Hey folks,
You who own this plugin may be wondering if it's the functional equivalent of the popular Waves Vocal Rider. Well, it doesn't automatically keep a signal's level within a defined range, but this behavior can be achieved by using the following trick:
1. Choose the track that you want leveled -- typically a vocal. Insert the Hornet plugin there.
2. Create a new track with nothing but a signal generator (I used Melda's MOscillator, part of their very cool free bundle). Set it to output a clean 1kHz sinewave. Pull the fader down or mute the track, and create a pre-fader Send routed to the Hornet's input.
3. Play the track and adjust the Hornet's controls to taste.
I cranked all the Hornet's controls up to maximum to try to match VR, but Hornet was still more subtle in its effect. For more aggressive leveling, you can insert a second instance of Hornet along with a second Send from the signal generator. When I tried this, I could get close to Vocal Rider's behavior in its Slow mode, but VR can be much more aggressive in controlling the level when the sensitivity is turned up, and especially in its Fast mode. But the Hornet proved to be able to help level out a vocal track in a natural, transparent way.
And of course, you can add another Hornet instance to help keep the vocal riding on top of instruments by routing those instruments to a separate bus and creating a Send from there. This is something VR cannot do in Sonar, due to the VST3 incompatibility. Thumbs up for Hornet!
Cheers,
Eddie