Compression Lovers: Free Audio Damage Plug-in, Ableton+Reaktor Trick

[Sound Unsound Bot]

Sure, we may live deep into the future. High in our Blade Runner apartment studios, we use androids for all of the vocals. Yet we still have that occasional need for good, old-fashioned compression. Like the soy-based dinners we microwave and the synthehol beer we wash it down with, it has to be simulated.

Audio Damage has earned its cult following thanks to inexpensive plug-ins with no-nonsense controls that just seem to fit into projects. So it’s nice to see his new, free Rough Rider compressor. Simple controls, a slight vintage tint, and crankable parameters – not the “careful with that, too far, total destruction!” feeling you get from, say, the unpredictable compressors included with some hosts.

I [Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] that Tom from Music thing likes Rough Rider, and he’s a hardware guy, so that’s a good sign. That means he didn’t just eBay some ancient, slightly irradiated piece of Russian equipment.

[Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] [Mac, Windows – yep, a free Mac plug-in!]



Via the Ruin & Wesen blog, here’s another way to approach compression in Ableton Live. Live may instantly make you a remix artist or loop addict, but it can’t turn you into a mastering engineer. That means you can either apply science (blech!) or complete voodoo. We choose a culture of voodoo.

My friend utofbu pointed me out the trick of using a Dynamic Tube in Ableton, with Dry/Wet on 50%, and output gain to -3db. This adds a subtle distortion to the sound which makes it more lively … I finally tweaked a "killer" combo which I saved as an Effect Rack, and now just throw it on the master channel once I’ve finished my song. It just makes everything sound a bit nicer, and it’s totally voodoo.

[Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] [Ruin & Wesen]

 

The magic ingredient turns out to be none other than the Vintape Reaktor Ensemble. If you own Reaktor, this could mean some free goodness to add to any host, not just Live – Vintape adding tape simulation, some other effect adding tube distortion and compression (or perhaps Rough Rider). The ensemble’s creator Stefan Knauthe writes:

Hello Userlibrarists, this is my very first ensemble. As you all know (or maybe not), i’m a huge fan of the scotish [sic] band "Boards of Canada". In Interviews they stated that they often use an old, almost defect Grundig tapemachine for recording, adding wow and flutter, saturation and hiss to the signal, to give it a "sound-ageing" feeling. This is what this ensemble simulates…: there are two wow&flutter units for left and right, followed by a saturation unit and a phaser/flanger section.

And, as we [Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] , creator Stefan borrowed from another Reaktor ensemble (from Jo Orgren) to get wow and flutter.

You can grab Vintape on the User Library at Native Instruments:

[Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] [the version R&W use]

[Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ]

Got favorite compression tips? Give a holler, or send a holographic encoded message. Or just wait, because remember, CDM is monitoring [Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ] .

[Only registered and activated users can remove adverts and see links. ]