I often want to use the opposite of a delay VST --- and now I've found it.

The (free) Voxengo Latency Delay can (also) be used as a "prelay" if used alone.

An example:

1) Duplicate an audio track with a percussive instrument. Set a Voxengo Latency Delay for track B for, say, 10 ms.

2) Set a side-chainable compressor for track A for a 10 ms attack time.

3) Set the side chain for track A from track B.

Now you get the side-chained drive to be 10 ms in advance so it won't mess with your transits resulting an ultra-clean compression.

Cheezburger!

So basically a lookahead feature? I'm not sure of any that have that built in, but I know sonitus gate has lookahead.

The same result could be achieved with clone and nudging, or using a delay at 100% and 0% feedback set to 100% wet. Lots of ways to achieve it!

I've never tried compressing with a lookahead before. I'd be curious to try it out. Could work well on vocals I would think.

Once you've determined the ideal "prelay" value through experimentation, you can then remove the plugin and simply nudge the track back by that amount.