Compressors: do you use more than a couple?

[Hugh Robjohns]

My solution is to simply smile and walk away.

I've put a lot of effort over the years into learning what I now know, and at lot of it came from a lot of very helpful supportive people. So I'm very happy to share it with anyone who shows an interest in learning, regardless of their current level of understanding.

But I won't tolerate mindless bigotry, arrogance or closed-mindedness. There are much more deserving people I'd rather be helping.

[CS70]

My solution is to simply smile and walk away.

Yes The challenge is when they are in government, or corporate or otherwise unavoidable. Corporates are special attractors for loud imbeciles, for a number of reasons.

One of the main reason for which I stopped being a corporate manager a few years back is that I like to get stuff done, and 99% of the energy expense in getting something done is usually devoted to working around people like that, without burning bridges.

I can, and I did, but life's too short to do that for too long!

[DC-Choppah]

These compressor gadgets are all different. And then it takes time to learn just one of them, how to use it to get the result you are after. The more controls it has, the longer it takes to learn how to use it! You have to experiment with these things.

So, after you learn one well, you tend to reach for it because you know how to use it.

Waves C4 is wonderful, very powerful general purpose multiband compressor/expander, but took me a long time to learn to use it. But now that I have invested that time, I don't want to bother to learn something else.

Waves H-Comp is good when you want to hear the compressor and make it part of the sound. This is mainly because of the way you can set the release times to be based on the music in different ways. But this compressor is terrible for parallel compression.

ProTools built in compressors work well for parallel (upward) compression because the graphic display helps dial in the settings for the material.

I can certainly see how if someone spent years learning to use a hardware compressor that they would want a faithful reproduction in the DAW. Makes sense to me.

It's all about the time spent learning to use these tools. And not wanting to lose that investment. That is the real value of having faithful reproductions of classic compressors and other gadgets.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Waves H-Comp is good when you want to hear the compressor and make it part of the sound. This is mainly because of the way you can set the release times to be based on the music in different ways. But this compressor is terrible for parallel compression.

This is why the thread is so interesting. Until recently H Comp was main goto for vocals, always as a parallel comp!! And the note based release times are useful, yes, saves doing the sums.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

If find that very often these are inversely proportional.

I think you mean directly proportional?

[DC-Choppah]

This is why the thread is so interesting. Until recently H Comp was main goto for vocals, always as a parallel comp!! And the note based release times are useful, yes, saves doing the sums.

If I turn off all of the automatic features in H-Comp I can use it for natural sounding parallel compression. But I forget to turn it all off! I like the parallel (upward) compression to sound like the source is close to your ear and natural. All the quiet bits and details are raised up while the loud stuff is unchanged.

To my ear, to pull that off you need a parallel compressor that simply 'goes away' when the sound is loud, and then quickly and naturally lifts the gain up when things get quiet so you don't hear the gain changes.

All of the features in H-Comp for wiggling the gain over time automatically to play with the way that the compressor changes the peaks, just add unwanted variations to parallel compression. Meanwhile a simple compressor like the stock ProTools ones work great in parallel for doing upward compression.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

I've weaned myself off the majority of my Waves plugins now because of the ludicrous licensing/upgrade system they use. I'm gradually replacing them with equivalents that don't charge you stupid upgrade fees every year. So no longer use H Comp at all.

[Martin Walker]

I've weaned myself off the majority of my Waves plugins now because of the ludicrous licensing/upgrade system they use. I'm gradually replacing them with equivalents that don't charge you stupid upgrade fees every year.

Same here, although in my case I've completely weaned myself off them all.

Martin

[The Elf]

I've weaned myself off the majority of my Waves plugins now because of the ludicrous licensing/upgrade system they use. I'm gradually replacing them with equivalents that don't charge you stupid upgrade fees every year.

Same here, although in my case I've completely weaned myself off them all.
Martin

I'm still hopelessly hooked on the SSL emulations.

[Drew Stephenson]

Interestingly when I did my recent transfer I found them no difficult to de-authorise, re-install and authorise than any other.
But maybe that's because I only have their freebies? I do feel the need to actually buy something from them at some point though because I have used them quite a lot.

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Don't, you'll regret it when they do the first upgrade and charge you all over again for something you thought you'd bought outright!

[nathanscribe]

My main compressor these days is a Drawmer 1978, which has some handy features. I've never got on with plugins, but back when I used Logic the stock stuff was fine. I'm all about making the whole process slower and more awkward these days...

The Drawmer's nice though. That, plus the not-broken half of an ART Pro VLA ii, which I use to tickle a few things. I rarely go over 2:1. The old EHX White Finger is really good for bass, and I use the Boss CS-3 for things it was never intended for, but only because it sounds dreadful. Even more so than my playing. Good distraction tactic.

[Sam Inglis]

I have many compressor plug-ins that I've accumulated because of SOS reviews and so on. I probably use a wider variety of them than I do, say, reverbs or EQs, though I'm not sure I could explain why!

I really like all the FabFilter stuff and I particularly like the compressor for its ability to do ridiculously fast attack times without distorting.

I use IK Multimedia's White 2A a lot, almost always in Limit mode. I don't know if it's the most accurate LA2A emulation but it does something I like. Softube's Summit and Tube-Tech compressors are cool and fairly similar in many ways.

HOFA's IQ-Compressor is a very interesting plug-in that can help with problem sources or tonally unbalanced mixes.

I like a good dbx 160VU copy such as the UA one.

On the fairly rare occasions where I want an SSL bus compressor type thing, Acustica's Sand does that sound.

I may have mentioned McDSP's APB a few times recently -- those compressors are pretty special.

Maybe it's just me, but I struggle to get 1176s to sound good.

I'm sure there are more...

[RichardT]

I have a few software compressors, but I only really use two - Fabfilter pro-c when I want clean compression and Magic Death Eye stereo when I don’t.

[James Perrett]

I pretty much use only ReaComp for general compression and ReaXComp or ReaFIR when I need frequency sensitive compression. ReaComp is so configurable that I can get just about everything I need from it. Sometimes I experiment with other alternatives but most of the time I come back to ReaComp.

I can understand using a variety of hardware compressors as they each have their own little foibles but a sensibly designed general purpose software compressor can cover most things.

[Martin Walker]

As we're all giving examples, I tend to reach for the NI/Softube VC 160 (dbx 160 VCA compressor emulation) to even out bass guitar takes, and the beautifully transparent TDR Kotelnikov GE lives almost permanently on my mix buss.

I don't use a lot of compression

Martin

[muzines]

I can understand using a variety of hardware compressors as they each have their own little foibles but a sensibly designed general purpose software compressor can cover most things.

Agreed.

It's just not as fun as mashing all the ratio buttons in and spanking that bad boy to within an inch of it's life..!

[Martin Walker]

I can understand using a variety of hardware compressors as they each have their own little foibles but a sensibly designed general purpose software compressor can cover most things.

Agreed.

It's just not as fun as mashing all the ratio buttons in and spanking that bad boy to within an inch of it's life..!

If I want to do that I reach for the freeware Audio Damage RoughRider3 - vicious!

Martin

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Pah, compared with Devil Loc it’s a pussy cat And DL doesn’t sound like a dodgy condom.

[CS70]

I can understand using a variety of hardware compressors as they each have their own little foibles but a sensibly designed general purpose software compressor can cover most things.

Agreed.

It's just not as fun as mashing all the ratio buttons in and spanking that bad boy to within an inch of it's life..!

If I want to do that I reach for the freeware Audio Damage RoughRider3 - vicious!

Martin

Great minds! That's the one I almost always smack the kick with

[Moroccomoose]

I used to be a free plugin hoarder. Especially when I was using earlier versions cubase and before I'd upgraded. I went from AI4 to Cubase 8 Artist which was a huge shift in terms of available stock plugins. Now, for just about everything, I use the stock plugs, but... I do like the Tokyo Dawn Labs freebie on drum busses.

Stu.

[Zukan]

I have a ton of compressors/limiters and TBH I try to use a different one each time I need one. I can state that the only 2 I can always rely on to give me 'that sound' are IK's White 2A and SSL G.

I tend to opt for different dynamic and gain management tools nowadays. Transient shapers, clippers, dynamic eqs and so on give another perspective to the 'slap it on and colour the damn thing' goals.

[Zukan]

I don't mind the stupidity on GS; it's the unchecked aggression that turns me away.

Quite so! I didn't go there often -- the noise to signal ratio was far too high to find anything interesting -- but I recently deleted my account there simply because of the appalling aggression and outrageous bigotry from people who were astonishingly ignorant.

I rarely go there. Rude and self-opinionated assholes and so cliquey that a metronome is put to shame.

[Kwackman]

so cliquey that a metronome is put to shame.

[jaminem]

There are some knobs on GS but to be fair there are some on here too. If you avoid the 'you cant make decent music without the vintage compressor 3000' there are a lot of really creative people on there as well, with some great ideas.

Similarly on here, there can be a bit of a 'beardy' undertone where sometimes its more important to be technically correct than make great music.

Just my opinion.

In the case of compressors, I use the Distressor plugin a lot, I recently got a 'real one' which is great. Tubetech CL1b , API2500 on drums, 1176 on vocals, SSL bus comp etc...

Also as a console 1 user, the SSL comp on there gets used a fair bit as its right in the workflow