I'm in the middle ground here in that I have found that despite lots of understanding of the minute details of what happens in these processors ( hey , they coined the phrase "the devils in the details right !!) I don't always find that going all "white lab coat" and looking at a wave editor to see results on noise or sine waves is eaisly translated to real world , broadband signal or track sounds getting desired sound results .
I mean I sometimes get some good results when I don't analyize so much . ( and then It is good to try and nail down thw why and where ) . Like EQ without WYSIWYG displays , then close you eyes and listen to what you hear !.

So to try and tidy up my ramble ( no meds ; really )

I think you need to consider workflow too . I like the Flux true comp , but I couldn't use it because it should have a advanced panel too hide the more esoteric stuff . I mean it has every parameter that has ever existed on a comp , but you could end up twiddling away forever on it !! They should have an advanced panel !

I think the designers of the AA-cl
have tried to strike a balance between work-flow ( hence the different dll's ) and , haven't tried to make a jack of all trades unit out of it . They said they tried to emulate some of the mofo ( er mojo ) of some analog hwd units and get it into a vst.
Allot have never really messed around much with real analog stuff , so we end up having to take the word of those who have !!.


I'm still trying to decide if this comp will give a nice cost/effectivness ratio to my rig , which already has a comp or two in it. I don't know if it's priced right yet ; maybe a tad high , but not outrages (not exactly algorythmixs!!)


But I really like the approach they took , and the Gui is getting to be like a HABIT !!!





So we'll see !!

(rant over , now it's time for those meds !!)

[LiteOn]

Betatester over here, too.

Well, too me, the CL-series finally killed my UADs.

I think they're are absolutely great tools. Unique and lovely sounding, you'll have a very hard time to dial in any bad sounding settings. As a fine and very welcome add-on, when skipping the dedicated comp settings, it offers a nice saturator, too. The gui is in favor of my workflow needs (big knobs!).
And, it might not be that crucial any longer, have you noticed how little cpu cycles it eats??

As for the KVR noise/attention: I wouldn't be surprised if they had already sold much more copies to the KVR crowd than Lexicon with their PCM reverb.

I'm not affiliated with AA, btw..


Cheers,
LiteOn

[pdxindy]

Some people whose opinion I pay attention to say the Cl-series is the shit so when the mac version is available I will try for sure

[visa tapani]

I think you need to consider workflow too [...]
I think the designers of the AA-cl have tried to strike a balance between work-flow ( hence the different dll's ) and , haven't tried to make a jack of all trades unit out of it.

Absolutely, but I'm simply pointing out that they're striking roughly the same balance between workflow and versatility as pretty much every other compressor developer.

The majority of my compression needs are basic, where these compressors would surely more than suffice. Importantly for me, though, cheaper units generally do the trick there as well. Sometimes, however, I need to pull off a certain advanced dynamic processing trick, and if I simply can't do it, streamlined workflow is of little use. In these cases compressors are generally more of a sound design than mixing tool for me. For example in one composition I would've needed a compressor with a very steep exponential release curve. Couldn't find one, so I had to draw all the amplitude curves by hand for a load of really short sounds.

None of this is really a criticism towards these compressors, just kinda answering the OP's question from my part, in that why I'm not paying attention to these even if I'm in the market for compressors. But I suppose I'm not their target market anyway...

[4tune]

Really like these comps, but the price put me off. And I'm pretty happy with the t-racks opto comp at the moment.

The AA comps are the sort of plugs that I am 'glad are there' if I ever change my mind and find them worth it in the future.

- Good sound
- Useable GUI
- Good feature set
- Serial copy protection

[brok landers]

>snip<
- Serial copy protection

yes.

[eduardo_b]

Aren't there dozens of compressor plug-ins? New ones have to rise above the sea of ones already available, and being new might not be enough. Buyer fatigue.