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Compressor Shootout: Ableton/T-Racks/Waves SSL

Interesting shootout. Not the most exhaustive comparison, but definitely worthwhile.

http://www.samplepacks.ca/compresso...r%20Shoot%20Out

This is kind of what I expect now. It's the same shit with the EQs.

Unless the compressor or EQ has some kind of saturation that adds color, or it adds on a new feature its a bad choice to buy a new compressor or EQ thinking you are upgrading.

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux It's the same shit with the EQs.

There's a thread over on KVR right about how many EQs people are using in their productions and it's pretty shocking to hear how many people are using 3 or more different "high-end" software EQs in their productions.

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux Unless the compressor or EQ has some kind of saturation that adds color, or it adds on a new feature its a bad choice to buy a new compressor or EQ thinking you are upgrading.

I generally agree - when it comes to EQs, compressors, limiters, etc., the difference in sound is so minimal that it's not a good enough reason to upgrade, IMO. Personally, I think the best reasons to upgrade are for features and workflow, rather than subtle flavor. it's a case of YMMV.

OTOH, this shootout could/should have been better. First, they didn't provide the original sample, nor did they provide the settings, so it's hard to know how much compression is being added and it sounds pretty moderate. You wouldn't expect to hear much difference there. I own the SSL and it doesn't really start to show its character until you push it.

Nice article. The waves one definitely had the "hottest" sound to it and felt like it slammed the mid-highs more than the other two by a long-shot. I'm not saying this is a good thing btw; guess it just depends what you're after.

quote:

Originally posted by cryophonik I own the SSL and it doesn't really start to show its character until you push it.

Good call.

he didn't even use remotely the same settings on the compressors. lol. the author of the article is an idiot.

additionally, if the author of the article has more experience with ableton's compressor (which is likely), then of course he's going to get a better sound out of it. i mean if he is just demoing the waves plugin, he's not going to make it sound as good as something he's been using for say, three years. this is just a pathetic display of ignorance, nothing more.

Finally, a decent comparison.

I've always been a fan of using stock compressor/eqs. Do they sound different? Yes? Better? Not necessarily. The only plugins worth thinking about are ones that add a certain coloration to the sound or give you more/better controls for the settings that you need, which are useful to have if you want your sounds to have a certain characteristic. IE. PSP Vintagewarmer, Sausage Fattener (yes...), waves C1, etc...


On the other hand, I find very useful to have a wide array of filters, as they give you noticeably very different feels to them, especially when you have a prominent sweep going through the track.

quote:

Originally posted by jayxthekoolest he didn't even use remotely the same settings on the compressors. lol. the author of the article is an idiot. additionally, if the author of the article has more experience with ableton's compressor (which is likely), then of course he's going to get a better sound out of it. i mean if he is just demoing the waves plugin, he's not going to make it sound as good as something he's been using for say, three years. this is just a pathetic display of ignorance, nothing more.

What you're saying actually supports his summary:

quote:

If there is anything to learn from this experiment it�s this: Spend less time drooling over the gear you can�t afford and more time critically learning how to work with the gear you have � it�s probably better than you think it is.

I've often had the sense the differnces are fairly minimal.
As a pertinent analogy, there was a chap on BBC Radio extoling the virtues of vinyl and analogue record players over CD and MP3's played on digital players.

Anway after 5 minutes rambling on the presenter then did a blind test and asked the guy which was whihc, and I kid you not he didn't know. In the end he made his choice and got it arse about face, by voting for digital. Says it all really.

I guess with hardware outboard, studios ended up with thier own particular signal chains which in turn gave thier output 'a sound'. Software simply does not have the definition to emulate the exact nuances of hardware, afterall each valve compressor from the same batch had a slightly differnet sound to one another.

What did they expect? it's SOFTWARE, an ALGORITM and it has nothing to with traditional compression techiques.
The difference is in the plug&play and presets that come with these
people tend to cycle through presets find the sound they like and then suddenly that's there new "go to compressor"

It's a sign of the times, people don't learn how to use a compressor anymore, they get dickhard on a gui and just mix and match presets until they have lucky shot and stick with that.

So ITB i stick with DAW plugs (in my case Cubase6) and I'm very busy selling all my other plugs (sold SSL duende already, WAVES API Collection and SONNOX are next)I've stopped with the VST rat race last year and will not be sucked into it again.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie What did they expect? it's SOFTWARE, an ALGORITM and it has nothing to with traditional compression techiques.

Care to put your credibility behind that statement and take a blind test? I'll gladly post examples of my Drawmer vs a handful of plugins. And, no, I'm not going to use any presets. I don't think you give us much credit - many of us have been using compressors for years and have a very good handle on how it works. It's pretty damn simple, really.

As far as compressors and EQs that add color, I think I like softube the best.

quote:

Originally posted by Beatflux As far as compressors and EQs that add color, I think I like softube the best.

I haven't tried their compressors/EQs, but Cakewalk offers a Softube saturation module for Sonar and it's really nice simple effect that adds some nice character.

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie WAVES API

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie What did they expect? it's SOFTWARE, an ALGORITM and it has nothing to with traditional compression techiques. The difference is in the plug&play and presets that come with these people tend to cycle through presets find the sound they like and then suddenly that's there new "go to compressor" It's a sign of the times, people don't learn how to use a compressor anymore, they get dickhard on a gui and just mix and match presets until they have lucky shot and stick with that. So ITB i stick with DAW plugs (in my case Cubase6) and I'm very busy selling all my other plugs (sold SSL duende already, WAVES API Collection and SONNOX are next)I've stopped with the VST rat race last year and will not be sucked into it again.

I definitely agree with you that people just seem to find a compressor plugin with the right preset. I wonder if that's what the reviewer did because the settings on all the compressors are not even remotely related. I am somewhat convinced the poster of that article is completely unfamiliar with compression techniques.

quote:

Originally posted by jayxthekoolest I definitely agree with you that people just seem to find a compressor plugin with the right preset.

How do you figure that? I can't say I've ever seen someone say "I use compressor x because preset z is awesome"

Unless your speaking from your own experiences with compressors?

yeah yeah, bla bla, we all claim to be that engineer that don't use presets. Maybe a few aside, but at least 75% of TA falls into the fruity noob category working with exactly that "a bunch of presets of their ever expanding collection of pirated plugins"
Don't feel offended Cryo, as you don't fall into this category, but without getting personal this is the market........

And my point was not that software can't beat hardware, one vanilla compressor is more than enough. definately on moderate settings, on more extreme settings all software plugins sound shite...

lol

software can and does beat hardware in so many ways. And you are part of the group of noobs using presets. You've admitted this yourself. Kettles and shit. You are part of that sad pathetic producers that couldn't do it so they moved to mastering because even engineering , they couldn't hack it. This trend of people becoming mastering engineers before being able to actually mix is fucking funny. You are an industry joke. You are a hobbyist which is fine but the second you start acting like anything more, it is annoying , it is funny and it is sadly far too common. Stop posing as a professional. You aren't. Not by a long shot.


If you need a preset for a compressor , i mean it takes longer to cue up a preset than it does to move the 4 parameters on a compressor.

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that most software compressors I own only came with a half dozen presets and I don't think I've ever owned or used a hardware compressor with any presets, or the ability to store presets. Why not? The reason is simple - it's a totally source-dependent effect, not something that lends itself to presets. I disagree that most people here just slap compressor presets on their tracks and call it good. As L4C pointed out, it's 4 parameters, all of which are relatively simple to understand. Complete newbs (i.e, people who have NEVER used a compressor), maybe, but that's only a small minority. Maybe a poll is in order.

quote:

Originally posted by Andy28 How do you figure that? I can't say I've ever seen someone say "I use compressor x because preset z is awesome" Unless your speaking from your own experiences with compressors?

I must admit that when I first started out I certainly did use presets. And it took me years to find other compressors I liked better. I mean, I'm not perfect. And yes, I have seen my friends produce and they just use presets. Learning how to do compression is a completely different skill set then learning how to write a track. So of course they used presets because a month-six months into producing music, they don't have enough time to learn how to do compression let alone how to write a proper track.

Granted, for years I have never needed presets for compressors, and quite frankly I have no idea, knowing what I know now, how you would even benefit from using a preset.

Maybe you guys are just so old and senile you've forgotten your past?

nope

some people just lazy, some aren't. I never understood the point of using a preset for an EQ or a compressor. It doesn't make any sense. You use an eq or a compressor because you have a reason for it. So the parameters are already decided before you even add it. So really, i just don't see how anyone would use a preset. UNless as Dave said, they just started producing and are curious,.

k

quote:

Originally posted by Raphie Don't feel offended Cryo, as you don't fall into this category

Yeah because he don't use fruity

I bet most use presets, but not for the point your making about compressors. Find it hard to believe you even mention that at all since you love nexus so much, not that it matters, again alot of users on here probably do aswell (including myself) but were all pirating noobs

quote:

Originally posted by Andy28 Yeah because he don't use fruity I bet most use presets, but not for the point your making about compressors. Find it hard to believe you even mention that at all since you love nexus so much, not that it matters, again alot of users on here probably do aswell (including myself) but were all pirating noobs

No one is perfect. For example Mad4Brad is incapable of thinking he is wrong about anything. ;-)

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