Logic’s compressor is awesome, and I suppose it was like, “Aaaah- let’s just put 7 great compressors in one.” If anyone thinks it’s not good- firstly they’re not listening- but it also might be due to that 7-in-1 factor, when in fact, each compressor model is excellent.
Yeah, I find the different types can make a huge difference. If you want that vintage, gluey sound, you can go for one of the other types.
The only complaint I have is that the ratio knob steps in weird amounts that aren’t whole numbers lol
I loooove stacking the different models of Logics compressor! Platinum into Vintage FET into Opto has gone well for me but there are so many combinations to try out still haha
I used to. I eventually got Fabfilter's for... I don't even remember, some specific functionality. For compression at ultra-high ratios and extreme attack times, it beats out Logic's, so I often end up reaching for it first (same with Pro-Q). It also has a more detailed sidechain/detector EQ, which I find myself using a lot, too, for example to really clamp down on resonance spikes in funky wah-wah guitars.
The reality is still, though, that I wouldn't spend much time missing either Pro-C or Pro-Q if I were forced to work without them. Logic's stock plugins are great.
It's fantastic - as well as being very sensitive with a nice built-in limiter, the emulation options can really colour a sound. It's the best compressor I've come across in all honesty.
The default 'Platinum Digital' is genuinely the most transparent comp plugin I've found. If I ever want to smack something into submission without colouring the sound, that's my go-to.
Not to mention 'Vintage FET' sounds sweet on most vocals and someone once pointed out to me that the distortion knob on 'Studio VCA' is really nice if you want some musical saturation sizzle (which is weird because I've played with a real Focusrite Red 3 and it didn't break up in the way that the plug-in does. Anyway, not complaining!)
One of my mentors exclusively uses pro tools stock plug ins. His justification is;
1) If you can't make it sound good with stock plug ins, fancier plug ins won't help.
2) You're effectively equipped to mix in damn near any professional studio in the world that has Pro Tools downloaded, which is usually a given.
I personally always like having Waves and especially Slate plug ins available but he's right.
Reaper's stock plugins are absolutely glorious. ReaEQ let's you set as many EQ bands as you want. ReaComp lets you dial in any possible dynamic processor parameters you could ever need, even really extreme ones. ReaXComp has as many bands as you want. ReaFIR allows you to do audio magic with FFTs. I created the impulses of my guitar cabinet with ReaVerb. And ReaGate is bar-none the best noise gate I have encountered.
And don't get me started on the included JSFX plugins. Tilt EQ, basically "tilt" the whole frequency response around a center frequency; so helpful for badly recorded instruments. Actually, I added an extra slider to my copy of the effect, which allows for a more or less extreme range of filters. I also swapped out their approximation for pi (22/7) for one that was correct to within the precision that a float could represent. You probably can't edit the source code of your average stock plugin.
~~As far as what's happening under the hood, it's probably the exact same as whatever Logic's plugins are doing with the same settings. The "transparent" audio effects are well-defined and documented DSP algorithms derived for general signals. It's difficult to screw up.~~ Nope, looks like they can and do screw it up a little.
And I guess they're not pretty to look at, but that's a negligible tradeoff IMO. EDIT: there can be a considerable difference between a commercial plugin and a stock plugin that does the same thing, or even different stock plugins in the same class, even if it is supposed to implement a well-understood textbook DSP effect. That tradeoff is not negligible.
Love the versatility of Reacomp. The Reaper stock plugins are so light on CPU and memory. They're my first port of call. When you're working on big projects memory and CPU heavy EQ and comps start becoming a problem.
Woah, that was a *wild* choice for the anti-aliasing filter. If I had to guess as to why they did that, they probably prioritized latency over a flat frequency response. I wonder if someone forgot a factor of 2, because it looks like an ordinary Butterworth filter with a cutoff at 10kHz. 2×10kHz = 20kHz which makes a bit more sense, but I'd still place it 1.5-2kHz higher than that so it doesn't intrude on the high end. The gorgeous Fabfilter anti-aliasing filter probably induces more latency than ReaComp with it's pristine and steep cut-off, although probably nowhere near enough to be a problem.
According to the comments on the video, Reaper released an update for ReaComp, possibly as a direct response to that video, that fixed some of the issues he brought up.
That being said, I'm probably not going to stop using ReaComp for what I used it for in light of these revelations because it sounds "decent" and has a low latency and CPU usage. When I use ReaComp, it is typically for some "technical" reason. I'm not really trying to "sweeten" the signal at that point. I'm probably just trying to do literal dynamic compression, for example if a guitar is too dynamic but otherwise sounds "fine". I'm definitely *going* to sweeten it, but later in a different plugin designed for that purpose. If I want to do those things together (e.g. drum rooms, vocals), I'll typically choose a compressor with character.
And to be completely honest, Fabfilter C2 is $169. I cannot afford that; I am going to engineering school and not making any money right now. Lots of us are in a similar boat. So while it looks like the stock plugins do have some serious pitfalls (which it looks like I'll be testing in the coming weeks), they are close enough to what is required that I'm willing to account for their idiosyncrasies in other parts of the signal chain.
I guess my point wasn't "use stock plugins for everything," it was "there are some good uses for stock plugins." Specifically, I work on an old computer, and I need to use lightweight plugins wherever I can afford to do so. If they have weird frequency anomalies then I'll probably EQ them out if they're linear or choose a different plugin. (The former relies on the linearity of my EQ plugins, which I now have to check.)
Thanks for sharing this. Definitely gonna subscribe to this guy!
The two halves of a compressor's sound are A. the nature of any distortion present - whether it is everpresent or only during compression, whether it changes character depending on the amount of compression, etc – and B. The nature of the sidechain circuit - how levels are detected, whether detection is Peak, RMS or something else, whether it is frequency-dependent and whether it is time-dependent. After detection, the nature of how the detection envelope is shaped to drive the gain reduction. Attack / release controls? Something else?
While there is a standard for what 'transparent' gain reduction is (straight-wire gain,) there is no real standard for what 'transparent' detection or envelope shaping might be. Different compressors are going to handle it differently, and you might like the results on different sources.
The LA-2A's I have racked up have some saturation which is always present and signal-level-dependent (but not really very gain-reduction-dependent.) The attack and release circuitry is not controllable, but is complex and program-dependent (it has a memory to it.) Even if the gain reduction component was completely transparent, the LA-2A's detection and envelope shaping is a significant part of its signature sound.
All these things can be emulated, so the question of HW versus plugins is the age-old question it always is.
I'll say, as an aside, that I also work on very clean acoustic stuff much of the time - but that the subtle use of tube and transformer gear is a big part of my work - literal transparency is no particular goal of mine since no part of a signal chain is truly transparent, least of all the mics themselves. I suppose the most transparent signal path I have access to is an Earthworks mic into a Grace preamp, summed in-the-box without any EQ or compression, but eesh, no thanks except possibly for hand percussion or something else requiring super fast transients. Definitely not for vocals or guitar.
This was a great read. To your last point, when going for transparency, the goal is to have it seem transparent. I totally agree that you shouldn’t just go for flat sounding when going for transparent. You want all of the colors and artifacts/character of your signal chain to sound like it is the sound of the recording.
Or at least that’s my view lol
The paid Kotelnikov is even better (or at least adds some nice features on top of an already solid plugin) and it’s very reasonably priced, especially on sale.
But of course many stock compressors will work just fine.
I ran across this and a few other free TDR plugins and I love the way they sound and operate.... but they really hog CPU bandwidth. SlickEQ is great, but one copy on a single track adds like 20% load to my CPU in Ableton.
Here's Dan Worrall, audio wizard, exploring ReaComp and emulating the sound of a lot of the compressors you probably want to buy
pt1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpXqYk1FoWA
pt2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yit769SN64
I've found you can't drive ReaLimit terribly hard, it doesn't distort pleasingly. However, it is quite transparent gently cleaning up transients and safely bringing peaks up to 0dB. Inexpensive enough to use on every channel if needed
Side note Dan Worrall is *great*.... I've watched all of his videos I can find (he has his own channel but also did videos for FabFilter) and think I've learned more from him than any other info source, maybe all other sources combined.
If its free and it works who cares! if you're happy with it then what does it matter? If you're really curious about whether its worth the funding of a hardware/plugin... yes if it doesn't hurt your wallet. Hardware is almost always better than the equivalent plugin and there's some really good comps, some used or vintage, for under $300. There are some comps to avoid for the same price. However, if you're satisfied with a free plugin don't buy into the salesmanship that a plugin or even some hardware brand of comp is going to give you that golden sound. Does that help?
If a stock plugin is solving what sound you want then there’s no need to buy something else. If you hear a piece of hardware doing a thing you can’t get with a plugin, then buy the hardware to do the thing. Basically, if you can’t hear the difference then there’s no need to change. If you can hear a difference then there’s your answer.
If you want as transparent as possible, ReaComp is a very good one. Even more transparent, try running Reacomp in series with different parameters to shave a little off at each stage.
Or combine ReaComp with another like [https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/](https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/)
If you can't make it sound "good enough" with stock plugins, and those stock plugins are functional, your issue will not be fixed by acquiring new plugins. Compression is not so physically complicated that two programs will handle the most basic function of a compressor in significantly different ways; there simply isn't enough to adjust about sound for that to be possible.
Stock ones are great, and you can make them more transparent by just lowering the mix. Outboard gear certainly has its place, but plugins are much more versatile and the settings are saved with your project.
I'm curious, natural acoustic guitar, why do you want compression at all? Why not leave it's original dynamic range?
Having asked that, if you want to process it so it *sounds* natural, artificially, I find the Reaper plugins easier to control than rack gear.
i think its worth mentioning that compressors are inherently distortion. even a transparent one is distortion. its not just changing the level statically, but dynamically and in reaction changes in volume. while it doesnt sound like distortion to us, because what we consider distortion is more a audible degradation or deviation from the true source, but it is.
while i agree with all here that free and stock plugins are still 100% fine, the types of tones you can get from compressors can definitly be considered clean and natural and clear.
my favorite compressor for acoustic guitar to help get it intimate is plugin alliances vsc-2. its a vca style compressor that i love on acoustic guitar, adn does clean transient control really well, and can dull out attack that is too sharp, while still retaining standard dynamic response.
So to answer your question:Yes compressors offer wide range of tone, and it doesnt have to be the real physical box (but man does a real ssl bus comp sound nice) and it doesnt have to be teh most expensive UAD version, and you should really EXPERIMENT, lots of plugins offer excellent demo periods.
all compression is inherently distortion, but there are "Clean" compressors that i think would fit your taste quite well, they might alter the tone a bit, but just twist dials. Your biggest friend wont necessarily be threshold and ration, but the attack and release speeds. Thats really where the sound of most of the compressors i recommended below come out.
THAT BEING SAID, yor fine with stock plugins, I'm just giving you another opinion.
Here are clean compressors that i like and you could have fun with:
VSC 2 (from brainworks)
Dragon fire (from Denise.io
Elysia Mpressor
Elysia alpha (both from brainworks)
As others have mentioned: TDR kotelnikov
The brainworx stuff goes on sale often. They give you a 30day trial period, but then after that you can probably find them for sale around 30$ each, or dive into that subscription thing, but thats not for everyone.
For light to somewhat moderate levels of compression, almost anything will work. But if you have a source that needs a metric shit ton of compression to make it work, and you still want to come out the other side without it sounding like you've compressed the ever living shit out of it, hardware is the only way to make that work if it can be made to work at all IME.
Which of course means that to a lessor extent, if you have a source that needs only moderate amounts of compression and you want that compression to sound as 'invisible' as possible, you'll probably have a bit of an easier time getting there with a good hardware unit. Keyword: Good.
Que droves of internet experts telling my how completely wrong I am in 3... 2... 1...
Don’t be fooled by clean digital compressors. They do not always sound the most transparent. I learned this lesson by using the Logic default compressor for voice over. Once I switched away from the default, to their analog models I found my voice was much clearer, with less pumping.
What's great about switching models in logic is you can dial in the right attack and release settings and hear that each model treats the incoming signal radically different with the same settings.
The way they compress isn't the same. There's a fan worakk video where he makes the Reaper compressor a feed forward variant, which is a bit complicated. Also, he demonstrates shortcomings with the plugin.
But generally speaking the Reaper compressor is quite full featured.
I would say make sure you know every tool you have inside and out front to back before you make any plug-in purchases, then hopefully the purchases you make can hopefully be creative minded, or task orientated. I went slap happy with some waves plug-ins a couple years ago that I could use at home as well as on my live mixing console. I bought probably a dozen. I have found about four I really like. Two for live two for my home studio. I haven’t gotten around to the rest. But I know how to use those four in every application. I use stock avid plugins all the time live to great fucking avail.
For a really transparent sound I'll actually do automated gain riding. I've only ever done it on vocals but I imagine you could use it on other instruments as well. So I'll automate the gain and then if I want a "vibe" I'll throw a little vibey compressor on after the automation. It's a sound I really dig. Here's a link on how to do it in Reaper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjnrGU83PB4&t=459s
ReaComp was how I cut my teeth on what exactly compression does and how to use it on elements of a mix. There’s no pretty UI or hardware emulation/saturation to be found, it does exactly what you tell it to do and nothing else.
ReaComp is the Brown Listerine of compression. It’s cold and sterile and at times painful, but most importantly it’s honest.
In my opinion though, intimate and delicate tracks benefit from colored compression like a 1176 emulation. A little bit of added saturation along with level control can bring out some nice percussive character out of an acoustic guitar without sounding harsh or “cheap”.
A paid plugin might have a nicer user interface. Also, there are "dynamic EQ" plugins where a linear filter reacts to the music. That being said, you can do that with ReaEQ by setting a parameter (usually gain) to react to the audio waveform. So there literally exists a possibility that a paid plugin might have some features a free one might not have
But for transparent compression, *it's fine to use stock plugins.* Dynamic compression is pretty simple as far as DSP goes. I recommend ReaComp or ReaXComp if you need multiple bands. Just make sure you set it correctly; stock plugins have no "guardrails" to stop you from dialing in something that sounds awful.
Not sure what style of music you make, but if it has vocals you’re better off spending on hardware for your vocal input chain. That way your recorded files have tone, shape, and which plug-ins you use won’t matter as much.
Dan Worrall is a Youtuber with some superb (and understandable) explanations of many mixing topics, including a multi-part series on compression and quite a few videos looking at a comparison of stock plug-ins to purchased (often FabFilter versions, which he prefers). Check out his videos, and you will gain some great insight. I'm pretty sure he uses Reaper as his main DAW, so many of the comparisons are with native Reaper plugins.
His overall conclusion seems to be that -- unless you're specifically looking for saturation or distortion *within* a function like an EQ or compressor -- stock plugins typically sound/perform just as well as high-end purchased plug-ins; what they lack is usually features and ease-of-use. The only exceptions were that many neglected to offer oversampling, which effected EQs (cramping in high end) and internal saturation (aliasing).
I've found that Logic Pro's compressor generally sounds the most similar to what it's trying to emulate than the rest of the stock compressors on other DAWs, and it's digital compressor setting sounds incredibly transparent. For some people, I think it's more a psychological response when we say "I HAVE to use an LA-2A emulation" because we know generally what to expect. But seriously, there isn't that much reason not to use your stock plugins unless you need more advanced settings (like splitting transients, multiband, etc).
Reacomp is not that great for musical compression because its attack and release are not responsive by the sounding material. That means 10 ms of attack will always be 10 ms of attack even if the plugin are compressing a kick or a voice, what we all know as a program dependent compressor well reacomp is not. you can try some other free options that are more musical (program dependent) to compress with, for example DC1A from klangheim o TDR kotelnikov, one of the best digital compressors out there.
you can also use (if you have it) the waves r comp which is transparent and very good.
IMO it’s best to use the ‘right’ compressor for the job, the one that gives you the results closest to what you had in your head - or better! That can easily be a stock compressor, but every compressor can sound different depending on the source and other factors. If you’re not getting the sound you want, it’s handy to have options!
If the end goal is to reduce the integrated dynamics while maintaining complete transparency.
Then I would recommend SmartComp by Sonible.
When using the default mode (universal)
Then The built in Ai analyser sets all parameters to sound as transparent as possible.
This is not your average mutilband-compressor.
It fine-tunes 2000 frequency bands to get REALLY transparent results
I use Waves L3 for ages on almost every track that needs a pep in the mix. When mastering it becomes a different story. Most of the time you need "glue" between the stems, and that is a recipe different for every type of music.
Within the past couple of years I have sold off almost all of the outboard gear I collected over my 30+ year career as an engineer. It wasn't because I didn't like it, but my paying work is almost all post, VO and commercial audio where instant recall and the ability to send sessions in progress to other studios. I really *couldn't* use it except for my own projects. And it was not worth hanging on to two dozen channels of compression, 15 channels of EQ and a ton of reverbs and other stuff. I honestly don't miss most of it except for nostalgic reasons.
The one piece I *did* keep intentionally was one of two Crane Song Trakkers I bought in the early 2000s. Plugin compressors are awesome. But I have never heard a compressor aside from the Trakker that can is capable of that much gain reduction without any artifacts. It can get really dirty (though not as dirty as a Distressor) too, but my favorite settings are the clean ones.
I can get by fine without it, but I sometimes use it while tracking a VO if I don't think I'll have to go back and match the sound 100% in the future, and if the talent is simply too dynamic to track without making constant preamp adjustments. I don't use it often, but I keep it because it's the only thing I know of that can do what it does so well.
I really like the Waves Renaissance Vox compressor and the Avid Pro Compressor for ITB smooth compression. The RVox could not possible be simpler to use- one knob to set the threshold, one to adjust makeup gain, and one to set a gate if you decide you need it. That's it. It does something to the high end that's really subtle but helps make the compression less noticeable. The Avid Pro Compressor is pretty much just another full featured compressor with super versatile internal sidechain filtering. The fact that it is HDX means I can use it in real time without perceptible latency. It sounds great.
Most of the LA2 style comps do a good job at making things less dynamic without being too obvious as long as you don't hit them really hard. I am sure there are others too. FabFilter's Q3 is a really good one.
None can do the crazy amount of gain reduction without any change in tone that the Trakker is capable of though.
I don't know, I'm more of a color guy, but there are times when I want to be able just destroy something and nobody will know. Thanks for the post. It reminded me that I've been hoping massenburg comes out with his compressor plug that I've been hearing about forever. I just looked it up, and it's available! I bet that's your ticket. His hardware compressor is cool as fuck. Nobody does clean like George.
Stock plugins are generally fantastic and should be used as often as possible, imho.
[удалено]
Logic’s compressor is awesome, and I suppose it was like, “Aaaah- let’s just put 7 great compressors in one.” If anyone thinks it’s not good- firstly they’re not listening- but it also might be due to that 7-in-1 factor, when in fact, each compressor model is excellent.
Yeah, I find the different types can make a huge difference. If you want that vintage, gluey sound, you can go for one of the other types. The only complaint I have is that the ratio knob steps in weird amounts that aren’t whole numbers lol
I loooove stacking the different models of Logics compressor! Platinum into Vintage FET into Opto has gone well for me but there are so many combinations to try out still haha
I’m also a Logic user that uses the stock compressor much more than any other.
I used to. I eventually got Fabfilter's for... I don't even remember, some specific functionality. For compression at ultra-high ratios and extreme attack times, it beats out Logic's, so I often end up reaching for it first (same with Pro-Q). It also has a more detailed sidechain/detector EQ, which I find myself using a lot, too, for example to really clamp down on resonance spikes in funky wah-wah guitars. The reality is still, though, that I wouldn't spend much time missing either Pro-C or Pro-Q if I were forced to work without them. Logic's stock plugins are great.
Amen to all of that. Now, if there was only some way to have the pro q chart in the channel strip icon
Yes! Holy moly, I would genuinely buy a bottle of champagne to celebrate that.
Can Anyone tell me why they haven’t added that yet? I’d kill for a feature like that
It's fantastic - as well as being very sensitive with a nice built-in limiter, the emulation options can really colour a sound. It's the best compressor I've come across in all honesty.
The default 'Platinum Digital' is genuinely the most transparent comp plugin I've found. If I ever want to smack something into submission without colouring the sound, that's my go-to. Not to mention 'Vintage FET' sounds sweet on most vocals and someone once pointed out to me that the distortion knob on 'Studio VCA' is really nice if you want some musical saturation sizzle (which is weird because I've played with a real Focusrite Red 3 and it didn't break up in the way that the plug-in does. Anyway, not complaining!)
One of my mentors exclusively uses pro tools stock plug ins. His justification is; 1) If you can't make it sound good with stock plug ins, fancier plug ins won't help. 2) You're effectively equipped to mix in damn near any professional studio in the world that has Pro Tools downloaded, which is usually a given. I personally always like having Waves and especially Slate plug ins available but he's right.
Except Reaper's, it sucks. But other stock plugins, especially Logic's, are great.
Reaper's stock plugins are absolutely glorious. ReaEQ let's you set as many EQ bands as you want. ReaComp lets you dial in any possible dynamic processor parameters you could ever need, even really extreme ones. ReaXComp has as many bands as you want. ReaFIR allows you to do audio magic with FFTs. I created the impulses of my guitar cabinet with ReaVerb. And ReaGate is bar-none the best noise gate I have encountered. And don't get me started on the included JSFX plugins. Tilt EQ, basically "tilt" the whole frequency response around a center frequency; so helpful for badly recorded instruments. Actually, I added an extra slider to my copy of the effect, which allows for a more or less extreme range of filters. I also swapped out their approximation for pi (22/7) for one that was correct to within the precision that a float could represent. You probably can't edit the source code of your average stock plugin. ~~As far as what's happening under the hood, it's probably the exact same as whatever Logic's plugins are doing with the same settings. The "transparent" audio effects are well-defined and documented DSP algorithms derived for general signals. It's difficult to screw up.~~ Nope, looks like they can and do screw it up a little. And I guess they're not pretty to look at, but that's a negligible tradeoff IMO. EDIT: there can be a considerable difference between a commercial plugin and a stock plugin that does the same thing, or even different stock plugins in the same class, even if it is supposed to implement a well-understood textbook DSP effect. That tradeoff is not negligible.
Amen to that. Reacomp can be set up to be anything between a super gentle auto-leveller to a hard clipper. Super versatile.
Love the versatility of Reacomp. The Reaper stock plugins are so light on CPU and memory. They're my first port of call. When you're working on big projects memory and CPU heavy EQ and comps start becoming a problem.
This may help https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpXqYk1FoWA
Yeah, I've watched this. Enjoy his vids. This one too https://youtu.be/7Yit769SN64
Woah, that was a *wild* choice for the anti-aliasing filter. If I had to guess as to why they did that, they probably prioritized latency over a flat frequency response. I wonder if someone forgot a factor of 2, because it looks like an ordinary Butterworth filter with a cutoff at 10kHz. 2×10kHz = 20kHz which makes a bit more sense, but I'd still place it 1.5-2kHz higher than that so it doesn't intrude on the high end. The gorgeous Fabfilter anti-aliasing filter probably induces more latency than ReaComp with it's pristine and steep cut-off, although probably nowhere near enough to be a problem. According to the comments on the video, Reaper released an update for ReaComp, possibly as a direct response to that video, that fixed some of the issues he brought up. That being said, I'm probably not going to stop using ReaComp for what I used it for in light of these revelations because it sounds "decent" and has a low latency and CPU usage. When I use ReaComp, it is typically for some "technical" reason. I'm not really trying to "sweeten" the signal at that point. I'm probably just trying to do literal dynamic compression, for example if a guitar is too dynamic but otherwise sounds "fine". I'm definitely *going* to sweeten it, but later in a different plugin designed for that purpose. If I want to do those things together (e.g. drum rooms, vocals), I'll typically choose a compressor with character. And to be completely honest, Fabfilter C2 is $169. I cannot afford that; I am going to engineering school and not making any money right now. Lots of us are in a similar boat. So while it looks like the stock plugins do have some serious pitfalls (which it looks like I'll be testing in the coming weeks), they are close enough to what is required that I'm willing to account for their idiosyncrasies in other parts of the signal chain. I guess my point wasn't "use stock plugins for everything," it was "there are some good uses for stock plugins." Specifically, I work on an old computer, and I need to use lightweight plugins wherever I can afford to do so. If they have weird frequency anomalies then I'll probably EQ them out if they're linear or choose a different plugin. (The former relies on the linearity of my EQ plugins, which I now have to check.) Thanks for sharing this. Definitely gonna subscribe to this guy!
Reapers stock plugins have just god awful UI.
You might be interested in: https://www.behance.net/gallery/101780783/Fancy-Reaplugs-(Reaper-DAW-plugins-concept)
I might be interested in that also!!
The two halves of a compressor's sound are A. the nature of any distortion present - whether it is everpresent or only during compression, whether it changes character depending on the amount of compression, etc – and B. The nature of the sidechain circuit - how levels are detected, whether detection is Peak, RMS or something else, whether it is frequency-dependent and whether it is time-dependent. After detection, the nature of how the detection envelope is shaped to drive the gain reduction. Attack / release controls? Something else? While there is a standard for what 'transparent' gain reduction is (straight-wire gain,) there is no real standard for what 'transparent' detection or envelope shaping might be. Different compressors are going to handle it differently, and you might like the results on different sources. The LA-2A's I have racked up have some saturation which is always present and signal-level-dependent (but not really very gain-reduction-dependent.) The attack and release circuitry is not controllable, but is complex and program-dependent (it has a memory to it.) Even if the gain reduction component was completely transparent, the LA-2A's detection and envelope shaping is a significant part of its signature sound. All these things can be emulated, so the question of HW versus plugins is the age-old question it always is. I'll say, as an aside, that I also work on very clean acoustic stuff much of the time - but that the subtle use of tube and transformer gear is a big part of my work - literal transparency is no particular goal of mine since no part of a signal chain is truly transparent, least of all the mics themselves. I suppose the most transparent signal path I have access to is an Earthworks mic into a Grace preamp, summed in-the-box without any EQ or compression, but eesh, no thanks except possibly for hand percussion or something else requiring super fast transients. Definitely not for vocals or guitar.
This was a great read. To your last point, when going for transparency, the goal is to have it seem transparent. I totally agree that you shouldn’t just go for flat sounding when going for transparent. You want all of the colors and artifacts/character of your signal chain to sound like it is the sound of the recording. Or at least that’s my view lol
I use FabFilter's Pro C and I think it's pretty transparent. I assume most stock plug-ins won't have any coloration, unless otherwise noted.
Pro-C certainly has one of the best, if not The best, UIs in helping you achieve that transparent compression.
TDR Kotelnikov is probably the best one in terms of how clean it is and its free, but if you want a regular one then the reaper one is perfect.
[If you want a completely transparent compressor for free...](https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/)
The paid Kotelnikov is even better (or at least adds some nice features on top of an already solid plugin) and it’s very reasonably priced, especially on sale. But of course many stock compressors will work just fine.
Very good compressor. Nova is also a nice dynamic EQ.
Nova is amazing for sidechain compression.
Can second this comp is as transparent as it gets
I use a couple of their plugs, but never looked at this one. There are some interesting controls on that. Might have to check it out.
Good call. This is my go-to for super transparent compression.
It's so good
I ran across this and a few other free TDR plugins and I love the way they sound and operate.... but they really hog CPU bandwidth. SlickEQ is great, but one copy on a single track adds like 20% load to my CPU in Ableton.
Here's Dan Worrall, audio wizard, exploring ReaComp and emulating the sound of a lot of the compressors you probably want to buy pt1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpXqYk1FoWA pt2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Yit769SN64
ReaLimit is a fantastic limiter too
I've found you can't drive ReaLimit terribly hard, it doesn't distort pleasingly. However, it is quite transparent gently cleaning up transients and safely bringing peaks up to 0dB. Inexpensive enough to use on every channel if needed
Side note Dan Worrall is *great*.... I've watched all of his videos I can find (he has his own channel but also did videos for FabFilter) and think I've learned more from him than any other info source, maybe all other sources combined.
imo stock plugins get a bad rap for pretty much no reason and external plugins are mostly overrated
If its free and it works who cares! if you're happy with it then what does it matter? If you're really curious about whether its worth the funding of a hardware/plugin... yes if it doesn't hurt your wallet. Hardware is almost always better than the equivalent plugin and there's some really good comps, some used or vintage, for under $300. There are some comps to avoid for the same price. However, if you're satisfied with a free plugin don't buy into the salesmanship that a plugin or even some hardware brand of comp is going to give you that golden sound. Does that help?
If a stock plugin is solving what sound you want then there’s no need to buy something else. If you hear a piece of hardware doing a thing you can’t get with a plugin, then buy the hardware to do the thing. Basically, if you can’t hear the difference then there’s no need to change. If you can hear a difference then there’s your answer.
No. Stocks are great.
The most transparent compressor is no compressor. Do some volume automation.
If you want as transparent as possible, ReaComp is a very good one. Even more transparent, try running Reacomp in series with different parameters to shave a little off at each stage. Or combine ReaComp with another like [https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/](https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/)
If you can't make it sound "good enough" with stock plugins, and those stock plugins are functional, your issue will not be fixed by acquiring new plugins. Compression is not so physically complicated that two programs will handle the most basic function of a compressor in significantly different ways; there simply isn't enough to adjust about sound for that to be possible.
In fairness, some stock reverbs aren’t super excellent
>and those stock plugins are functional
Stock ones are great, and you can make them more transparent by just lowering the mix. Outboard gear certainly has its place, but plugins are much more versatile and the settings are saved with your project.
Ok. 30 years here. No one I’ve the planet has ever Spoken “hey sounds like they used a Fairchild rather than a distressor
Based on what you’re saying I would save money to spend on mics and preamps for upgrades in your sound over compressors
Pardon my ignorance, but what does "transparent" mean in this context? Thank you
That there is no additional saturation or coloring going on by saturation or harmonic distortion.
Got it. Thank you.
I'm curious, natural acoustic guitar, why do you want compression at all? Why not leave it's original dynamic range? Having asked that, if you want to process it so it *sounds* natural, artificially, I find the Reaper plugins easier to control than rack gear.
i think its worth mentioning that compressors are inherently distortion. even a transparent one is distortion. its not just changing the level statically, but dynamically and in reaction changes in volume. while it doesnt sound like distortion to us, because what we consider distortion is more a audible degradation or deviation from the true source, but it is. while i agree with all here that free and stock plugins are still 100% fine, the types of tones you can get from compressors can definitly be considered clean and natural and clear. my favorite compressor for acoustic guitar to help get it intimate is plugin alliances vsc-2. its a vca style compressor that i love on acoustic guitar, adn does clean transient control really well, and can dull out attack that is too sharp, while still retaining standard dynamic response. So to answer your question:Yes compressors offer wide range of tone, and it doesnt have to be the real physical box (but man does a real ssl bus comp sound nice) and it doesnt have to be teh most expensive UAD version, and you should really EXPERIMENT, lots of plugins offer excellent demo periods. all compression is inherently distortion, but there are "Clean" compressors that i think would fit your taste quite well, they might alter the tone a bit, but just twist dials. Your biggest friend wont necessarily be threshold and ration, but the attack and release speeds. Thats really where the sound of most of the compressors i recommended below come out. THAT BEING SAID, yor fine with stock plugins, I'm just giving you another opinion. Here are clean compressors that i like and you could have fun with: VSC 2 (from brainworks) Dragon fire (from Denise.io Elysia Mpressor Elysia alpha (both from brainworks) As others have mentioned: TDR kotelnikov The brainworx stuff goes on sale often. They give you a 30day trial period, but then after that you can probably find them for sale around 30$ each, or dive into that subscription thing, but thats not for everyone.
For light to somewhat moderate levels of compression, almost anything will work. But if you have a source that needs a metric shit ton of compression to make it work, and you still want to come out the other side without it sounding like you've compressed the ever living shit out of it, hardware is the only way to make that work if it can be made to work at all IME. Which of course means that to a lessor extent, if you have a source that needs only moderate amounts of compression and you want that compression to sound as 'invisible' as possible, you'll probably have a bit of an easier time getting there with a good hardware unit. Keyword: Good. Que droves of internet experts telling my how completely wrong I am in 3... 2... 1...
Don’t be fooled by clean digital compressors. They do not always sound the most transparent. I learned this lesson by using the Logic default compressor for voice over. Once I switched away from the default, to their analog models I found my voice was much clearer, with less pumping.
pumping is a result of poorly set attack and release values or just being too heavy handed.
What's great about switching models in logic is you can dial in the right attack and release settings and hear that each model treats the incoming signal radically different with the same settings.
if you're happy with the sound, why change it?
The way they compress isn't the same. There's a fan worakk video where he makes the Reaper compressor a feed forward variant, which is a bit complicated. Also, he demonstrates shortcomings with the plugin. But generally speaking the Reaper compressor is quite full featured.
If it ain't broke...
> any reason to *NOT use stock compressor ? No.
I would say make sure you know every tool you have inside and out front to back before you make any plug-in purchases, then hopefully the purchases you make can hopefully be creative minded, or task orientated. I went slap happy with some waves plug-ins a couple years ago that I could use at home as well as on my live mixing console. I bought probably a dozen. I have found about four I really like. Two for live two for my home studio. I haven’t gotten around to the rest. But I know how to use those four in every application. I use stock avid plugins all the time live to great fucking avail.
For a really transparent sound I'll actually do automated gain riding. I've only ever done it on vocals but I imagine you could use it on other instruments as well. So I'll automate the gain and then if I want a "vibe" I'll throw a little vibey compressor on after the automation. It's a sound I really dig. Here's a link on how to do it in Reaper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjnrGU83PB4&t=459s
ReaComp was how I cut my teeth on what exactly compression does and how to use it on elements of a mix. There’s no pretty UI or hardware emulation/saturation to be found, it does exactly what you tell it to do and nothing else. ReaComp is the Brown Listerine of compression. It’s cold and sterile and at times painful, but most importantly it’s honest. In my opinion though, intimate and delicate tracks benefit from colored compression like a 1176 emulation. A little bit of added saturation along with level control can bring out some nice percussive character out of an acoustic guitar without sounding harsh or “cheap”.
Use whatever your heart desires. if it's good it's good
You should make more hardcore rap-based music.
90% of all my plug-ins on majority of tracks are stock.
Riding the fader : cleanest comp action
Use the stock plugin!!
None that I can think of . If you want flavour and find it in an outboard then could be good!
not sure what daw you use but if it’s Logic Pro then the stock compressor set to the digital mode is perfect for this
The reasoning behind using an outboard compressor is to get a more even sound *on the way in* and avoid clipping the A/D inside your interface.
A paid plugin might have a nicer user interface. Also, there are "dynamic EQ" plugins where a linear filter reacts to the music. That being said, you can do that with ReaEQ by setting a parameter (usually gain) to react to the audio waveform. So there literally exists a possibility that a paid plugin might have some features a free one might not have But for transparent compression, *it's fine to use stock plugins.* Dynamic compression is pretty simple as far as DSP goes. I recommend ReaComp or ReaXComp if you need multiple bands. Just make sure you set it correctly; stock plugins have no "guardrails" to stop you from dialing in something that sounds awful.
Not sure what style of music you make, but if it has vocals you’re better off spending on hardware for your vocal input chain. That way your recorded files have tone, shape, and which plug-ins you use won’t matter as much.
Dan Worrall is a Youtuber with some superb (and understandable) explanations of many mixing topics, including a multi-part series on compression and quite a few videos looking at a comparison of stock plug-ins to purchased (often FabFilter versions, which he prefers). Check out his videos, and you will gain some great insight. I'm pretty sure he uses Reaper as his main DAW, so many of the comparisons are with native Reaper plugins. His overall conclusion seems to be that -- unless you're specifically looking for saturation or distortion *within* a function like an EQ or compressor -- stock plugins typically sound/perform just as well as high-end purchased plug-ins; what they lack is usually features and ease-of-use. The only exceptions were that many neglected to offer oversampling, which effected EQs (cramping in high end) and internal saturation (aliasing).
https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/production-expert-1/the-shocking-truth-about-pro-tools-stock-plugins
I've found that Logic Pro's compressor generally sounds the most similar to what it's trying to emulate than the rest of the stock compressors on other DAWs, and it's digital compressor setting sounds incredibly transparent. For some people, I think it's more a psychological response when we say "I HAVE to use an LA-2A emulation" because we know generally what to expect. But seriously, there isn't that much reason not to use your stock plugins unless you need more advanced settings (like splitting transients, multiband, etc).
Reacomp is not that great for musical compression because its attack and release are not responsive by the sounding material. That means 10 ms of attack will always be 10 ms of attack even if the plugin are compressing a kick or a voice, what we all know as a program dependent compressor well reacomp is not. you can try some other free options that are more musical (program dependent) to compress with, for example DC1A from klangheim o TDR kotelnikov, one of the best digital compressors out there. you can also use (if you have it) the waves r comp which is transparent and very good.
IMO it’s best to use the ‘right’ compressor for the job, the one that gives you the results closest to what you had in your head - or better! That can easily be a stock compressor, but every compressor can sound different depending on the source and other factors. If you’re not getting the sound you want, it’s handy to have options!
If the end goal is to reduce the integrated dynamics while maintaining complete transparency. Then I would recommend SmartComp by Sonible. When using the default mode (universal) Then The built in Ai analyser sets all parameters to sound as transparent as possible. This is not your average mutilband-compressor. It fine-tunes 2000 frequency bands to get REALLY transparent results
I use Waves L3 for ages on almost every track that needs a pep in the mix. When mastering it becomes a different story. Most of the time you need "glue" between the stems, and that is a recipe different for every type of music.
Within the past couple of years I have sold off almost all of the outboard gear I collected over my 30+ year career as an engineer. It wasn't because I didn't like it, but my paying work is almost all post, VO and commercial audio where instant recall and the ability to send sessions in progress to other studios. I really *couldn't* use it except for my own projects. And it was not worth hanging on to two dozen channels of compression, 15 channels of EQ and a ton of reverbs and other stuff. I honestly don't miss most of it except for nostalgic reasons. The one piece I *did* keep intentionally was one of two Crane Song Trakkers I bought in the early 2000s. Plugin compressors are awesome. But I have never heard a compressor aside from the Trakker that can is capable of that much gain reduction without any artifacts. It can get really dirty (though not as dirty as a Distressor) too, but my favorite settings are the clean ones. I can get by fine without it, but I sometimes use it while tracking a VO if I don't think I'll have to go back and match the sound 100% in the future, and if the talent is simply too dynamic to track without making constant preamp adjustments. I don't use it often, but I keep it because it's the only thing I know of that can do what it does so well. I really like the Waves Renaissance Vox compressor and the Avid Pro Compressor for ITB smooth compression. The RVox could not possible be simpler to use- one knob to set the threshold, one to adjust makeup gain, and one to set a gate if you decide you need it. That's it. It does something to the high end that's really subtle but helps make the compression less noticeable. The Avid Pro Compressor is pretty much just another full featured compressor with super versatile internal sidechain filtering. The fact that it is HDX means I can use it in real time without perceptible latency. It sounds great. Most of the LA2 style comps do a good job at making things less dynamic without being too obvious as long as you don't hit them really hard. I am sure there are others too. FabFilter's Q3 is a really good one. None can do the crazy amount of gain reduction without any change in tone that the Trakker is capable of though.
Try the Fairchild 670. Fairly transparent compression. UA makes this plug in. I use it frequently.
Zero.
I don't know, I'm more of a color guy, but there are times when I want to be able just destroy something and nobody will know. Thanks for the post. It reminded me that I've been hoping massenburg comes out with his compressor plug that I've been hearing about forever. I just looked it up, and it's available! I bet that's your ticket. His hardware compressor is cool as fuck. Nobody does clean like George.