Cytomic 'The Glue' Compressor

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The Glue

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Any time-frame on this?
Presets for u-he Diva -> http://swanaudio.co.uk/

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andy_cytomic wrote: Ok here are a couple of sets of examples. All dry sounds are copyright FXpansion and are from BFD2 using one of the inbuilt midi grooves and have been put together by Gareth Green specifically for putting compressors through their paces (thanks Gareth!).

First up is the loud kick dry loop, then it being compressed with: Threshold -40 dB, Attack 30 ms, Ratio 10, Release 0.1 S and Range -60 dB, then the dry loop again, then all the same settings but the Range set to Full. The last one sounds way too squashed and flat for any practical use and is not realistic for circuits since they naturally run out of voltage at some point, but it does illustrate what can happen if you don't pay attention when doing analog models:
http://www.cytomic.com/AudioExamples/Lo ... 10Re01.mp3

Second set of examples is the same loud kick dry loop, then heavily processed using Threshold -40 dB, Attack 0.01 ms, Ratio 10, Release 0.3 S, Range -36 dB, Peak Clip On, Makeup of 22 dB, then the dry loop again, then the same settings as before but a Makeup of 32 dB, so an extra 10 dB. This pushes the attack transients into the Peak Clip, but keeps just makes the rest of the sound louder without distorting it (apart from the heavy compression). These are extreme setting deliberately pushing the compressor for effect.
http://www.cytomic.com/AudioExamples/Lo ... 10Re03.mp3

So, I hope that helps a bit. More examples are on the way, and if there are any particular "problem" loops I would really appreciate if you could please email them to 'info atsign cytomic dotsign com' and I will make examples out of them :)

All the best,

Andrew Simper


Thanks Andrew! The problem is, I cannot download these files, neither in Firefox nor Internet Explorer. I get this error message:

"The requested URL /AudioExamples/LoudKickAt30Ra10Re01.mp3 was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache/2.2.10 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.10 OpenSSL/0.9.7a mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 Server at www.cytomic.com Port 80"

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Try these ones in this folder then:
http://www.vellocet.com/Cytomic

Andrew Simper
The Glue, The Drop - www.cytomic.com

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Sounds great! Can't wait to try it. So when are you going to release it?

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living sounds wrote:Sounds great! Can't wait to try it. So when are you going to release it?
Excellent. I'm very impressed you knew for and asked to hear the best setting to push the side chain detector. Good to know there are some serious people still left on KVR. How did you come across this?

I first noticed this class of behaviour in analog compressors when I did my first modeled compressor a while ago. I heard a difference in the attack sound, the analog compressor sounded more tranparent and natural on the transients than my early model with a slow attack and fast release. I then confirmed the behaviour with an oscilloscope, and made sure my model matched the hardware. This took a while to sort out, and other people at the time were saying - no don't bother, the model already sounds good. I didn't listen to them because I knew I was missing something critical to the sound.

I will be making an announcement in the next week as the to official pricing an availability of the compressor.

All the best,

Andrew Simper
The Glue, The Drop - www.cytomic.com

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andy_cytomic wrote: Excellent. I'm very impressed you knew for and asked to hear the best setting to push the side chain detector. Good to know there are some serious people still left on KVR. How did you come across this?

I always noticed this in the way pro records sounded, long before I had analog compressors myself. Could never get close, even with hours of work on a single kick drum. I've even tried to manipulate the attack character by adjusting ever sample by hand in an audio editor. Analog envelopes often have a peculiar assymetry to them, to. The other thing is the bass. Put a bass heavy signal on the plugin and the low end just dissappears. With the hardware you get a nice deep low end punch, with the plugin it sounded like cardboard.

My theory is it has something to do with the way a plugin processes only a very small amount of the signal at time. The reconstruction of the wave might not work for very low frequencies because they would need more samples to be displayed propery. And in the end the volume envelope consists of very low frequencies, too, that's why the creation of an analog envelope might not work in real time. Unless you find a way around to simulate it. I always thought this might be done with neural net type technology. But I'm no software engineer. I'm curious how you solved this, unless it's a trade secret. :-)

This envelope behaviour is not only important on drums, as it makes every type of signal push through in the mix much better.

I'll have to check myself how your plugin reacts do different signals (especially on electronic drums), how it works on busses in a mix and on the master, but I think you're really onto something here. For one thing, the low end is there, even on the heavily compressed parts. And the attacks sound really quick and snappy, in-your-face. I'd really like to know what you did different then all the others...

It's nice there are software engineers with ears, too. :-) For me as a producer and mixer these seemingly small differences make or break a record.

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living sounds wrote:I always noticed this in the way pro records sounded, long before I had analog compressors myself. Could never get close, even with hours of work on a single kick drum. I've even tried to manipulate the attack character by adjusting ever sample by hand in an audio editor. Analog envelopes often have a peculiar assymetry to them, to. The other thing is the bass. Put a bass heavy signal on the plugin and the low end just dissappears. With the hardware you get a nice deep low end punch, with the plugin it sounded like cardboard.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I always though people obsessing over compressors was so stupid because every plugin compressor I had ever heard sounded so bad. I now know different. (edit: eg the Universal Audio stuff is great, and there are other people as well doing good models, the whole plugin scene is changing for the better)
living sounds wrote:My theory is it has something to do with the way a plugin processes only a very small amount of the signal at time. ... But I'm no software engineer. I'm curious how you solved this, unless it's a trade secret. :-)
I'm doing straight out physics based circuit simulation, paying careful attention to preserve the exact structure of the circuit, and all of it's non-linearities. I am using a modified approach to what is outlined here: http://qucs.sourceforge.net/tech/technical.html, and I use qucs all the time to verify my results.

I did not invent all of these numerical circuit simulation methods, and don't pretend to have done so, what I do is work out which sections of the analog circuits are important to the sound, and then get them to run in realtime, since in the circuit simulator it takes several 5-10 minutes to do 1 second of audio, depending on the complexity of the circuit.

All time based effects can be modeled acurately using these methods, and it's actually the opposite of what you are saying, things changing slowly in circuits are the easiest to model on a computer, it's the fast moving things up near your sample rate that cause you problems.
living sounds wrote:This envelope behaviour is not only important on drums, as it makes every type of signal push through in the mix much better.
I'll have to check myself how your plugin reacts do different signals (especially on electronic drums), how it works on busses in a mix and on the master, but I think you're really onto something here. For one thing, the low end is there, even on the heavily compressed parts. And the attacks sound really quick and snappy, in-your-face.
My friends and I write dance tunes and use this comp all over the place, it definitely holds together with sub bases and dance kicks, no worries there.
living sounds wrote:I'd really like to know what you did different then all the others...
Seriously, no secrets here. I'm just doing straight up analog circuit simulation on a computer, just like qucs or spice does but loads faster.

living sounds wrote:It's nice there are software engineers with ears, too. :-) For me as a producer and mixer these seemingly small differences make or break a record.
Thanks! I agree with you completely. Right, back to work for me, I want to get it done and dusted and on sale as soon as I can, and get this press release done too :)

Oh, I did another example, this time with settings of Threshold -12 dB, Attack 0.01 mS, Ratio 10, Release 0.2 S to shape all the attacks and leave the rest of the signal alone. I tried to pad the limited signal to the average listening levels, it's the same setting applied to three very different sounding loops. Again the dry drums are from BFD2 and thanks goes to FXpansion for allowing me to use them:

http://www.cytomic.com/AudioExamples/Ac ... eLimit.mp3

Andrew Simper
Last edited by andy-cytomic on Sat Dec 27, 2008 9:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The Glue, The Drop - www.cytomic.com

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What I forgot to ask in my mail, Andrew: what is the "name" of your plugin?
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...breadcrumb...

Very much looking forward to this.
Now Somewhat Retired

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andy_cytomic wrote: it definitely holds together with sub bases and dance kicks, no worries there.
Sweet! Almost every plugin compressor I try sucks out the bass...

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SWAN808 wrote:
andy_cytomic wrote: it definitely holds together with sub bases and dance kicks, no worries there.
Sweet! Almost every plugin compressor I try sucks out the bass...
.. many analogue compressors do this as well, unless you chain an EQ into em to make sure they don't react to the lows.


@everybody in general:

There are some dangers in this thread making people believe Analogue (or analogue modelled) = automatically always better, which is not at all true. Anybody who has some experience with high end digital (Weiss, TC electronics) and high end versus low end analogue know that same rules apply here as well.

For instance, the Elysia Alpha compressor is extremely fast and transparent in it's behavior but that is not because it's analogue, it's because it's design. Now compare that to, hmm, say a basic dbx 266 crap-rack (that's what I call em :hihi: ) and you'll see similar problems that badly designed plugins suffer from as well. Chunky attack, distorts nearly all signals in a bad way, regardless of settings, and has no-where near a flat frequency response while it's compressing.

I agree with living sounds and Andrew that at least in the past, compression has been one of the biggest problems with plugins, and I am pretty sure that one of my original hypothesis why this was/is so, is still correct: Lack of experience.

There is a good reason why Daniel Weiss made GOOD digital compression way before many even knew that such a thing existed. He had experience, a lot of it, from both the technical points and, as importantly, from the listening side of things. How can we expect that a plugin creator with limited recording/producing experience, bad monitoring in a bedroom, could possibly match or supercede this?

Another example, take a look at George Massenburg (the inventor of the parametric equalizer and the author of one of the most transparent dynamics processors to date) and what he is currently doing. He is going digital side chain because of the possibilities it gives him. He plans on releasing it as both a plugin and as a box with digital side-chain but analogue gain reduction/amplification elements (doesn't matter if it's VCA, tube, or whatever.. according to his words).

Finally, it's good to remember that "best" is always subjective. There is no such thing. There are people who absolutely adore the Alesis 3630, the horror compressor (people who can afford anything). I personally hate it and scream "murder!" when I see it in a live rack but hey, that's me. Same goes for plugins. There are some very "weird" plugin compressors that sound nothing at all like any analogue device but you know what? That's actually a GOOD THING. Diversity always is. :D

Cheers!
bManic
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

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living sounds wrote:I always noticed this in the way pro records sounded, long before I had analog compressors myself. Could never get close, even with hours of work on a single kick drum. I've even tried to manipulate the attack character by adjusting ever sample by hand in an audio editor.
You are not blaming the tools for not hitting the sound of a certain recording, are you?
This would be practically impossible even with the same tools.

I think there are quite a few good plugin compressors out there today. Though I'm too still missing something. Sadly I'd fail to describe it. *g*

Well, I'm excited about that new upcoming compressor mentioned here. When there's a demo I'll definetly try it out.

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Nokenoku wrote:You are not blaming the tools for not hitting the sound of a certain recording, are you?
This would be practically impossible even with the same tools.
It's more about the general ballpark of sound than actually nailing down a specific one. Knowing what you're doing is still the most important thing, of course. But even the best mixing engineer in the world can't go beyond the limits of his tools. That's why there still are racks and racks of outboard in studios around the world.
But if this plugin can actually deliver the same sound in the box I'd be thrilled, as for me getting OTB - working without a mixing desk, only going I/O converters through the outboard - often is a PITY due to latency and performance issues of the system. And there's the problem of recall, of course. If it turns out the hardware still has an edge it nevertheless would be a welcome addition, because there are always plenty more tracks in a mix than I have outboard compressors.

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Ah ok, so you know the problem are the tools, because you actually have access to better ones. I personally never used any hardware-compressors, so I'm probably not knowing, what I miss.

Could you maybe post a typical example for what plugins are missing?
I mean an audio-example one time with a proper compressing of a hardware-device and then the closest you can get with a plugin of you (+ maybe the uncompressed file, so I could test my own plugins).

I'd really like to know, what compressor-plugins are missing.

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bmanic wrote:
SWAN808 wrote:
andy_cytomic wrote: it definitely holds together with sub bases and dance kicks, no worries there.
Sweet! Almost every plugin compressor I try sucks out the bass...
.. many analogue compressors do this as well, unless you chain an EQ into em to make sure they don't react to the lows.


@everybody in general:

There are some dangers in this thread making people believe Analogue (or analogue modelled) = automatically always better, which is not at all true. Anybody who has some experience with high end digital (Weiss, TC electronics) and high end versus low end analogue know that same rules apply here as well.
Interesting stuff thanks bManic

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