This is now without a doubt my most accurate compressor. I worked on updating it over the course of several months, and pushed myself to learn new ways of improving my compressors, with the possibility of applying some of these new techniques to some of my other compressors in the future.. if anyone seems to care about this update and I actually get a few new sales/support out of it.
here’s what was updated:
*Put a new focus on having the controls match up closer with how they work on the hardware. Created programs that switch between the sampled ratio, release, and attack settings, just like the hardware. Now you can stick with the options only provided by the hardware, if you want to be a purist.
*However, the ‘switch mode’ compressor programs do offer some settings not possible with the hardware- The hardware comp has a fixed attack speed around 5-6ms, while the limiter section can go from ‘slow’ (around 10ms) to ‘fast’ (under 1ms) settings. I’ve allowed all 3 of those speeds to be selectable by both the compressor and limiter. The comp section of the hardware only has release timings of 400ms, 800ms, and 1.5sec, but the limiter has 100, 200, and 800ms, so I’ve allowed the faster 100 and 200ms limiter timings with the compressor.
(note- i’ve read that the ‘slow’ limiter setting should be around 1-2ms, but in some cases when the units are taken from the desk and racked, it can cause the slow attack to perform differently… so i’m keeping the ~10ms time as ‘slow’, because that’s what was sampled! you can achieve attacks around 1ms with the limiter programs, explained in the next point).
*I also still offer comp programs with the fully variable attack/release/ratio controls. You can set the ratio/attack/release anywhere ‘in between’ the settings offered on the switchable programs. These programs also have a slightly extended range on the attack, allowing you to set it a little slower (up to 15ms). The only limiter programs provided use the switchable release knob, but fully variable attack. This is because the two sampled attack speeds for the limiter are at fully min/max on the knob, so you can easily ‘switch’ to either of them, but you can also explore the settings in between if you choose to.
*Improved the attack to be more accurate to hardware. It’s now closer than ever before, in timing and shape.
*Release is hugely improved, more accurate. In the past, the release could be a little inconsistent, giving slightly different results when using different ratio settings. now it’s much more consistent across all ratio settings. More importantly, the shape and timings are much more accurate. I spent a lot of time on this, with several passes at tweaking each timing, at each ratio setting, to get it as close to perfect as I could.
*Threshold control and the amount of gain reduction you can expect based on your ratio setting and input, is much, much more accurate.
*Harmonics levels greatly improved for more accuracy at various input levels.
*Redesigned the gain reduction meter’s behavior to be smoother. There are known issues with Nebula 3 and 4 that prevent the meters from ever being completely accurate, without an update to nebula itself. So there’s really nothing i can do on my end to make these meters perfect but I think it’s as good as it can be now.
*Renamed lite programs to ‘clean’, because while CPU power has improved since these were first released, and CPU was the main reason for including them back then, I think they still have a place if you want an absolutely clean (no harmonics) option. ‘Full’ programs were renamed to ‘Main’, and are just like ‘clean’ programs but they offer two orders of subtle harmonic distortion. ‘SHQ’ programs have been replaced with ‘Clean SHQ’, which are like clean programs but with a more accurate frequency response, at the cost of a huge increase to CPU, so they’re only meant for rendering, and are entirely optional because ‘clean’ and ‘main’ programs both give great results anyway. ‘Clean SHQ’ has slightly more accurate bass.
*I added a new ‘harms only’ program, which ONLY provides the harmonics, and is meant to be paired with the ‘Clean’ or ‘Clean SHQ’ programs, to get a full model. You just add this program in another instance, after the comp. There are more orders of subtle harmonics here than with the ‘main’ program, and they’re slightly more accurate, so combining this program with the ‘Clean’ or ‘Clean SHQ’ gives the most harmonic accuracy.
*I adjusted the stereo balance of some of the impulses where one channel was a little louder than the other. It was very subtle.
*The entire programming of the compressor was redesigned from the ground up, with countless changes ‘under the hood’, improving accuracy and sound.
*For *some* ratio settings, the levels were slightly off for some of the samples, usually at lower amounts of gain reduction. now fixed. It’s a subtle improvement but it does contribute a little to getting more accurate results.
*Pass-through program was also improved for accuracy.
*Artifacts have been reduced all around, and are so low (over 100dB beneath your signal) that I would say they just don’t matter, even with multiple passes of processing.