Hi people, i've been revisiting my gear and plugins to match my taste and the sound i want to archieve on the last months and the things are going pretty fine... Except for a bus compressor for the melodics subgroup (keys, guitars, strings, synths, etc). I've been using tube compressors for this task: i had a fairchild emulation for a long long time, but after some time i realized that it was distorting a quite too much before even compressing. So i went to a more sterile option with the Pulsar Mu, but for melodics i felt they become kinda dull, it's a great plugin but didn't interacted well with the rest of my chain.

So i want something that bring the things to the front a LITTLE bit and glue em together to give cohesion and movement, also with subtle distortion, a bit more than the Pulsar Mu and less than a Fairchild. MJUC and Kazrog True Dynamics are being the closest to what i expected, but i want to hear the experience of you regarding to this task. Thanks!

 

Doesn't your Fairchild emu come with input/output knobs? The IK VC670 one does - I'm quite happy with it.

 

That's exactly my problem: more input gain = more distortion. Even compensating on the output, the sound character changes a lot while i drive the input to hit the needle

 

You can try going the Brauer route and put a 33609 emulation on the bus, followed by a Pultec. Has worked well for me in the past.

 

Yeah, i kinda have the same Brauer routing, with a pultec also, but i was experimenting with a different summing amp and compressor. I don't want to change the summing amp since it's working wonders, but yeah, why not copy something that worked for decades for a lot of people? Thanks, i will give it a try!

 

As you already mentioned, True Dynamics (one of the first two algos), which is pretty easy to handle and also eli Arousor, where you can dial in or out the amount of harmonics (apart from the bonus of various additional parameters).
When using Mu, keep in mind threshold and Input have different effect on the ratio (Threshold has less).

 

Nice to mention that. I didn't knew it, and it seems to be the reason i never made this thing to work

 

How about the HCL Islander? Varimu, independent saturarion (if my memory doesn't fail me), and enough timing control to move things around a bit.

 

Supercharger GT from NI

Does the job !

 

I am big fan of DC8C, MUJC, and Karzog TD they cover a lot ground and some of it is very similar.

SPL Iron is an other color comp that you can dial in to taste somewhat.

If nothing else works though and you want to twiddle knobs to find your own sound Compassion and Saturn together work really well but the hair splitting is going to eat so many hours of your time only you can decide if it's worth it or not.

 

you are talking exactely of Teletronix LA2A silver version by UAD : )

EDIT: stevie reminded me to add:

Obviously use 2 instances in dual mono or M/S mode

 

Last edited: Jul 25, 2023

Arturia 609 is nice .. subtle saturation

 

Kiive Xtressor on M/S Opto Mode.

 

Thank you very much, you all! I stick with the 33609, the version i use (red rock sound) has a negative saturation knob, so i can dial in the amount of character + it gave the smoothness and movement i wanted. Will keep an eye on the xtressor preset shared by @Stevie Dude

 

On top of that, it's only $19 ATM, which is cheapo AF for a good sounding comp.

EDIT: Oops, looks like they use online activation.

 

Last edited: Jul 26, 2023

The idea is using Opto on M/S mode, inspired by Michael Brauer C Bus style, where he uses Edward The Comp and opto on dual mono hard to get it right because of how it does its thing (on analog, digital is possible). I found that melodic elements mostly are wide and on M/S mode you get more controls whether to extend or control it a bit. About the amount of saturation, Distressor being the most versatile, can pick 2nd order or 3rd order plus individual Saturation + Mix knob for each channel giving me a lot of options. Just saying. 33609 is okay too, it's just I found it too smooth sometimes, it has its place though.

 

Not directly related but I'd advise you to try TrackComp 2 since it has a bunch of compressor models that you can go through (including optical)