What's one of the most crucial tools a producer has in their kit?
It's the compressor. The compressor is what gives balance in your track, allowing everything — vocals, instruments, drums — to have a presence. It makes everything sound even. With the wrong one, or without one at all, you can find yourself struggling to layer everything effectively.
That's why we spent a lot of time getting our take on the compressor right. While Stagecraft Software has a lot of unique and specialized plugins we're proud of, we recognize the importance of getting the fundamentals down.
Versatility
SC Compressor isn't designed to replace every type of compressor out there; after all, there are many great options specifically for vocals, the master-bus, and multi-band compression, among other things. We aimed to make our compressor a more generalist tool — a one-stop shop that covers most user needs.
That's why we implemented different modes to our compressor. In addition to the usual downward compression, you can also configure it for upward compression, as well as upward/downward expansion. This is great for shaping the sound in all kinds of ways, whether you want a denoiser, limiter, expander, or gate.
Sidechaining
For advanced users, we include a sidechain input and mid-side mode. We've made it very easy to configure for pumping, like the synth swelling you would hear in Daft Punk. The mid-side mode is configurable to allow for some very exotic combinations (compress the side signal with the mid, the mid with the side, the side with the side, leave the side untouched and compress only the mid, etc).
Filtering
We added a filter to the detector, so you can choose exactly how the compression reacts to the signal. You could, for example, set it to only target the bass hits. Advanced options, like the auto release, allow you to avoid pumping, or set the release longer to get the offbeat swells characteristic of techno tracks.
