DP

 
Gentlemen,
 
Wanted to put some links behind the talk. There are so many components out there. Here's a couple of my favorites, all subjective and the like...
 
Two of my favorite vst comps are the clone of Dan Armstrong's Orange Squeeze. Vitamin C by Distorque. Some added controls over the hardware to supplement the floor box, but the dev went diode by diode to retain the original. Chugging is pronounced like the original with long releases. The hardware box was used by the Dire Straits guys and others. Very powerful with a lot of makeup overhead. Check out the other plugs on the page as well.
 
http://distorqueaudio.com/plugins/vitamin-c.html
 
Audio Damage Rough Rider free is another winner. I went with the pro multi band but like the freebie better, much simpler and to the point. Downside to the freebie is that extreme settings, the makeup is not sufficient if you really want to press the output for purposes of driving a fuzz box..
 
http://www.audiodamage.com/downloads/product.php?pid=ADF002
 
Most know the controls already, but a local heavy weight guitarist didn't have a clue about the settings on a vst comp.
 
Attack and release are straightforward. I usually set release to max and play with the attack to get a good initial note definition but not too much popping.
 
Threshold squeezes down the ceiling, so the lower the threshold, more the compression. Ratio is the mix between dry and compressed signal. At extreme low threshold and ratio in direction of the compressed signal, there may not be much left as far as output. This is the makeup control trying to compensate by increasing the output. May be labled as output instead of makeup.
 
Here's where a transparent gain control in the chain can increase the output of a comp if the output in extreme settings is too weak. One gem of a tool is Sonalksis Free G, placed after the comp if needed. Clean, transparent, stereo if needed. Lots of gain. Free. Cool plugin.
 
http://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm
 
Before or after the preamp and after one of the noise gates, a good parametric is needed. My favorite is (...uh oh...here comes the “R” word...) REAPER!!! The guys have generously offered an independent suite of some of their vst plugins that run fine in Sonar. ReaEQ is quite incredible if only for the visual layout. Presents the graphic in a way a guitar player needs to see the frequency response (for me anyway). Many features, powerful vst and free.
 
http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
 
Hang onto the ReaFIR plugin in the suite because there is some awesome noise reduction potential claimed. Radical new application. Have to get some idea of if and how it works and if latency is an issue real time. Will get back on this one...
 
Compression trying to get everything at one level. Limiters trying to not let anything go above a set level but not messing with changing volume of signals below the set point.
 
Another ancient plugin everyone loves to hate is right under our mouse. Cakewalk Boost II. This thing would never be used to master anything, and maybe that's where the indignation comes from, but up front after the input and squashed down to the extreme, as good as a lot of the comps for managing a guitar sustain. Noise gate in this case a necessity downstream. Boost II is cool.
 
Really excited about the potential for noise reduction using the Reaper FIR plugin (should work well in Sonar). Was turned on to it by my teenage nephew trying to educate and get me out of the dark ages.
 
A few more beers and will be up to exploring FIR technology for what it is worth. If it does work, represents the near future state of the art in noise reduction. Will try to figure it out and report back. Welcome anyone who has already tread this path and has a clue.
 
John

Grem,
 
You will not be disappointed. Solid construction, beautiful sound and a lot of thought into quality of the product. That's why so many guys are using it live. Many consider it to be the best floor box compressor available anywhere. The patriarchs of the venerable gray Ross are smiling down from above.
 
What Keeley did was to identify weak diodes in the construction from historic breakdowns and also parts that were substandard or too much tolerance. He realized a need for a couple more controls on top of the original and set the thing up for true bypass in the off position, which the original did not have.
 
Worth every penny.
 
John
 
 

Is the ReaFIR anything like what Cool Edit had? Sounds like it.

I had Cool Edit 96 and the upgraded to 2kpro. When they got bought out, I never took the upgrade path after that. Just wanted too much.

So I kept CE2k running for a long time until just wouldn't run well anymore. Win7 I believe. Then my son was in College so I got Audition student price. And low and behold, there was CE2K. She got fixed up a little, but it was still her! I still use it for any type of wave editing I need to do.

I also have Reaper. And will upgrade when the time comes. It's worth it for sure.

So I got the noise reduction covered!!

Grem,
 
Good news and one hell of a pedal. Has all the ambience of the Ross with extra controls and rock solid.
 
Bummer to hear that Cool Edit Pro isn't working in Win 7. Last of the product line to have a simple serial number to register. Audition 1.5 was about the useful end of the original vision after Adobe bought out Syntrillium and shut them down..  Syntrillium also made really cool screen savers. Kaliedoscope was advanced for the time and was a real rush in retrospect. Still got it around here somewhere on a 3.5 floppy.
 
John
 

I'll be downloading this and trying it. I've been playing around with setups for micing my acoustic with condensers and my room has a lot of noise so....thanks for the link.

Hey Guys,
 
Back to Revalver III, missing the love somewhere. I'm not getting it.
 
Great deal for $30. Some cool effects. Like the noise gate.
 
Having trouble dialing in a credible evolving overdrive even with all the cabs, preamps, amps.
 
Metallic shrill square wave shred as close as the mouse, but try to tone it down and things fall apart. Maybe it wasn't meant for Scuffham type gradients.
 
Reminder (subjective) that outside of HeadCase, or S-Gear, one of the finest and dirt simple overdrive units on the planet is a freebie (after a couple hoops) from P&M. They got a suite of 40 plugs, the VIP collection. Subjective again, there are less than 10 boxes in the  suite that are to die for. You can get the whole suite for several hundred dollars but end up with a lot of stuff you will never use. They are all simple digital stomp box format with a few knobs.
 
Think the offer is still up. Do a like on Facebook and they send you a link to download and register one stomp.
 
Get California Tone, American Tweed, the British thing. Set up freeware Vitamin C compressor from Distorque before the unit. If you got any ideas how to get better than this, please educate me...
 
John
 
http://distorqueaudio.com/plugins/vitamin-c.html
 
http://www.plugandmix.com/free_plugin-994/