hi,i am going through an old walkthrough in computer music.they use the ableton compressor. in the walkthrough they say u need a compressor thats capable of extremely high ratios.
they set the compressor to ratio of 50.
is there a 3rd party plugin with ratio this high?

 

every limiter ever ?

 

Yes there are obviously several third party compressors that go up to 50:1 and more. But note that the attack, the knee/behaviour and the "cleanliness/sound" of the compressor are probably just as important as the ratio... For sidechain for example, some compressors will be much too dirty with a high ratio and a fast attack, other compressors will not have a fast enough attack, etc.

Before I suggest a compressor, what's the thing you want to do?

 

Last edited: Jun 11, 2024

wait until you find out about infinity ratio

 

In priciple that is a limter. But ... Rough Rider by Audio Damage has such ratios.

 

extreme drum compression is the name of the walkthrough.
thanks for replies

 

Is this for parallel compression? Because in general we crush the transients with an instantaneous attack in parallel compression and we emphasize the punch with a medium long attack otherwise. But since for drums, dirty compression is not a bad thing (quite the opposite!), there are so many third-party plugins that can do the trick... I suggest trying the free XTMax Distressor emulation (NUKE mode only) by Kiive Audio.

 

Last edited: Jun 11, 2024

Baby Audio makes a claim about IHNY2, if you were to believe their marketing. I just remember seeing this mentioned someplace, and I don't have any opinion on the statement because it's not what I use. https://babyaud.io/ihny-2

Squash, Slam and Smack!
✱ Add punch and intensity to your drums (and beyond) with the industry’s hardest hitting compressor

✱ Offers surgical control and full flexibility to shape your compression sound

 

In practical terms, the likely audible difference between, say 20:1, and 50:1, will be pretty minimal. I mean, most people tend to regard anything from 20:1 up as essentially limiting, so 20:1, 50:1, infinity:1 will all be doing pretty much the same thing, dependent on factors like your signal, your threshold, the knee and obviously the attack/release characteristics of the processor...

Under 20:1, and the differences will be much bigger between say 2:1, 4:1, 8:1 - you'll be able to notice those behaviour differences much more audibly (again, assuming your threshold etc gives you gain reduction).

 

You can make almost every good and capable compressor out there sound "aggressive". That being said this is the most obnoxious compressor out of the box I've ever used: https://nimble.itch.io/argent

 

Most digital compressor can do 50:1 ratio with ease, it's basically limiting. Unless the soft-knee settings is used to ease the compression. However....

Here's Pro-C2 50:1 Soft Knee :


... and Pro-C2 at pretty much default settings adjusted to match the curve with 4:1 ratio :


If you want hard-knee high-ratio compression, might as well use a proper Limiter plugin that has all the limiting-tailored functionality, if you want soft-knee high-ratio compression, wouldn't make a difference to use normal 4:1 ratio for everyday 1-3db GR and it has potential to sound even better when slammed.

 

The exception to this is if you are using a sidechained compressor for ducking. With no lookahead, you can speed up how fast the compressor clamps down by adjusting the ratio. Try it with Fabfilter Pro-C2 set to external sidechain, and listen to the differences between 20:1 and 50:1, and Infinity. I think you will notice.