I liked the SSL channel strips quite a bit, they definitely have a "sound" that I'm familiar with from records etc. I prefer the UAD ones but there are others that are decent too.

Compared to those, I find the Neve-type channel strips (software I mean) are kinda bland - and the DAW does bland perfectly fine already. I *want* character from my tools, for the most part...

desmond wrote:Not in Sound On Sound you're not. Maybe on GS... ;)

Makes me shudder. Pretty much everything I've ever read there I've imagined being yelled at me by someone blocking the door while I try to get away.

Luke W wrote:Pretty much everything I've ever read there I've imagined being yelled at me by someone blocking the door while I try to get away.

Paraphrasing something I saw recently:

"That place doesn't scare me at all. I was on Usenet / rec.audio.pro back in the day..."

:lol:

I don't mind the stupidity on GS; it's the unchecked aggression that turns me away. Life's too short to have to put up with that kind of nonsense.

The "X32 Professional Users" fb group is not dissimilar, in fact as bad as the music tribe forum is to use it's a much nicer place than that fb group (I say it's as civilised as here actually which is high praise :thumbup: ).

The Elf wrote: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.

Dr Huge Longjohns wrote:And if you frequent YouTube or read any Facebook advertising!

Ah yes, those well known channels of expertise and experience!
Someone was selling T-Shirts "You-Tube Approved Motorcycle Mechanic", which was tempting as a Christmas present!

I mostly use in the box synths and samplers so rarely need a compressor except for a special effect or cool extreme sound. I also have never sat down just to have a play and see what flavours each compressor brings even though I have the UAD. So until I do that I’m a bit lost in the wilderness about the colours each one might bring.
An exception is that I finally bought the Universal Audio compressor/pre hardware box. It was one of those holy cannoli moments! It made me sound like I could play bass beautifully (not including duff notes!)

Kwackman wrote:Ah yes, those well known channels of expertise and experience!
Someone was selling T-Shirts "You-Tube Approved Motorcycle Mechanic", which was tempting as a Christmas present!

Brilliant!!

Hugh Robjohns wrote:outrageous bigotry from people who were astonishingly ignorant.

If find that very often these are inversely proportional.

I'll always remember the first time I encountered that attitude. I was around 14 and waiting for my mother in the family car. Of course I loved staying in the front seat, and it was hot, so the door was open. Another kid, maybe two-three year younger then me, comes by by bike. I knew him, the way that kids that live in the same surroundings but do not go in the same class know each other.

He asks "how fast the car goes"? I say "well, not sure, I think it could do 180, maybe 190" (kmh)

Given that the car was driven by my mother, I hadn't seen it ever going over say 100. Still, it was an Alfa, and I was already interested in cars and devoured my uncle's car magazine every month, so I had an idea... and at least I knew, vaguely, how speedometers worked.

He didn't.

He looks at me, then he looks at the speedometer, sees the "220" at the bottom, and promptly says: "are you stupid, it says 220, so the top speed is 220", and leaves.

I was speechless. I'd never met (or at least understood) that mix of ignorance and arrogance, based on a kernel of misunderstood truth (there was, after all, a 220 marking on the dial).

That day I started thinking how to deal with these people. Still not sure I've found an answer :D

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.

Hugh Robjohns wrote: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! :)

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.

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.

If find that very often these are inversely proportional.

I think you mean directly proportional?