Hi everyone, as title says, please name the best lightweight upward compressor. Need it to be very lightweight because I'll be using a 10 years old weak laptop. Thanks!

 

Pro-MB could tick all the boxes

 

You can use any compressor you like, in parallel (really crushing the dynamics).

 

TDR Nova can do this.

 

OTT www.xferrecords.com/freeware. Just figure out the settings without blowing up your monitors or hearing first. The downward compression can be completely turned down or disabled I think. It is what can usually get things way too loud on accident. This thing is easily the most by far and away popular Upward Compression processor in a free plugin. You can also easily overdo it.
They could easily charge a couple bucks for it.

 

Last edited: Nov 9, 2022

@ OP, yep, you'll need to turn Range to positive values, often overlooked. And with multiple bands you can exclude for instance low and/or high noise.

Mh, smashing the peaks (and transients) and adding this sound to the original isn't quite the same as upward compression, which doesn't affect these (which I'm sure you know). But both will result in a higher RMS.

Not really lightweight. TBH, it's the most CPU demanding algo dyn EQ I know of.

A very easy option could be Waves MV2, a fairly unknown option would be FREE ToneBoosters FlX with one of these settings

Spoiler

 

I guess the 'Sustain' knob on most transient shapers works as an upwards compressor?
If so, Kilohearts provides both a lightweight transient shaper and a general 'dynamics' plugin.

If it needs to be even lighter, Transient by Sleepy-Time DSP is available for free (x64 and x86) and is more configurable. (I use this one)

 

Thanks everyone!

 

JS: General Dynamics (Cockos)
kHs Dynamics (Kilohearts)
Pure DExpander (FLUX)

 

You can use any compressor or limiter that has a range/max gain reduction parameter, for upwards compression. Set range and makeup gain to the same positive value, and ratio at inf:1. You won't be able to get the same overshoot/negative ratio that you can get with a dedicated upwards compressor, but I never use that function in an upwards compressor anyways.

 

Hey, I could actually match MV2 and FirComp2 (ok, almost )

Spoiler

Pro MV2: only two sliders, low level and output, a lot less CPU demanding
Pro FirComp2: way more versatile

 

whats so special about fab filter other than it being lEiK tHe BeSt VsTs EvEr?

 

+1 for kilohearts dynamics

 

But yeah, upward compression can be achieved with parallel compression. That's how most upward compressors work.

 

Running it as an AU plugin so it is in the clearly superior format which has nothing to do with Steinberg.

 

Not correct. upward comp is not parallel comp

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2022

Why do you say AU is a superior format compared to vst? Did I understand that correctly?

 

That is, you insist that upward compression works like normal parallel compression? Sorry can you explain in detail how?

 

No. He is a Mac/Logic user and is running his plugins as AU. His upper/lowercase joke is just 31337. He can probably not use them (fabfilter) because he knows which Logic Compressor circuits to use for the material he needs a simple clean lightweight compressor for. This means he is joking.

 

Last edited: Nov 10, 2022

don't know if it's lightweight enough for your machine but for expansion I use mainly sculpt and boost