! THIS IS AN ALPHA RELEASE! LOSER-Development's Digital Versatile Compressor DVC - Manual - The Digital Versatile Compressor (DVC) VST plug-in is a highly versatile (stereo linked) audio compressor, that provides capabilities from slight soft volume adjustments, over punchy compression to balls to the wall pumping brickwall limiting, all at reasonable low CPU and memory (RAM) consumption. Facts / Specifications Requirements: VST host VST Version: 2.3 Internal Precision: 32 bit float Samplerate: Any RAM needed: Yes it needs RAM VST Pins DVC uses 4 input and 2 output VST connectors/pins. Input Channels 1 and 2 are the input for the signal that is going to be precessed. Input Channels 3 and 4 represent the sidechain/keyinput.
Controls Threshold: Sets the threshold above which the compression precess takes place. Ratio: Sets the ratio at which the level of the input signal gets reduced. Knee: Sets the knee size of the roundness of the compression curve. Look-Ahead: Sets the time the compressor can look into the future. Attack: Sets the time it takes the compressor to go from zero compression to full compression. Hold: This is the time the (maximum) compression is held before released again. Release: Sets the time the compressor takes to fall from compression state back to its zero compression state. RMS Size: Sets the RMS window size of the detector (= PEAK, in case of 0 ms). Feed: Sets the so called feed of the compressor (i.e. the detector input). This can be: Feedforward (FF): Like in any ordinary compressor. The signal feed to the detector (to determine compression level) is the same that gets processed. Feedback (FBQ): Like in some hardware compressors. The signal feed to the detector (to determine compression level) is the output of the compressor (i.e. the processed audio). Sidechain (SIDE): (Often referred to as Keyinput on other compressors!) A second signal is feed to the detector, so compression takes place according to this second signal. Make-Up: Toggles the automatic make up gain function on/off. Output: Sets the output level of the compressor. Dry Mix: Mixes the original (unprocessed) audio signal back to the precessed (output) with the desired level.
How To Take Full Advantage Of The DVC The DVC is aimed to be a highly versatile compressor that does exactly (or at least as exactly as possible) what the user demands it to do. So if you want to smack your audio to distortion it will do it, without any hesitation, as well as just gently sweeting the transients or attack of an instrument, if you want it to. Given this high complexity it is crucial to understand what its controls do, because sometimes tweaking only one parameter may determine between a good sound and just another fuzz pedal... First we will start with explaining the more common controls. This controls are those that influence the sound the most. (Note: You may want to leave all controls, except Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release left untweaked (i.e. on their default settings) in order to get a normal, simple and plain vanilla compressor without bothering at all about any of the additional versatility.) Let's start with explaining the Threshold control. It lets you configure the threshold value. Whenever the level of the incoming signal (to the detector input) exceeds this value the compression process will start to set in. To explain it in a more easy fashion: Level below Threshold = no compression / Level above Threshold = compression (Note: The Knee control will alter the behavior of the above explained sharp (also called hard) threshold to a more smoother transition between compression and no compression. Read the explanation of the Knee control to learn more about that.)
Next we will take a look at the Ratio. This is another very important factor in the setting of compressors, because it defines the amount of gain reduction. The Ratio specifies how much gain reduction will actually take place. It is described as a ratio such as 2:1 (cf. red line in graph on previous page). This means that the signal level must be 2 db above the Threshold in order to get an output signal level that is 1 db over the Threshold. A 4:1 ratio means 4 db above Threshold will result in a 1 db over Threshold output (cf. yellow line), and so forth. There is also a special case the INF:1 ratio (green line), that means that there won't be any over Threshold output. (Note: The actual gain reduction doesn't set in immediately (see Attack and Release explanation below to get why), and therefore there will still be over Threshold output even on INF:1 ratios.) Now we are going to deal with the Attack and the Release settings. They set how fast or slow the compressor starts (Attack time) or lets go (Release time) the gain reduction (cf. graphic below). In the picture we have a signal that suddenly sets in (blue). The compressors attack starts to work (red). You can clearly see how the gain reduction gradually sets in and has reached full gain reduction after the attack time is over. Next you see the signal level (blue) dropping under the threshold and the gain reduction is gradually taken back, until it reaches the point of no reduction after the release time is over.
One more handy feature of the DVC is its automatic make-up gain (Make-Up). This simple adds a specific gain (calculated based on the estimated gain reduction for a maximum signal level of 0 dbfs) to make up for the gain loss due to the gain reduction. If you do not want to use this feature you can simple disable it by setting it to OFF. (Note: The Output level will be added to the automatic make up gain, so you will still be able to control your output level via the Output control, even when Make-Up is enabled.) In case all you wanted was a simple compressor, the few above mentioned controls are the only ones you need to care about. As long as the other settings are still on there defaults, which are: Knee Look-Ahead Hold Feed RMS Size Dry Mix = 0 db = 0 ms = 0 ms = FF = PEAK = -INF db (i.e far left) The Dry Mix is pretty self explanatory, it can be used to quickly set up parallel compression (aka New York stile compression). The Knee parameter controls the knee size of the compressor. The RMS Size lets you change the RMS window size of the detector. The Hold control can be used to delay the release, either to reduce jitter, pumping, unwanted distortion or whatever one would want to delay the release for, or to get a better control on how the compressor modifies the transients. It may even be used to emulate some aspects of analog hardware. To illustrate how the Hold setting affects compression we will take a look at the attack/release graph from earlier, but this time we will include the hold time in it.
As you can see the compression is held until the hold time is over, even though the input signal already dropped under the threshold level (setting the Hold to 0 ms disables it and the compressor goes straight into release mode).
Mode Of Operation The following block diagram illustrates the internal mode of operation of the DVC. VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH
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