> they are basically all the same under the hood.

No, all of these tools use different spectral transforms. The one that use a basic FFT overlap-add can better remove resonances, but will fail at dynamics in the high-end, and fail at tonal in the low-end.
Also as not all compressor sound the same in broadband, it is the same with multiband… there are a lot of details to get right.

Really, though.

This is similar in certain ways to DSM and other spectral compression style plugins but definitely not exactly the same. It has its own unique, quirky behavior. That’s a cool thing. The sidechain signal can be previewed to easily discover the default (not flat) curve the compression is acting upon. Super nifty that you can sculpt it to heart’s content beyond that.

The wet signal literally cuts low end below about 50 Hz even when the compressor isn’t acting. They even mention it in the manual, so it’s obviously intended. I just… don’t prefer it. Maybe i’ll make a preset with the output EQ recovering it as perfectly as possible, and use that as a go-to.

Starting fully dry and injecting parallel wet signal can be interesting method with this thing…

Hey Jon B, super helpful comment. Thanks for sharing this info!

Thank you for the installer, it works perfectly on my 1920’s PC. JeJe!!

Not really. It’s a spectral compressor just like ProAudioDSP DSM, Sonible Smart:Comp, Voxengo Soniformer etc. It works exactly in the same way as automatic EQs work (Soundtheory Gullfoss, Oeksound Soothe, TBProAudio DSEQ, Voxengo TEOTE, Baby Audio Smooth Operator), just implemented with dynamic parameters. Automatic EQs usually doesn’t let you control the attack, release and ratio, but they are basically all the same under the hood.

In a literal sense you could call it a multi-band comp, but the way a regular multi-band comp works and how you use it is completely different. If you turn the band-link control to 100 you can use it as a regular compressor, but with the band-link at 0 all of the 18 to 64 bands (depending on your settings) are completely independent and the plug-in will try to even out the energy to create a flat frequency response out of your signal. This is why you need to shape the side-chain to roughly the opposite of what you want your signal to look/sound like.

If you feel like it is scooping out the mids and making everything too bright it’s because your signal probably has the most energy in the lows and mids. Use the SC display to cut where you want it to compress less. You could also increase the threshold a bit and then boost the highs in the SC display instead, it would give you the same effect.

It can take a while to get used to spectral compression, but when you’ve completely understood how it works and how to use it it’s an incredible tool that you can use on literally anything!

If I understand it correctly, this is the first free FFT dynamics/EQ plug-in and that’s just incredible! A couple of years ago you’d have to pay $200 to get a plug-in like this, but for every new dev releasing their take on an FFT dynamics processor they have just become more and more accessible for everyone to enjoy. Bravo Auburn Sounds!

Hello Rodyx, as per your support message, it is because your processor doesn’t support SSSE3 instructions. I’ve sent you a test installer that doesn’t require this.

Fantastic update, thanks for the tip! https://bedroomproducersblog.com/2022/09/07/waves-studiorack-14/#comment-297321