Compressor

    Hi,


    I know compressor has been here asked before. Also I am aware that many users would prefer other things, cause they use compressor plugins in their DAW productions. But for mainly live player like myself, lack of compressor is quite big weakness. In fact, I never even thought about this before purchase. All my other synths have it.


    Virus has great features to make killer sounds, but many of them would benefit from extra punch from compressor. I have allready been forced to sample few of my Virus sounds and import them into my Nord Stage and take compressor from it. Of course this is a big compromise.

    Those of us who do gigs know very well that easier setup is always much much better on stage. Extra hardware needs extra stands/rack, cables, carrying cases etc.


    But even more important, you want to have some amount compression to one preset and some amount to other. And then change fast between these two or play them simultaneusly layered. This cannot be done (easily) with any hardware compressor for sure!

    I can see that many people would like the have more power to the bass sounds etc...


    My personal view is that good compressor would help in many cases. In fact I've recently been experimenting putting my two very different synths together: Virus Ti2 and Arturia Origin. These two complement nicely each other and strengthen each others weaknesses. What I've done, is to put Virus into Origin's audio-ins and give it some effects (and yes, compressor is the main one) and mix them together. I can tell you that this pair gives you for example supersaw-type leads that would make Lady Gaga jealous ;) Origin has kind of aggressive analog presence which is lacking in Virus. On the other hand, as we all know Virus has huge amount of polyphony, quality effects, and all its specialities which I don't get from Origin.

    I had also said before, that a HW-compressor outside is the best solution, but in the meanwhile I found certain situations, were I liked to compress (in terms "auto level adjust") a channel BEFORE it affects others / is affected by other channels, especially before it is mixed together with other audio channels. Once it is routed to output and premixed, the chance is away.


    In my DIY Workstation, I have both: MIDI-Compressor preSynthesis and Audio-Compressor postSynthesis, as well as individual EQs. Also the Return, especially the effect returns do have compression options. This helps much.


    One example for compressors to go with very variant signal levels, caused be ring modulation and cross matrix channel effects and such tinhgs:


    I typically use a setup of two chained compressors, namely the first with very slow settings performing an AGC, the second is a very fast one performing soft limiting. In this way, I smoothly can continously autoadjust 3dB-6dB in avarage level and another 6dB-9dB peek without getting to strong sound distorsion - leading to two aspects: The fast Compressor operates mostly in a simular area, also with variant signals and the the sound become less mid time variant if I change filters or add channels.


    Especially adding channels and do modulation might easily overcome the dynamic and required real time adjustment of the patch valume to make the track still meet it's environment.

    Oh... yes, some OTT style compression would be very useful for certain types of sounds.

    Bass Player and Synthesist.
    Virus TI2 Darkstar | Virus TI2 Desktop | Sub 37 | Voyager RME | Machinedrum | Analog Four | Digitone | MPC Live | NI Maschine+
    Mac OS 13.5.1 (Ventura) | Cubase Pro 11.0 | Ableton Live 9.6 | Logic 10.4 | MainStage 3.4 | NI Komplete Ultimate 13 | RME Fireface UFX+

    I know it’s not quite the same but With certain lfo shapes and clock times set to modulate the filter gain can turn it into some sort of cool dynamic gate/compressor , ive found it pretty useful when creating busy modulated step sequences with things that have high delay feedback assigned to it , or loosing transients you don’t want or finding ones you want , and can be “fine tuned” if need be by shifting through the trig and contours