DC8C

Here's a quick review of the big Klanghelm compressor (aka the DC8C2).

First thing you'll notice is the GUI is darn huge. Even in easy mode the GUI fills up most of a laptop screen. Not sure why the knobs are so big and the meters are so small.

The GR meter is ok but the input and output meters are VU. I don't like VU much. Feels like something out of the dark ages. There's a calibration knob which helps a little but essentially I found the input and output meters a complete waste of space. I'd like to see them removed and replaced with one big GR meter.

There's four "basic" modes and one "expert" mode. The basic modes sound REAL NICE. My favourite was the "punch" mode. The "smack" mode was also good. The crush mode uses A LOT of cpu. Even without the expert mode I think this would still be a great compressor.

The expert mode provides access to a lot of parameters that are normally deeply buried in the circuits of other plugs. What I found most fun to play with were the "program dependency" and "hold" knobs which alter the attack and release shapes (etc). The program dependency knobs seem to turn in opposite directions to each other (ie somewhat counterintuitive). There's also a channel separation in a box marked "detection". The channel separation allows the compressor to run as anything up to dual mono (ie doesn't merely affect the detection).

The expert mode also features a saturation on the input gain. I thought it was pretty subtle. On the maximum setting I would like to really hear a crunch. You should further note that the input gain is routed inside the wet dry switch, perhaps in order to facillitate saturating only the wet channel.
You can create some unusual shapes with the knee parameters, haven't seen this on other compressors. Interesting. Another unique feature is the option to vary the amount of signal feedback.

In the ratio section you get a range knob and something that smooths the reduction. I also like the "tilt" filter on the sc. Haven't seen that before and it strikes me as preferable to the standard HP many compressors have.

There's also a bunch of other unique variables I didn't mention which may be remarkable but on a quick trial didn't strike me as that interesting.
If you click the meters you get a clean bypass. There's no A/B option or anything similiar. Something this complex could possibly benefit from that type of thing as there is A LOT you can change and within a few knobs you can have a really different sound.

All up a really great plug. Lots of fun to play around with. Great sound. Pity the meters are not so well implemented (in my opinion). Watch the CPU use if you decide to oversample or use "crush".