Any other compressors comparable to DC8C-2 (w/sidechain)?

[fese]

Thanks, seems to be what I'm looking for - an easy to use "agressive" compressor to push my electronic drums hard. I'm OK with it being an one trick pony, I have DC8C for flexibility. How it is CPU-wise?

Not that good as it works with four times oversampling all the time, but less CPU than DC8C with 4xOS.
On my Core i5-3570k@3.8GHz in Cubase5 32bit with 256 samples the ASIO Meter jumps up ~4-5% when I enable it. But then it includes a quite nice saturation/distortion.
For dbx160-type compressors, there's also the Stillwell "Major Tom", which is also a nice "inspired by" comp, less flexible than c165a but therefore easier to use, no saturation but much snappier. Cost is nearly twice the c165a ($49 afaik).

I don't have or know the original dbx, but could compare them to the UAD dbx160.
The c165a sounds more like tha UAD, but less snappy. The "major tom" sounds less like the UAD, but is at least as snappy. The DC8C with the "-160db" presets sounds "like-ish" .
Just for funsies, I ran a drumloop through all of them, real quick and dirty,
so not painstakingly gainmatched or with matched settings (not really possible anyway)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing

[momalle3]

Stillwells rocket is extremely fast, ads distortion if you like and can be sidechained.

[musikmachine]

Compassion is really fantastic. It has a bunch of really good presets and character mods that make it easy to use. The graph shows you the effect of the compression with unique clarity. It's incredible versatile, sounds great, but is very expensive

I liked the dc8c a lot and bought it, but in use I found it buggy and CPU intensive, to the point where I didn't want to use it. One of the reasons I bought compassion was that it had the great flexibility, but was rock solid. The interface in dc8c is charming. I think in the future it's going to be really great.

IMHO the best alternative to dc8c, price wise, is the TDR feedback compressor. But compassion has a very good demo ...

Thanks for the insight, downloaded the demo. I'll trial it alongside DC8C when i get it but it gives me something to work with in the meantime.

TDR is nice but it doesn't external sidechain afaict. Very transparent bus compressor though but the punch of DC1A on drums makes me want to get my hands on DC8C and see what else it can do.

[momalle3]

Compassion is really fantastic. It has a bunch of really good presets and character mods that mak

Thanks for the insight, downloaded the demo. I'll trial it alongside DC8C when i get it but it gives me something to work with in the meantime.

TDR is nice but it doesn't external sidechain afaict. Very transparent bus compressor though but the punch of DC1A on drums makes me want to get my hands on DC8C and see what else it can do.

With Compassion, make sure you try out the "mods" button. It's in the preset browser near the top left corner. Click on "mods" and check that out--you'll love it.

The conventional controls in compassion--threshold, ratio, attack, release are straightforward. All the subtle stuff is in the advanced controls. They change when you choose a different MOD, but there are so many mod options that it's hard to figure which one to pay attention too.

There's a guy at Gearslutz who has made a bunch of good presets that emulate other software compressors:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... tions.html

I really liked the NI Vari-Comp, but I like his emulation of it on Compassion better

[musikmachine]

Thanks, seems to be what I'm looking for - an easy to use "agressive" compressor to push my electronic drums hard. I'm OK with it being an one trick pony, I have DC8C for flexibility. How it is CPU-wise?

Not that good as it works with four times oversampling all the time, but less CPU than DC8C with 4xOS.
On my Core i5-3570k@3.8GHz in Cubase5 32bit with 256 samples the ASIO Meter jumps up ~4-5% when I enable it. But then it includes a quite nice saturation/distortion.
For dbx160-type compressors, there's also the Stillwell "Major Tom", which is also a nice "inspired by" comp, less flexible than c165a but therefore easier to use, no saturation but much snappier. Cost is nearly twice the c165a ($49 afaik).

I don't have or know the original dbx, but could compare them to the UAD dbx160.
The c165a sounds more like tha UAD, but less snappy. The "major tom" sounds less like the UAD, but is at least as snappy. The DC8C with the "-160db" presets sounds "like-ish" .
Just for funsies, I ran a drumloop through all of them, real quick and dirty,
so not painstakingly gainmatched or with matched settings (not really possible anyway)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing

Cool, i was wondering about the cpu of C165a too. But which is which of the demos? Also what cpu hit are you getting with DC8C and can is it capable of similarly aggressive compression when needed?

Nevermind, it says right at the top! Lets just say my focus aint the best sometimes.

[musikmachine]

Compassion is really fantastic. It has a bunch of really good presets and character mods that mak

Thanks for the insight, downloaded the demo. I'll trial it alongside DC8C when i get it but it gives me something to work with in the meantime.

TDR is nice but it doesn't external sidechain afaict. Very transparent bus compressor though but the punch of DC1A on drums makes me want to get my hands on DC8C and see what else it can do.

With Compassion, make sure you try out the "mods" button. It's in the preset browser near the top left corner. Click on "mods" and check that out--you'll love it.

The conventional controls in compassion--threshold, ratio, attack, release are straightforward. All the subtle stuff is in the advanced controls. They change when you choose a different MOD, but there are so many mod options that it's hard to figure which one to pay attention too.

There's a guy at Gearslutz who has made a bunch of good presets that emulate other software compressors:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-co ... tions.html

I really liked the NI Vari-Comp, but I like his emulation of it on Compassion better

Alright, very nice stuff. I'm thinking sidechain; pffft!

I'm more focused on bus compression now for tight and punchy drums. If DC8C is trading blows with Compassion i'll be just fine i think, it's out of my budget now so i'll get DC8C and test it it out, if it's badly behaving or whatever i'll revisit things.

The mod options are a bit overwhelming but the models sound very good and the demonstrate the mods effectively so well thought out.

Anyway, i'll be compressing with a big smile on my face tomorrow.

Cheers!

[musikmachine]

Actually it's not all that bad, i'd have to read the manual to understand how the advanced controls are affecting things exactly. I've got to give Studio Ones' compressor it's due though, i was able to achieve a better pumping effect with it than Compassion but maybe i need to tweak it a bit to achieve the same results.

I've never gone this deep with compressors but it's been interesting. I've got no point of reference with hardware the emulations are based on but hearing the difference between a good compressor and a great compressor has been a bit of a revelation.

[recursive one]

Thanks, seems to be what I'm looking for - an easy to use "agressive" compressor to push my electronic drums hard. I'm OK with it being an one trick pony, I have DC8C for flexibility. How it is CPU-wise?

Not that good as it works with four times oversampling all the time, but less CPU than DC8C with 4xOS.
On my Core i5-3570k@3.8GHz in Cubase5 32bit with 256 samples the ASIO Meter jumps up ~4-5% when I enable it. But then it includes a quite nice saturation/distortion.
For dbx160-type compressors, there's also the Stillwell "Major Tom", which is also a nice "inspired by" comp, less flexible than c165a but therefore easier to use, no saturation but much snappier. Cost is nearly twice the c165a ($49 afaik).

I don't have or know the original dbx, but could compare them to the UAD dbx160.
The c165a sounds more like tha UAD, but less snappy. The "major tom" sounds less like the UAD, but is at least as snappy. The DC8C with the "-160db" presets sounds "like-ish" .
Just for funsies, I ran a drumloop through all of them, real quick and dirty,
so not painstakingly gainmatched or with matched settings (not really possible anyway)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing

Thanks for the demos! DC8C 2 sounds more or less close to Major Tom, and both are very different from UAD. C165a is much closer. The UAD and the C165a examples are what I liked the best, they are slightly different but equally good to my ears.

It's no good news that C165a is so hungry. I almost don't use DC8C for agressive compression because appropriate settings make it drain my CPU like a crazy, which is a further reason why I seek for another compressor for that.

[fese]

Thanks for the demos! DC8C 2 sounds more or less close to Major Tom, and both are very different from UAD. C165a is much closer. The UAD and the C165a examples are what I liked the best, they are slightly different but equally good to my ears.

It's no good news that C165a is so hungry. I almost don't use DC8C for agressive compression because appropriate settings make it drain my CPU like a crazy, which is a further reason why I seek for another compressor for that.

Well, I don't think you will use more than one or two instances of c165a per project, so it's manageable.

[musikmachine]

Thanks, seems to be what I'm looking for - an easy to use "agressive" compressor to push my electronic drums hard. I'm OK with it being an one trick pony, I have DC8C for flexibility. How it is CPU-wise?

Not that good as it works with four times oversampling all the time, but less CPU than DC8C with 4xOS.
On my Core i5-3570k@3.8GHz in Cubase5 32bit with 256 samples the ASIO Meter jumps up ~4-5% when I enable it. But then it includes a quite nice saturation/distortion.
For dbx160-type compressors, there's also the Stillwell "Major Tom", which is also a nice "inspired by" comp, less flexible than c165a but therefore easier to use, no saturation but much snappier. Cost is nearly twice the c165a ($49 afaik).

I don't have or know the original dbx, but could compare them to the UAD dbx160.
The c165a sounds more like tha UAD, but less snappy. The "major tom" sounds less like the UAD, but is at least as snappy. The DC8C with the "-160db" presets sounds "like-ish" .
Just for funsies, I ran a drumloop through all of them, real quick and dirty,
so not painstakingly gainmatched or with matched settings (not really possible anyway)

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_5TrRB ... sp=sharing

Thanks for the demos! DC8C 2 sounds more or less close to Major Tom, and both are very different from UAD. C165a is much closer. The UAD and the C165a examples are what I liked the best, they are slightly different but equally good to my ears.

It's no good news that C165a is so hungry. I almost don't use DC8C for agressive compression because appropriate settings make it drain my CPU like a crazy, which is a further reason why I seek for another compressor for that.

Yeah of all those i liked the C165a the best! DC8C is squashing the transients a bit too much but i thought i read it was possible to emulate the dbx quite closely?

So what is cpu hit like with DC8C? It's not really something i'd considered until you mentioned it.

Cheers.

[fese]

Yeah of all those i liked the C165a the best! DC8C is squashing the transients a bit too much but i thought i read it was possible to emulate the dbx quite closely?

Well, I just loaded the -db160-presets and tweaked the main controls, so with more tweaking perhaps

So what is cpu hit like with DC8C? It's not really something i'd considered until you mentioned it.

Depends on the oversampling. Can be set from "none" (quite good CPU behavior imo) to "8x" (insane CPU hit of course). I usually leave it at "none" for normal compression and don't use the saturation much.

[Mario-C.]

I'll throw DDMF's NYC compressor to the list, sounds great, it is Mid / Side capable and it's pretty fast too, it's on the clean side but it's a very good clean comp and very affordable, depending on the application there are some compressors that may sound better but it's hard to make it suck ... it's one of the few comps that doesn't make your low end disappear.

[musikmachine]

Yeah of all those i liked the C165a the best! DC8C is squashing the transients a bit too much but i thought i read it was possible to emulate the dbx quite closely?

Well, I just loaded the -db160-presets and tweaked the main controls, so with more tweaking perhaps

So what is cpu hit like with DC8C? It's not really something i'd considered until you mentioned it.

Depends on the oversampling. Can be set from "none" (quite good CPU behavior imo) to "8x" (insane CPU hit of course). I usually leave it at "none" for normal compression and don't use the saturation much.

Ok good to know! Where would you use 8x oversampling; mastering?

Apparently it can't sound like a dbx160 but anyway, it's a dbx165a and i clearly don't know my hardware compressors!

So i'm erring on the side of C165a,it sounds better to my ears on electronic drums but there aren't all that many demos of DC8C that i can find.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

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[ObsoleteAcc99]

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