Compressor as an EQ

[SunkLo]

Speaking of compressor design, the one I'm working on is maturing. It's in veritable fuck shit up territory now. It's a drum buss mojo monster. You can get it pumping like a goddamn fire hydrant. The problem I always had trying to abuse a conventional compressor was that after a certain point it was just always compressing down and basically acted like turning the volume down. But with this you can get to savage territory and do wonderful rhythmic things with the attack that would render a usual compressor inert. It's the sonic equivalent of getting your drums hooked on drugs.

I know that's sort of offtopic but this is a pretty classic truhed thread so I figured it'd be relevant to some cats. Needed to gush. Back to the funklab.

Disclaimer: Sunklo does not endorse the usage of drugs except the ones that he explicitly endorses.

[hubb]

Fabfilter Volcano has some decent different sounding compression settings.

Do you mean Saturn? I keep asking that!

I haven't figured a way to get saturn to work, but it's possibly some of the same coding. I don't know what to call the effect, maybe pulse or sine compression?. But if you have fabfilter volcano there's a compression section in the presets.

But you might want to try using a bit of wave shaping if you want to just 'outline'.

What do you mean, der hubb?

http://bram.smartelectronix.com/plugins.php?id=3 like that one -though that one isn't precise enough. I bet you have one somewhere. It's probably better on a few busses instead of directly on the master
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What do you chaps use for a track limiter? I've found the best way to preserve dynamics, keep tonal balance, but to blow a sound up just a little is to limit like one or two db off the top. Y'all ever do this, what do you use?

I mix it quiter than what is probably necessary and then add as many dbs inside soundforge on the bounced wave as I can without the waveform 'squaring' up. I'd need a tinfoil hat to trust a digital meter readout inside a daw. I don't trust limiters at all but might on occasion use a comp with a low wet setting (10-25 %) and almost completely open treshold.

[fragments]

Speaking of compressor design, the one I'm working on is maturing. It's in veritable fuck shit up territory now. It's a drum buss mojo monster. You can get it pumping like a goddamn fire hydrant. The problem I always had trying to abuse a conventional compressor was that after a certain point it was just always compressing down and basically acted like turning the volume down. But with this you can get to savage territory and do wonderful rhythmic things with the attack that would render a usual compressor inert. It's the sonic equivalent of getting your drums hooked on drugs.

I know that's sort of offtopic but this is a pretty classic truhed thread so I figured it'd be relevant to some cats. Needed to gush. Back to the funklab.

Disclaimer: Sunklo does not endorse the usage of drugs except the ones that he explicitly endorses.

Um...that sounds muthafuuuuuking sexy mehng...I would love to have the junkie drum compressor....


I have a a FMR Really Nice Compressor and a Joe Meek MC2 I kinda have no opinions on these boxes and I'm not sure what exactly to do with them...I mean I know...they are compressors...just...thoughts?? Anyone?

[nowaysj]

I thought you sold the RNC? I think the rnc, is surprisingly really nice. It is actually what I'm looking for, like a nice leveler. Just nice kind of rubbery compression. I forget about that MC2. Meek is such a weird company with like some og out of the park home runs and then like real dogs... supposedly, I've only tried a few out many years ago... Sharmaji, I'm sure, has the scoop.

Sunk, is that comp 32 bit? I'm ready to be an alpha tester. I've been doing really clean drums past few weeks (although this weeks track has old drums on it), I'd like to get back to that fsu sound. How do you think it compares to that molot? Honestly would like to buss compress through this thing. Sounds like the comp on the 404sx. Would love to crush some leafy/papery/watery claps through that thing.

Hubby - bro, a good limiter can square a peak or two every now and then w/o the dynamic range police kicking in your door and shooting your pets and children.

And hubby, I've got a waveshaper or two, I think fl's waveshaper is regarded as good, but I've never really gotten down with it. Used to use it years ago. What do you mean outline the sound.

Also, anyone ever use FL/IL's Maximus, can draw your own compression curves and what not? I bought it years ago, and then they added it to like the highest tier of FL, so stopped using it out of spite but I swear I got some good flavor/distortion out of it. Some fsu, and in a weird way too. I'm going to pop that into my next track if Sunk doesn't hook me up with a .dll.

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I have owned like....three RNC and sold them...I was going to sell the third one but you called me out on my gear lust/swapping madness so I stopped ;p It is amazing for the price and pretty transparent from what I can tell. The Super Nice mode is tits on the master if you don't want character

I agree JoeMeek is a weird company. I like the MC2 because it has a few options to use it not just as a compressor. I like the gritty stereo width on it ;p


Not gonna lie, kinda too buzzed for this convo...but I am willing to run some EQ tests on these two affordable compressors if anyone is curious...I'm not sure how to do it...but if people suggest/ask...I'll make it happen over the coming months...

[nowaysj]

Think the easiest way to tell is put it across the drum buss, and listen to what happens to the kick and the cymbals. If kicks get bigger, you're getting more bottom end, probably losing high end. Or if you kick starts getting smaller, and your cymbals really start to sizzle, you know you're losing bottom end and gaining top end.

[Samuel_L_Damnson]

a very good read this thread

[SunkLo]

Sunk, is that comp 32 bit? I'm ready to be an alpha tester. I've been doing really clean drums past few weeks (although this weeks track has old drums on it), I'd like to get back to that fsu sound. How do you think it compares to that molot? Honestly would like to buss compress through this thing. Sounds like the comp on the 404sx. Would love to crush some leafy/papery/watery claps through that thing.

It's ALL the bits! (32 and 64 actually) You can test it once I add in a couple more basic features and format the GUI.

Because right now it looks like this:

[+] Spoiler

Beaut!

That output gain knob is like 'Fuck you guys.'

Be forewarned, it's a bit confusing at first. Although like 4 of those knobs you don't really need to touch, so there's that. Dll's pon de dl.

Haven't fucked with the Molot. Might hafta check it out.

[titchbit]

would love to check it out when it's done m8. are you trying to sell it or is it gonna be freeware?

[nowaysj]

Yesh sunk, some of the names of those knobs/functions you mentioned the other day are a little daunting. For a special needs type of person like me.

But I'll get on with it. Maybe you could have a switch and they turn into russian, like molot.

[SunkLo]

Prolly gonna be payware. Gonna start up a lil plugin business. Gonna have fairly low prices for everything though. Would rather sell a bunch at a cheap price than a few at an inflated price. It costs me the same whether I sell one or a million. Might as well have accessible prices and make up for it in numbers. A big price tag just encourages piracy.

Will probably do a discount for the DSF truhedz

That's a while down the road though. Still probably have a lot of tweaking to do and I wanna have a few other plugins and skills under my belt before I launch. I guess Cytomic did it with the Glue but they had the whole SSL emulation thing going for them. I wanna have more than just an oddball compressor to offer. Gonna still go at a sound design angle though, don't wanna just have boring replicas of the plugins everyone already has. After this will probably be a grain delay. Got several ideas for other dynamics processors too. Wanna get into tone shaping too, not really EQs but more along the line of exciters and saturation but with some dynamics injected.

Yesh sunk, some of the names of those knobs/functions you mentioned the other day are a little daunting.

It'll make more sense once you see the transfer graph move around. One of the big things I need to do now is code a really intuitive interface so the plugin doesn't seem so obtuse.

[nowaysj]

Dude:

1. Make sure your knobs are smooth.

2. Make sure you've got a ctrl click drag for fine adjustments. This is a necessity!

3. Really would like gain matching between input and output. Can't stand fx that add 2-4db of gain. It is like you're trying to fucking trick me bros. What'yer tryin a hide?

4. Make sure scroll wheel works for hover knob adjustments. It is like having a hot mapped control surface. The best. Can't stand plugs that don't have this. (ie generally plugs developed in mac os) Consider combining with ctrl for fine adjustments.

5. Contact de la Mancha for advice on that business model.

[titchbit]

if you make vsts that can do undo and redo i would fucking love that. it's so annoying not having undo/redo in most of my vsts other than applied-acoustics ones.

i can see your reaper philosophy poking thru there sunklo

also, mac.... lol. would you go for both os's?

[SunkLo]

Yeah I use IPlug which is like a cross platform wrapper so I can compile 32/64 bit vst mac/win and rtas.

Don't think I'll be able to have an auto gain considering the compression ratio changes depending on input strength. Gonna have the makeup gain handy though, and have a bypass switch built into the knob on right-click so you can A/B quickly while setting the output gain.

Definitely gonna have all that extra UI sugar once I get the fundamentals.

What's the word on De La Mancha? Looks like he fucked off I guess? Worst case scenario I'll crank the prices and market them as boutique plugins. Already kind of going for that angle anyway, just with a too good to be true price.

[nowaysj]

Yeah man, re de la Mancha, I don't know. I've never seen the numbers? I thought de la Mancha hung it up cause he couldn't make any money, think he had to support the software, etc. He was selling that stuff for $10-20 a pop. I swear people attach the value you set to your product. Look at Variety of Sound stuff, right?

[SunkLo]

Yeah I'll probably go higher than that for that very reason. Like $50-100 instead of $100-300? I think that's a different value bracket. People think "10 bucks? I spent that on lunch."

Dunno man hard to set a price that doesn't affect the perceived value but also doesn't alienate those without big budgets. Gonna have to do a market analysis and just barely undercut the big dogs. Or I could do the reverse and do the expensive wine deal. Charge $478 for an EQ with a nice GUI and spend my days chuckling at forum threads discussing how mine just sounds more natural, musical, and analogue. Dunno, don't wanna be an asshole if I can avoid it, but I also don't wanna stick myself with the image of an amateur. First impressions are hard to undo. Plus staying paid would be nice, don't get me wrong.

I just gotta get my shit in the hands of the right producers and engineers before they do an interview or in the studio video.

[nowaysj]

If i can try out a plug, like really demo a plug for a few weeks, and it displaces something else i use or does something different, AND it is <$50, it is bought. Those little nibbles! Like Audio Damage stuff! That delay!

[hubb]

Neu voss

Outline = slightly accentuate. What it does is pick up on the freqs that are already standing out and fuzz them up a bit. Definitely as destructive as other things thrown on the master, but more linear in a way than with a limiter where it can upset the balance and end up 'dividing' the mix.

[syrup]

that looks interesting SunkLo

[nowaysj]

Neu voss

Outline = slightly accentuate. What it does is pick up on the freqs that are already standing out and fuzz them up a bit. Definitely as destructive as other things thrown on the master, but more linear in a way than with a limiter where it can upset the balance and end up 'dividing' the mix.

Okay, got you.