The new Live compressor.-How does it sound?

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:20 am

Which compressor do you like best is like 'Which car do you like best' or 'who's the sexiest female' etc, ask 100 people, you will probably get 30-40 different answers.

The modelled compressors in UAD are sweet but come as part of one expensive package. On the other hand, I really like Marquis by Voxengo for many applications (even though it costs only 89 bucks), although it doesn;t do sidechaining. Some people like the 'vintage' emulations of the 1960's Chandlers etc, others prefer SSL or more modern sounds.

Sidechaining is not the be all and end all, although it's a useful option for pulling off the New York compression trick as described by several others on this forum. I am not a huge fan of Waves, Sonalksis is pretty sweet and the PSP mastering compressor is probably my most used mastering compressor.

So many choices. The Live compressors in 6 did a job to a certain extent (not my favourite option but I've heard worse) but I'm glad they've improved the compressor in v7.

muthafunka · Post by **muthafunka** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 12:38 am

All talking of which, I assume tracks created in previous 2-compressor versions of LIve will open OK?

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 1:32 am

Yes, the plug in is fully backwards compatible. NOw if Live would just do a Fairchild emulation....

.... just kidding.

Timur · Post by **Timur** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:53 am

Well, apparently it seems that there is a bug with the new Compressor handling old presets, but it's being worked on according to Ableton. So with the release version the new compressor should be fully backwards compatible with the old ones, I assume.

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... cd6e26d052

Homebelly · Post by **Homebelly** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:37 am

I went through this phase a while back where i felt i had to have a brand new top of the line general purpose compressor. I tried all of them that run demo's and also checked out a friends liquid mix and another guy's SSL Fire Wire doodat,,,
All of them did what they where supposed to do, and all of them "Sounded" great,, and there in lies the problem for me, as i don't want my compressors to "Sound" like any thing. I want them to be invisible and work at keeping stray transients at bay, or be able to be used to bring "small" sounds further up in a mix,,
i like to keep a lively and dynamic mix working, but with out any thing jumping to far out at you. To this end i find the comp II, the new one in live 7 and also both the logic 7 and now the logic 8 comps to be the best of all of them for my needs as none of them seem to add any "Character" to the sound.

Having said all of that,, the SSL box sounded freaking massive on drums,, it has a very sharp attack, some thing a lot of soft-comps seem to be missing,, i guess because they can't do the math fast enough,, and a real tight release,, and the "Character" of the sound works really well on drums, especially acoustic drums,,

Any way,,,
Just my 10 cents,,,

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 8:42 pm

OK, I've updated to Live 7 since then. I downloaded a demo of Pro-C and been A/Bing back and forth with Live's compressor at the same settings.

Wow, I must say, so far the new compressor sounds really good. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to get Pro-C in addition to Live's compressor while Pro-C is still on sale for one more day. But I only want it if it does something different or better. It's getting hard to convince myself I need Pro-C now.

Any other opinions, Live 7 Compressor vs Pro-C?

kent_sandvik · Post by **kent_sandvik** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 9:30 pm

icedsushi wrote:OK, I've updated to Live 7 since then. I downloaded a demo of Pro-C and been A/Bing back and forth with Live's compressor at the same settings.

Wow, I must say, so far the new compressor sounds really good. I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to get Pro-C in addition to Live's compressor while Pro-C is still on sale for one more day. But I only want it if it does something different or better. It's getting hard to convince myself I need Pro-C now.

Any other opinions, Live 7 Compressor vs Pro-C?

Live 7 compressor. You get enough done with that one already. If you want to expand, get VintageWarmer and CamelPhat. --Kent

icedsushi · Post by **icedsushi** » Sun Dec 30, 2007 10:10 pm

Already got Vintage warmer.

I was so impressed with Pro-C when it first came out. Especially on quicker transient material, like drums. I liked how quick sounding it is, while still having a warm hardware-like colored smooth smacking sound, which I think is kind of it's niche. It blew away Compressor I and Compressor II at the time. But IMO Live 7 compressor pretty much nails most of that now and has changed everything. Thanks for your opinion, I think I don't need to buy the Pro-C now.

Live 7 compressor really is one heck of an improvement. I barely used Compressor I or Compressor II at all in Live 5. And when I did, it was always subtle, with a very low ratio.

Vintage Warmer isn't really transparent at all, but in a good way. So I agree, that VM still complements Live 7 compressor quite well in that they sound different from each other.