Acustica Audio Compressors

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Hey. Not too much AA action on KVR but I thought this might be of inerest. I put together audio samples from each of the compressors in each of AA Acqua products I own. 20 to be exact. Here's the playlist. Downloads are on.

UPDATED 7 Dec 2019: I used the same source track for all of them and re-rendered/uploaded. I also added: Cream 2, Cobalt, El-Ray, Pink 3, Honey 3 and Titanium. All the download filenames have V2 in them and they are all wavs.

Tracks have been loudness matched to +/- 1 LUFS (give or take).

INITIAL SETTINGS
Audio into compressors set to -18 RMS.

Ratio set to 1:4 to 1:5 depending on the compressor options

If a compressor has more than 1 compressor, the first one is selected, except: Aquamarine where both opto and discrete are separate tracks, and Lime compressor 2 used.

If a compressor has a built in pre, it was turned on.

Attack and release set to fastest response.

All other controls set to default.

PROCESS
Audio is run through compressor. Threshold is turned down until there is 2-4dB average of GR. Attack is increased until a good part of the transients sneek through, this was around 10ms-20ms. Threshold is adjusted if necessary to maintain GR. Release is increased to smooth the amplitude modulation a bit, this was around 150ms. Threshold adjusted again to maintain GR. GR was generally set to peak around 3-4db however it's tweeked by ear for consistency.

Makeup gain adjusted to around -15.8 LUFS, by eyeballing a momentary loudness meter and using my ears. I wanted to *just* hear the compressor start to affect the sound. The idea was to subjectively set the compressors to be affecting the audio while maintaining a consistent workflow and hearing a consistent amount of effect. One thing that validated this approach was that pretty close to the same Attack/Release were set across the compressors, so I think I was hitting some decent subjective consistency. I'm human. I'm sure there are errors.

https://soundcloud.com/plexus-productio ... ompressors
Last edited by plexuss on Sat Dec 07, 2019 10:13 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Plexuss, you are the man!!!!!!!!

I find the Acustica comps to be more grabby than algo compressors and wrap their sound around the signal instead of feeling pasted on top.

Although the CPU usage and GUI can take time to get used adjusted to from a work flow standpoint. Sonically these are superior clips. Brilliant work, mate....

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Why thank you! I was wondering if they might be too subtle. On the other hand I think if the source was crushed more you'd lose some of the nuance and sense of timing from them. Thoughts?

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I like the 3dness of AA. Especially after listening to some HW/SW A/Bs and other shootouts. The only thing really missing for me is the shaping/clipping behavior of saturators. I love "limiting" with saturation.

I'm looking at AA compressors as well. I'm Looking for a fast and "smooth" LA style crusher (I often use the Arturia FET/VCA for that now). So far they all seem rather slow. Any Idea What I should try?

So, I would like to have squashed examples as well.

Thanks!

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Thanks for the overview! Super helpful to get an impression about the general colour of each module and compression feel.
One thing I found very difficult though: the phaser on the material. TAN for example comes across as extremely smeary, but I have no idea if it's the Acqua or the phaser.

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:tu: :clap: Wow! Great job! Thanks for the audios.
Missing Cream which i find quite beautiful on drums

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beingmf wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 11:21 am Thanks for the overview! Super helpful to get an impression about the general colour of each module and compression feel.
One thing I found very difficult though: the phaser on the material. TAN for example comes across as extremely smeary, but I have no idea if it's the Acqua or the phaser.
That is flanging and its on the drum track. The drums are BFD3. I had BFD playing each time I rendered out a compressor. This was a mistake because BFD changes up the playing so each time is slightly different. I should have uses a rendered drum track so the exact same track is used for each compressor. I will do this and re-upload the files. But for now there is still useful info to glean from it.

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Compared to the dry signal there's a softness and loss of clarity to those Acqua compressors. Please check for any phase shifts.
Orion Platinum, Muzys 2

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plexuss wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:27 pm
That is flanging and its on the drum track. The drums are BFD3.
I'm not complaining, I know how much work goes into doing something as tedious as this, but if you're going to re-render anyway, I'd suggest that you take the flanger off entirely. If the goal is to hear the compressors, the flanger can be distracting. Thanks for doing this.

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Funkybot's Evil Twin wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 5:51 pm
plexuss wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:27 pm
That is flanging and its on the drum track. The drums are BFD3.
I'm not complaining, I know how much work goes into doing something as tedious as this, but if you're going to re-render anyway, I'd suggest that you take the flanger off entirely. If the goal is to hear the compressors, the flanger can be distracting. Thanks for doing this.
No worries, I know you aren't complaining. All feedback is welcome.

I've already re-rendered most of them. Just setting up to do the ones I don't own with the trials. So unfortunately the flanging will remain. don't you think the flanging offers an useful aspect for the comparison - it seems to work the compressors in a way that dry drums don't - gives more context?

The re-rendering isn't so much a chore. It's re-uploading them over the existing tracks that will be tedious because I have to do it manually for 20 tracks.

I wanted to get more crushing going on but I realized that just increasing the input by a couple 2dB would likely throw off all the loudness balancing and I'd have to re-balance every compressor. I decided to leave the levels as-is for version 2 which I'll have up later.
v1o wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 5:41 pm Compared to the dry signal there's a softness and loss of clarity to those Acqua compressors. Please check for any phase shifts.
There are no phase shifts. The signal path is very simple: stereo drum track -> compressor -> single band limiter (Nugen ISL2) -> Youlean loudness meter -> out

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UPDATED: I used the same source track for all of them and re-rendered/uploaded. I also added: Cream 2, Cobalt, El-Ray, Pink 3, Honey 3 and Titanium. All the download filenames have V2 in them and they are all wavs.

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That's very cool that you did that. Of all the AA compressors I have, I actually think Cobalt is the standout for it's snappiness. I like El Ray for some things but unfortunately,on my Windows 7 setup they are too hungry to even use most of the time so my default is Softube DS-1.

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This is very informative, thank you for doing this. My favourites were Pink3 and Cream2, which is lucky as those are ones that I've already got!

I also thought that the "3D effect" was some kind of fanboy mumbo jumbo but listening to these, there is definitely something there. I can't put my finger on it but it's some kind of depth which goes beyond dynamics.
Signatures are so early 2000s.

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Kongru wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:10 pm This is very informative, thank you for doing this. My favourites were Pink3 and Cream2, which is lucky as those are ones that I've already got!
That's interesting because the 6 I added I don't own and had to install the demos. Out of them I decided to buy Pink and Cream! Pink 3 is an 8GB download!
Kongru wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:10 pmI also thought that the "3D effect" was some kind of fanboy mumbo jumbo but listening to these, there is definitely something there. I can't put my finger on it but it's some kind of depth which goes beyond dynamics.
Here's my theory: I think it's the non-linearities causing phase shifts and creating a more complex sound stage. These are not very large shifts and so are subtle.
Last edited by plexuss on Sat Dec 07, 2019 8:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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plexuss wrote: Sat Dec 07, 2019 4:07 am Hey. Not too much AA action on KVR but I thought this might be of inerest. I put together audio samples from each of the compressors in each of AA Acqua products I own. 20 to be exact. Here's the playlist. Downloads are on.

https://soundcloud.com/plexus-productio ... ompressors
what is the desired effect of applying compression in this
setup? and what are roughly the settings in terms of
fast/slow attack/release and GR? I assume similar settings
were used across all compressors?

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