I should also add that a single band mastering compressor is nice to have as well. Thoroughly explore the Sonitus Compressor for this, but if you don't find it meeting your needs, here are a couple suggestions.
1. Cytomic Software came up with an emulation of the SSL master bus compressor that, to mine and other ears, sounds every bit as good as the versions sold by Waves and Universal Audio. And, it's significantly cheaper at $99.
It strikes a great balance between transparency and coloration. Its controls show up in the track inspector as useful information, such as dB values, ratios, and millisecond or second values, not just percentages or other numeric scales that are hard to work with. This step of making the parameters human readable is one that many plug-in manufacturers don't think to take.
Attack time goes down to 0.01MS, it includes a side-chain input with high pass filter, a wet/dry control for really easy parallel compression, and a range control that you won't find on other compressors.
You can't get at the presets directly, and there are many great ones, but you can examine them in a text editor and just set the controls manually in the inspector.
www.cytomic.comis the website, plus check out the review including audio file samples in Sound on Sound magazine,
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov10/articles/the-glue.htm and here for the accompanying audio: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov10/articles/theglueaudio.htmThat review is of an earlier version of the plug-in. the current version has improved oversampling, is available as a 64-bit VST and is very stable.
2. The limiter I mentioned in my other post, Slate Digital FG-X, also includes a mastering-grade compressor. This one is about as transparent as it gets. It plus the transient preservation and other controls of the limiter section put FG-X above many others. Just forget about Waves L3 etc which you can clearly hear working.
There's an excellent review at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZqDn2WxNlU It's a shame you have to hear this in youtube audio.One last thing about FG-X. It includes a control which keeps the level the same as you adjust the other controls. In other words, you can compare the results with the processing engaged with the unprocessed version, without one being louder. This gets around the problem of volume bias, where we think something louder must be better. You can just hear how the limiting and other controls are affecting the material without any volume change. You can be much more subjective this way, and then just turn the levelling off at the end to hear it as it really is or how it will be rendered.
Sound On Sound Review Here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov10/articles/slate-fg-x.htm Chris PLEASE READ THIS FOOTER AT LEAST ONCE! To leave the list, click on the immediately following link: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ddots-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx and in the Subject line type unsubscribeFor other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the immediately following link:
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