software compressor quality

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jeannie

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hey everybody!!

i haven't posted in a while. but the good new is i've been really busy makin music! mostly singing but lately i've been taking a hand at recording and gathering up my vast techno skills (not).

i have a question. i know there has been a lot of talk here about hardware vs software compressors but how about the quality of different software compressors?

i recently downloaded planet CCRMA and have been playing with all the free goodies there and there's a tool called ecasound which is actually a group of mostly command line utilites for recording manipulating sound. it has two compressors in it. my experience with compression is mostly hardware. ive also used the saw studio compressor and thought it sounded good.. at least on my voice.

any thoughts?

- jeannie
 
I tend to be REALLY picky about software audio compression... Go figure...

The only plugs I use on a normal basis are the UAD collection. I've got Waves, they're okay and have their uses, but they're pretty expensive. The UAD setup is IMO, much more usable, user-friendly and has more (good) character than just about any plug collection out there.

There's a lot of cool stuff out there, though... Voxengo makes some great stuff for example. Inexpensive and a'la carte.

My two cents.
 
i use software compression sparingly because i dont have to patience to sit there and tweak it by clicking the mouse. i bought a hardware compressor and i prefer that. oh yeah i use sonar's timeworks compressor when using a software compressor and a behringer composer pro for hardware compression
 
I really like the sonitus Fx bundle came with Sonar 3.11
The vintage compressor presets are very good, at least to my ears :)
I am considering to get a FMR Audio RNC compressor for tracking (as realtime compressor).
 
I'll second the UAD card. I bought it last month based on some comments in here and it was worth every penny.
 
I second what Massive Master said: Voxengo makes excellent plugins. Very clean and transparent. Reasonable price too. You can download demos from their website, which are fully functional except for a sound cut-off every 30 seconds, while in demo mode. Check out compressors: Soniformer and Polysquasher.
 
Another nod for Voxengo....really good stuff and very forward thinking.

I've been liking the Waves Renaissance compressor lately, paticularly on vocals. The UAD card compressors are the bom by all accounts. I have a Powercore which is the bom for reverbs, but the compressors on it haven't really done it for me. Time to stick a UAD next to my Powercore and let them each do what they do best.

RD
 
thanks y'all

so it sounds like there is a big difference. i'll have to check out the UAD Voxengo and the blockfish. but i'm really not into shelling out any more cash at the moment, which
is why i delved into this linux stuff (yes a cheap bitch). anyone ever try ecasound or any of the other linux tools.. ladspa plugins? vst plugins in linux (there's an adapter now)?

- jeannie
 
jeannie said:
so it sounds like there is a big difference. i'll have to check out the UAD Voxengo and the blockfish. but i'm really not into shelling out any more cash at the moment, which
is why i delved into this linux stuff (yes a cheap bitch). anyone ever try ecasound or any of the other linux tools.. ladspa plugins? vst plugins in linux (there's an adapter now)?

- jeannie

Jeannie, if you're using the LADSPA stuff with ecasound, check out the TAP (Tom's Audio Plugins) stuff for decent delays and reverb. JAMiN has a really nice multiband compressor and very good EQ, all rolled into a nice interface.

I use Ardour and Rosegarden most of the time for MIDI and multitrack stuff.

One other tip - make sure you stick with the 2.4.xx series of kernels for now. Low latency on the 2.6.x series is still a bit spotty.
 
The UAD-1 was just blind test reviewed by several engineers in TapeOp. It came up very strong in the results even against hardware base compressors. It's set of compressors are the best out there for a plug in and probably the best bang for the buck in home recording.
 
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