Softube VCA Compressor for free (limited time)

[chk071]

iLok is always a no-go.

Yawnee Yawnsome.

[Srae]

What does the “Punch” switch do?
Switch between hard and soft knee?

Adds a low-cut and high-boost equalizer to the audio signal that feeds the side-chain detector circuit. This is done to prevent low-frequency elements from dominating the action of the compressor, allowing mid- and high-frequency elements to have a greater influence on the compressor's behavior. This results in a more "punchy" sound with a stronger mid-range and well-balanced high frequencies.

[soundmodel]

Its actually a very good compressor, a lot of character (DBX160?), very generous.

That's a good grab, because AFAIK there aren't any viable models of that except for UAD, which is unaccessible for many, and Waves, which is quite tame. IIRC, I got my 160 model in a McDSP pack.

[foosnark]

I'm tired of complaining about iLok, so instead I will complain about the installer, which downloads another installer, asks you to sign in again and then downloads and installs the plugin without asking which formats you want. (*) There's a total of 845MB of stuff installed, assuming I found it all, and 525MB of that is the installers. Even just the .vst3 file itself is 80MB, making it the largest plugin I had on my drive (the average is more like 13MB).

For comparison, MagicDeathEye and its installer take up a total of 63MB. (And it sounds better to me anyway...)

I know disk space is cheap, but bloat is still annoying.


(*) I will never want an AAX plugin. I also don't need both VST2 and VST3.

[sprnva]

You don't need to use Softube Central. They still provide individual installers.

https://www.softube.com/installers

[chk071]

You can also: Only download the installer with Softube Central, and then start the installer manually, and choose locations for the plugins (which are already taken over from the last install in the installer though).

[DMG68]

You can also: Only download the installer with Softube Central, and then start the installer manually, and choose locations for the plugins (which are already taken over from the last install in the installer though).

That’s how I do it.
Still no control over AAX/VST2/VST3, but it’s quick to delete the 2 I don’t need. Softube aren’t the only ones that don’t give control over which format you install, even so, I wish all developers would stop it, but for now I just make peace with it and delete.

[chk071]

Well, yeah, some installers won't let you deselect AAX installation, but, I don't really care since I have a 1 TB system drive.

[foosnark]

You don't need to use Softube Central. They still provide individual installers.

https://www.softube.com/installers

Thanks, that wasn't obvious in the process I went through. It'll be good to know for the future though.

[DMG68]

You don't need to use Softube Central. They still provide individual installers.

https://www.softube.com/installers

Thanks, that wasn't obvious in the process I went through. It'll be good to know for the future though.

They do kind of hide it, for some strange reason, but it is noted on the download page for Softube Central I believe.

[careyletendre]

iLok is always a no-go.

Yawnee Yawnsome.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[sQeetz]

What does the “Punch” switch do?
Switch between hard and soft knee?

[edit] already answered

[meloco_go]

Dunno if it's a bug on my system or not, but the plugin causes a stereo image shift even on mono sources. I was loosing my mind over the reason why the snare was panned slightly to the right, and it turned out to be this plugin. I use REAPER and here there are no mono or stereo tracks per se, so I wonder maybe this is an intended behavior on stereo tracks.
Or maybe that's a bug. But beware.

[sQeetz]

Dunno if it's a bug on my system or not, but the plugin causes a stereo image shift even on mono sources. I was loosing my mind over the reason why the snare was panned slightly to the right, and it turned out to be this plugin. I use REAPER and here there are no mono or stereo tracks per se, so I wonder maybe this is an intended behavior on stereo tracks.
Or maybe that's a bug. But beware.

Doesn't happen with Live 12.

[bmanic]

Dunno if it's a bug on my system or not, but the plugin causes a stereo image shift even on mono sources. I was loosing my mind over the reason why the snare was panned slightly to the right, and it turned out to be this plugin. I use REAPER and here there are no mono or stereo tracks per se, so I wonder maybe this is an intended behavior on stereo tracks.
Or maybe that's a bug. But beware.

At least according to Plugin Doctor there is absolutely 100% stable dead center mono both in terms of frequency response and phase. Didn't try compression yet but one would assume that if you keep it stereo linked, it should be perfect.

However, those oversampling filters are not linear phase and it seems like there is some modeling of a some sort of transformer which causes some low frequency phase shifts. This means that if your snare shifts a bit it can be caused by the phase shifts and how that snare interacts with other channels. If it's an acoustic drumkit where you have bleed and the same source also in overheads, hihat mic, kick mic etc then these kinds of small stereo positioning shifts are very common.