Presswerk

This is the first compression I go to and I usually stop here. It is a great swiss army knife. If this was a hardware compressor it would be 5 racks tall. The UI makes it simple to get something dialed in right away and then tweak and compare is also simple.

Beautifully musical sounding, highly (yet sensibly) configurable dynamics processor with moderate CPU load.

I was comparing several reputable compressor plugins and was reluctant to try Presswerk. I'm really glad I ended up taking it for a spin.

For my personal priorities (don't need spectrum analysis in a compressor plugin), and for my personal taste Presswerk is by far the best sounding compressor plugin currently on the market, with just enough configuration flexibility to cover all my tracking mixing and mastering needs.

Highly recommended.

I'm going to keep this very short as I am definitely no expert on compressors, much less ones that model vintage hardware compressors.

My first thought was "$129 for a compressor, are you kidding?" But now I think it's worth every penny. The very first mix I used it on I could tell that this is no ordinary compressor. It's hard to put into words. It just makes things sound awesome. The presets are great, especially for people like me who only kinda sorta know what they're doing. But I'm actually learning more about using compressors now that I have one I'm actually excited to use. It sounds great, the GUI is inviting, clear and functional. The gain reduction meters are great.

The CPU load might be bit high to use this on every single track, but it's actually moderate enough that most people could probably use it on all their buses + any tracks where they wanted a little extra character, grit, warmth etc. Most DAWs come with very CPU-efficient stock compressors that will do the trick for very basic jobs, so you can save up your juice for where it matters.

If you already have a compressor you love, you might be able to skip this one. But if your experience with compressors so far has been just using them because you basically have to, then try this out. It;s outstanding and you'll soon be rationalizing why it's okay to drop a good chunk of change on it.