My friendly neighborhood mastering engineer turned me onto Trackcomp. It's a swiss army knife of comps with spot on modeling, but using an identical interface across everything. I make dark breakbeat type stuff, but I would still use it regardless of genre. I have also found the DMG native mode to be excellent as a regular stock compressor.
i tested many compressor but one compressor that do all is klanghelm compressor. so many options to set how it works. after time of learn and use very fast to use.
I have so many plugins, but I honestly have no clue what I'm doing most of the time. I just like to play around with them. Lately I'm trying to get a bit more serious, so I threw out a lot of free stuff that wasn't great and replaced them with better non-free ones. One is actually the Klanghelm DC8C3, mostly because it was the only one I found that had slopecontrol on the attack/release curves and I wanted that. Later I discovered the Toneboosters plugins while looking for a good EQ. I also bought the compressor. Toneboosters are like budget Fabfilter plugins, but I love them a lot and I'd probably choose that compressor. I don't know how it compares to all that's available, but it's very flexible and I really like the visual feedback. I usually make EDM btw.
Can't go wrong with Klanghelm....Tony's new Spring Reverb is excellent and i'm not even really big on spring-reverbs. The Snare and Tambourine preset is insanely clean.
I use BUSTERse on all my tracks, drumbus and sometimes master, just a tiny amount. Oversampling (clicking the analog obsession text, turning it red) seem to do a lot on that one. DMG has got stellar plugins, so I will try that one, too.
Another good alternative to those is Boz Manic Compressor, often goes on sale for quite cheap. It has multiple types, advanced metering and parallel processing.
Hmm. My choice would proably be the Pro-C2, mainly because I have so much experience with using it. Previously it might have been the Renaissance Compressor, because I used that for years. These days I try out more flavours, such as 1176 and so on. DMG Audio EQs were in heavy use in on Protools, but I stayed away from them in the end because some of the eariler plugins had problems with automation in their VST versions. The trackcomp sounds great. I'll need to test it at some point to see if it can take the place of other plugins. By now I just have everything I need :). One note on your voice track. I'd give that some EQ treatment and perhaps even a little bit of fast compression off the top. I had to turn the audio way down to make it less grating. Serious trouble around 2.9k and 1.5k. With Q between 3 and 4 I'd be cutting at least 6dB around there. You can warm up a bunch by taking out 3-5dB around 550 Hz. Also there's a sibilance problem at 9-10k. For compression a few dB off the top real fast will smooth things out. Take it or leave it from a dialogue mixer.
So hard to choose just one compressor. Like you said they are usually pretty specialized in their utility. That said, the Neutron Multiband Compressor I find I can use pretty easily with everything. Not saying it is the best for any individual thing, but if I had to pick one to easily work with everything it would be it.
Most Likely The Drawmer 1973, It is very Dynamic, can hit the 1176 blue face FET numbers but also can be creamy and wonderful even as a Mastering compressor, otherwise i would UNDOUBTEDLY choose the Elysia Alpha Master Compressor is Insanely progressive. witht he forward feed, vs, backfeed, also The valley people Dynamite is amazing for crunch,. the Maag Dual Channel, by BX works is nice, i dig their analogue modeling tech
and i just did wht you asked not to do, yes the compressors are very ... Track dependent, I woul;d say the alpha is probably the most powerful tool for the cash, ( its a 10,000 machine?)
DMG TrackComp 2, for sure. It's kind of cheating, because it has modelling of about 9 different classic and modern compressors: 1176 A & D, LA-2A, SSL G-bus, API 2500, Zener Comp/Limiter, DBX 160, e-channel, mini-Compassion. And what's even better is that it only cost me about £75 with a discount. Similar for limiters, DMG TrackLimit. Second choice would probably be the UAD Empirical Labs Distressor - could do most anything with that.
For me Presswerk and Trackcomp are tied for first place. I use them equally often. Btw the choice of snare wasn't very good to illustrate your points, imho. I'd assume most Snare presets are tuned for more snary sounding snares, not just a square wave with a pitch envelope and some noise 😊 Btw the Zener on Trackcomp is insane on drums!
Update Seems Track Comp and Presswerk is the Best the Money Because those 2 just have a newer more radio ready sound, plus they sound more open than Fab or Klanghelm, you want an open sounding comp on your tracks and mixbus, not muggy closed sounding Compressors Plus Track and Presswerk, are just Swiss Army Knives You can pretty Much have one of those The Slate Bundle and IK Media MixBox and your good....... thats only $500 worth of plugins...you do a Access Analog Sub with that if you dont have gear (Which I do) and your set......now you can put more money into better Controller Headphones Mic, Monitors, Computer and Interface and a Really Good Daw...Like Bitwig....or Studio One instead of spending $3000 on plugins..LOL
Nice video, I struggle quite a bit with compression. I can apply compression to voices, but all my attempts to compress a drum buss have failed. I get the plugins and follow tutorials step by step, but always end up thinking that I prefer the unaltered signal because the compressed one at the same peak level sounds less exciting. I suppose that I'll get it down one day. 🤖
@Camarade Toff Since I made this comment I've been using compression on drums more as a sound shaper than a method to "get more volume at the same peak level" and this approach have been working for me (for volume I'm using saturation). Since I use mostly drumkits and not real life drums I realized that most of the times I don't have the necessity of using a lot of compression. That said, thank you. Your explanation of the transients remaining the same as the body of the sound is "quieter" helped me to understand even better what was happening to me.
What I like to do is use a compressor for shaping the punch and sound of the drums while also adding a saturator or limiter after the compressor to bring back the body of the sound a bit while still keeping the punch. Another thing I would try on drum bus is to use parallel compression, that can do wonders for bringing out excitement while still keeping the original character of the drums.
Pulsar Audio Mu. Answer based on what I have now. I use it to compress and color the audio. I guess I'm like Lays potato chips, I don't stop at just one. I have different compressors for different things. What I'm mixing currently? Audio Livestream at church. I will be using my DAW to create orchestral instrumental music.
Expert Mode of that klanghelm May be one the Best Mastering Comps along with HComp BusterSE Presswerks WAVES dbx 160 stereo Tone Empire Fairchild You can use the 6 of them on Any master
Its like the more I listen to your video....the more I think....starting out....I wish I would have just made sure my computer was an i7 with 32gb or RAM from the Jump, like it is now, because then...you can just go with MixBox and 2 Acustica Audio Strips.....$500 worth of plugins...and you can make grammy award winning mixes with those and now...the rest of that money can be put into Headphones, good interface, monitors and mic, way better way, to spend money in your Studio...!!
After 53 years of studio work and, up until the last 10 years or so with real, analog stuff, I can tell you that the differences in analog stuff and QUALITY plugins is negligible. That’s just the truth. Use your ears. Period.
I make house and deep house, as of recent I don’t think I could ever trade in the Kush audio ar 1 and before the ar-1 I’d have to say waves h-comp. I’m my option both of these just sound amazing on everything
@@Genital.Wartzenegger Very generic sound. The Punch dial is a totally useless setting (you could just use the attack to achieve the same). It has no "tone". To me it's worse than the Ableton stock compressor. It literally has nothing to offer that would put it above any generic stock compressor.
I dare to say I think MixBox...would be Better Period if your just start out, because you just get everything you need in One Plugin...Period....even a great Saturation and Distortion plugin...with a mix fader...to give each track some analog color...just starting out...nothing beats Mix Box....or Slate Digital Bundle...
FIRComp 2 - ultra clean, super fast attack. VCA mode smacks.
My friendly neighborhood mastering engineer turned me onto Trackcomp. It's a swiss army knife of comps with spot on modeling, but using an identical interface across everything. I make dark breakbeat type stuff, but I would still use it regardless of genre.
I have also found the DMG native mode to be excellent as a regular stock compressor.
i tested many compressor but one compressor that do all is klanghelm compressor. so many options to set how it works. after time of learn and use very fast to use.
A single short-decay white-noise 'snare' (gee - a snare with no rattle!) only tells so much.
Klanghelm! Amazing compressor!
I have so many plugins, but I honestly have no clue what I'm doing most of the time. I just like to play around with them. Lately I'm trying to get a bit more serious, so I threw out a lot of free stuff that wasn't great and replaced them with better non-free ones. One is actually the Klanghelm DC8C3, mostly because it was the only one I found that had slopecontrol on the attack/release curves and I wanted that. Later I discovered the Toneboosters plugins while looking for a good EQ. I also bought the compressor. Toneboosters are like budget Fabfilter plugins, but I love them a lot and I'd probably choose that compressor. I don't know how it compares to all that's available, but it's very flexible and I really like the visual feedback. I usually make EDM btw.
Can't go wrong with Klanghelm....Tony's new Spring Reverb is excellent and i'm not even really big on spring-reverbs. The Snare and Tambourine preset is insanely clean.
I use BUSTERse on all my tracks, drumbus and sometimes master, just a tiny amount. Oversampling (clicking the analog obsession text, turning it red) seem to do a lot on that one. DMG has got stellar plugins, so I will try that one, too.
I like that one as well...especially as a free alternative to the Glue it usually does a great job!
Another good alternative to those is Boz Manic Compressor, often goes on sale for quite cheap. It has multiple types, advanced metering and parallel processing.
Hmm. My choice would proably be the Pro-C2, mainly because I have so much experience with using it. Previously it might have been the Renaissance Compressor, because I used that for years. These days I try out more flavours, such as 1176 and so on. DMG Audio EQs were in heavy use in on Protools, but I stayed away from them in the end because some of the eariler plugins had problems with automation in their VST versions. The trackcomp sounds great. I'll need to test it at some point to see if it can take the place of other plugins. By now I just have everything I need :).
One note on your voice track. I'd give that some EQ treatment and perhaps even a little bit of fast compression off the top. I had to turn the audio way down to make it less grating. Serious trouble around 2.9k and 1.5k. With Q between 3 and 4 I'd be cutting at least 6dB around there. You can warm up a bunch by taking out 3-5dB around 550 Hz. Also there's a sibilance problem at 9-10k. For compression a few dB off the top real fast will smooth things out. Take it or leave it from a dialogue mixer.
So hard to choose just one compressor. Like you said they are usually pretty specialized in their utility. That said, the Neutron Multiband Compressor I find I can use pretty easily with everything. Not saying it is the best for any individual thing, but if I had to pick one to easily work with everything it would be it.
Fabfilter Pro MB...
U He hands down!
Most Likely The Drawmer 1973, It is very Dynamic, can hit the 1176 blue face FET numbers but also can be creamy and wonderful even as a Mastering compressor, otherwise i would UNDOUBTEDLY choose the Elysia Alpha Master Compressor is Insanely progressive. witht he forward feed, vs, backfeed, also
The valley people Dynamite is amazing for crunch,.
the Maag Dual Channel, by BX works is nice, i dig their analogue modeling tech
and i just did wht you asked not to do, yes the compressors are very ... Track dependent, I woul;d say the alpha is probably the most powerful tool for the cash, ( its a 10,000 machine?)
Xtressor. I do have others in place, but if I only had one, the Xtressor would fit the bill on my crush groups, drum, guitar, and mix busses.
DMG TrackComp 2, for sure. It's kind of cheating, because it has modelling of about 9 different classic and modern compressors: 1176 A & D, LA-2A, SSL G-bus, API 2500, Zener Comp/Limiter, DBX 160, e-channel, mini-Compassion. And what's even better is that it only cost me about £75 with a discount. Similar for limiters, DMG TrackLimit. Second choice would probably be the UAD Empirical Labs Distressor - could do most anything with that.
For me Presswerk and Trackcomp are tied for first place. I use them equally often.
Btw the choice of snare wasn't very good to illustrate your points, imho. I'd assume most Snare presets are tuned for more snary sounding snares, not just a square wave with a pitch envelope and some noise 😊
Btw the Zener on Trackcomp is insane on drums!
Supercharger gt. Be cause of it's versatility an ease of use.
That Comp seems to be magic in Bitwig
Just used that on a master in Expert Mode
Update
Seems Track Comp and Presswerk is the Best the Money Because those 2
just have a newer more radio ready sound, plus they sound more open than
Fab or Klanghelm, you want an open sounding comp on your tracks and mixbus, not muggy closed sounding Compressors
Plus Track and Presswerk, are just Swiss Army Knives
You can pretty Much have one of those
The Slate Bundle and IK Media MixBox and your good.......
thats only $500 worth of plugins...you do a Access Analog Sub with that if you dont have gear (Which I do) and your set......now you can put more money
into
better
Controller
Headphones
Mic, Monitors, Computer and Interface and a Really Good Daw...Like Bitwig....or Studio One
instead of spending $3000 on plugins..LOL
The Glue is so great!
What DAW is that
Nice video, I struggle quite a bit with compression. I can apply compression to voices, but all my attempts to compress a drum buss have failed. I get the plugins and follow tutorials step by step, but always end up thinking that I prefer the unaltered signal because the compressed one at the same peak level sounds less exciting. I suppose that I'll get it down one day. 🤖
@Camarade Toff Since I made this comment I've been using compression on drums more as a sound shaper than a method to "get more volume at the same peak level" and this approach have been working for me (for volume I'm using saturation). Since I use mostly drumkits and not real life drums I realized that most of the times I don't have the necessity of using a lot of compression.
That said, thank you. Your explanation of the transients remaining the same as the body of the sound is "quieter" helped me to understand even better what was happening to me.
What I like to do is use a compressor for shaping the punch and sound of the drums while also adding a saturator or limiter after the compressor to bring back the body of the sound a bit while still keeping the punch.
Another thing I would try on drum bus is to use parallel compression, that can do wonders for bringing out excitement while still keeping the original character of the drums.
Pulsar Audio Mu. Answer based on what I have now. I use it to compress and color the audio.
I guess I'm like Lays potato chips, I don't stop at just one. I have different compressors for different things.
What I'm mixing currently? Audio Livestream at church. I will be using my DAW to create orchestral instrumental music.
Expert Mode of that klanghelm
May be one the Best Mastering Comps along with
HComp
BusterSE
Presswerks
WAVES dbx 160 stereo
Tone Empire Fairchild
You can use the 6 of them on Any master
Its like the more I listen to your video....the more I think....starting out....I wish I would have just made sure my computer was an i7 with 32gb or RAM from the Jump, like it is now, because then...you can just go with
MixBox
and 2 Acustica Audio Strips.....$500 worth of plugins...and you can make grammy award winning mixes with those
and now...the rest of that money can be put into
Headphones, good interface, monitors and mic, way better way, to spend money in your Studio...!!
After 53 years of studio work and, up until the last 10 years or so with real, analog stuff, I can tell you that the differences in analog stuff and QUALITY plugins is negligible. That’s just the truth. Use your ears. Period.
I make house and deep house, as of recent I don’t think I could ever trade in the Kush audio ar 1 and before the ar-1 I’d have to say waves h-comp. I’m my option both of these just sound amazing on everything
H-Comp is one of the worst compressors I ever used. Got it for free, but had to uninstall it for not meeting my standards.
@@esahm373 why do you think it's bad
@@Genital.Wartzenegger Very generic sound. The Punch dial is a totally useless setting (you could just use the attack to achieve the same). It has no "tone". To me it's worse than the Ableton stock compressor. It literally has nothing to offer that would put it above any generic stock compressor.
@@esahm373 sounds like a compressor that does what it’s supposed to sucks to you. I’ve always gotten good results from it.
@@Genital.Wartzenegger Why would you prefer it over your DAW stock comp? Very strange, especially since you pointed it out as your go-to compressor.
Your SM7B and your PP are set to make your voice quite dry..
I dare to say
I think MixBox...would be Better Period if your just start out, because you just get everything you need in One Plugin...Period....even a great Saturation and Distortion plugin...with a mix fader...to give each track some analog color...just starting out...nothing beats Mix Box....or Slate Digital Bundle...
Pulsar 1178
👍
SSL