SOUND ON SOUND

[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. :frown:

[blinddrew]

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! :madas:

[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... :headbang:

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

[desmond]

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 :D 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 :D