Compressors - Why bother emulating this old technology?

[cturner]

I use a Limiter called Limi that was a part of the now discontinued Pluggo bundle from Cycling 74. Even though Limi is a lot uglier looking than Ableton's Limiter, I still use Limi every time. I'll often audition Limiter, but after I try it out against Limi I go with Limi every time because I like the sound better. Why this is, I can't exactly say, but it has nothing to do with the GUI.

The [limi~] external is available here: http://216.24.136.57/twiki/bin/view/Sha ... ble=1&up=1 so it can live again in M4L if you want.

For some reason it didn't make it to jhno's current share page at C74.

[anybody human]

I think the emulations use dsp/convolution to model more than just the curve, how the circuits effect the tone etc. Famous hardware compressors really do sound so good, especially in terms of tone, that even 2 or 3/10ths of the original is worth having IMO. Interesting question about new approaches though.

The GUI thing is probably for recognition. Probably unwise to make a lime green moot with the filter section on the far left. There's all kinds of ways to skin a cat in terms of GUI; Cytomic The Glue looks like an SSL, Stillwell's The Rocket is modelled on an 1176 bit looks different, and a lot of people really like how Live's compressor or Fabfilter Pro C have a graphic display.

Use what ya got I'd say.

[supamonsta]

I folks,

I post here my question because I'm sure you will be able to enlighten me:


I'm buying a T-resonator soon, and in the manual they make a warning at least 3 times, saying that using the feedback loops may cause severe loudness increase and could damage ears and stuff in the audio chain, monitors, etc., so they advise to use a LIMITER.

I first thought no problem, I'll use a vst or live compressor, T-resonator being used as a send/return FX with inputs and outputs of my motu ultralite, but I then realised it would only protect the audio chain AFTER the ultralite, but not the ultralite itself...

so, I understand now that even with high quality VST compressors, with STILL need HARDWARE compressors BEFORE the signal gets into the soundcard when it's aimed at limiting the signal for protection needs....???


Then my question is : won't a digital hardware compressor also be capable of being damaged by the inputting signal???

And then I got a more precise question:

For the T-resonator, what should I do? Can I use the ultralite directly without any hardware limiter before? Or if not, what simple and cheap limiter could do the job? (Alesis micro limiter? 3630? dbx166? Behringer MDX1600 Autocom-Pro XL??? ??? Samson S Com plus ???


thanks in advance

cheers

[evon]

For eletronic musicians, I think that would be fine. However, some people like me try to find the best emulations of the genuine analogue equipment.

Any tweaking of an instrument/plugin should, most of the time, be just fine tuning. It all depends on where ones creativity lies. An electronic musician's creativity IMO tend to be more in the sound designing area.

[evon]

OOPS