Virtual Buss Compressors are a suite of three unique-sounding dynamic processors modeled after some of the audio industry's most classic mix buss compressors. Careful attention was paid to recreating the unique nonlinearities of the circuitry that gives each compressor its distinctive tone – including transformers, tubes, VCAs, amplifiers, phase distortions, harmonic distortions, and timing. VBC is perfect for adding a professional finishing touch to your mixes.
FG-RED
This compressor is based on the classic red-faced compressor that was a favorite of mixing legend Chris Lord Alge, who first showed it to me when I visited his studio years ago. I thought it was weird, actually: here was this compressor that no one else seemed to really use, and it was on a 1.5:1 setting and the attack seemed really fast for a Mix-Buss compressor. This was intriguing, because I generally associate a faster attack with a loss of transient punch, but if you've listened to Chris's mixes, you know they're the exact opposite of that! Being the classic gearslut, I bought one (I bought the unit with input and output transformers). The first thing I did was put it in my mix at the settings Chris showed me... 1.5:1, attack at around 10/11, auto release, compressing just 2-3db max. AND…. WOW! One of the clearest, strongest rock mixes I've ever heard coming out of my own speakers. This unit was amazing!!!
When Fabrice and I analyzed RED , we discovered that it was a very unique animal indeed. The attack and automatic release work in an interesting way and are very musical, but the real magic we found was in the output section! A little push and things got a lot stronger, fatter and more aggressive. After further examination, we realized that this was due to a series of non-linear reactions caused by the output transformer. Howie Weinberg, the famous mastering engineer who has a studio on our campus, let us in on a little secret: he uses his RED not for compression, but just to use the output gain to get this amazing effect! So I decided to do something the original unit can't... I put the output transformer effect on a button called DRIVE. When you press the DRIVE button, you get beautiful punch and articulation from the transients and can control how much you want, regardless of whether you use the make up gain or not! Famous rock mixer Justin Netbank beta tested the FG-RED and loves the record, suggesting '6.6' as the magic number. But you can try cranking it all the way to get an interesting effect!
The FG-GRAY starts with a very accurate model of the classic British “4000 series” console compressor. I have used model hardware for many years, but never fully appreciated how magnificent the piece is until I studied it during the modeling process. It is capable of tightening and 'gelling' components in a mix of ways that can range from quite transparent in automatic release mode to very aggressive in manual mode.
We made a small “mod” to the circuit in our virtual model, which I think you will really appreciate. We took the classic British discrete transformer and added some of its features to the signal path. This does something amazing with the mid and low end clarity, where the hardware unit tends to start sucking in too much bottom end as you start to compress more. The hardware unit can also get a little “clogging” in the mids, but our virtual transformer stage keeps the bottom big and round and the mids more open, maintaining the classic sound of the original unit.
I've been lucky enough to hear and use some of the most classic and hard-to-find tube compressors on the planet (like the Fairchild 670 and Manley Vari Mu), and let me tell you, there's some real magic that happens when your mix goes through a brilliantly designed piece of pipe. The midrange thickens, the lows get tighter and rounder, and the top end opens up with a beautiful shine... even better, those harsh upper midtones feel tamed too. For FG-MU , we put all these wonderful qualities into the algorithm. To experience the FG-MU for the first time, you don't even need to do any compression, as just running it through the processor without gain reduction will reveal a beautiful open sound due to the tube circuit path modeling. Even when I'm using FG-GREY or FG-RED.
But the FG-MU is an incredible sounding compressor in its own right. Rich and smooth compression, hot compression and even slightly aggressive compression.
During the development of Virtual Buss Compressors , I spoke with many leading audio industry professionals about mix buss compressors. There seemed to be an overwhelming consensus that even though many of them were advertised as “analog models,” they still didn’t have the classic sound of analog compressors. So Fabrice and I got to work – and the first task was to look at hardware compressors and the current crop of analog modeled plugin emulations to see what was going on! And what we found was surprising: the classic analog compressors we studied added very complex nonlinear artifacts into their signal paths. Their sound was not simply based on their specific compression topology such as timing and compression curves, some of them also had modulations, dynamic harmonic distortions, dynamic phase distortion, saturation, crosstalk.
And just like in our Virtual Console Collection plugin, these artifacts added a sonic impression to the compression. Was this the magical sound that made plug-in compressors sound different from analog compressors? There was only one way to find out. We had to model it precisely. All of it!
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