All Waves comps on sale

[musicman691]

If you haven't checked your email Waves has all their compressors on sale for $29 (few bucks cheaper at Audio Deluxe). I'm thinking about the SSL G-Master Buss one. I demoed the recently released Townhouse comp from Plugin Alliance and am not all that enamored with it. Forgetting price for this moment - is the Waves comp as good as it's cracked up to be? Keep in mind I don't have access to the UAD array of plugins.

I know some people have a fascination with Cytomic's The Glue but not interested in that right now.

[albee1952]

To me, $29 for the Waves SSL Bus compressor is a no-brainer(I bought it a while back but paid $49). I like(and use) the Waves bus comp a lot, but find the Slate VBC-Grey to work as well(plus it has the hi-pass filter that The Glue offers). I use both of these and could happily live with either if it was all I could afford. Though I used the Waves as my drum bus comp for a long time, I now prefer Slates Distressor(VMR).

Re The Glue, its very nice, but they chose to use a challenge/response authorization that resets every time I switch system drives(which can happen many times in any given week as I do a lot of testing) and so I gave up on it(I'm one of the oddballs that actually prefers iLok)

[amagras]

I already have all the ones I've always wanted to learn or have used as HW. Now if Waves decide to make a Distressor...

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by albee1952

To me, $29 for the Waves SSL Bus compressor is a no-brainer(I bought it a while back but paid $49). I like(and use) the Waves bus comp a lot, but find the Slate VBC-Grey to work as well(plus it has the hi-pass filter that The Glue offers). I use both of these and could happily live with either if it was all I could afford. Though I used the Waves as my drum bus comp for a long time, I now prefer Slates Distressor(VMR).

Re The Glue, its very nice, but they chose to use a challenge/response authorization that resets every time I switch system drives(which can happen many times in any given week as I do a lot of testing) and so I gave up on it(I'm one of the oddballs that actually prefers iLok)

Thanks much. Couple of questions/thoughts if you don't mind:
1) Does PT support the Waves SSL sidechain? I understand about The Glue having a built-in HP filter but figure that I could use an external eq in the bus that feeds the sidechain input.

2) Thanks much about the heads-up on The Glue's authorization. I hate applications that do what you describe. Like many others I use another daw besides PT - DP to be exact. And whenever I change OSX versions I have to re-authorize it which means I need to connect my daw computer to the net. I don't allow it on the net any more than I absolutely have to.

3) For reasons not germane to this discussion the less I have to deal with Slate the better.

PS: You're not so odd - I like iLok as well. Sames as the dongle I use for VEPro.

[albee1952]

Re the side chain, since I am away for a couple of days, just get the free demo and see

[simon.a.billington]

Wow... even the mighty SSL compressor is among them. There are some good compressors there to. The H-Comp being among them.

A little tip to those who aren't in the know, the Analog dial has a different job on the H-Series. In the case of H-Comp and H-Delay it controls the character or "emulation".

In the case of H-Comp, Analog 1 will give you something very close to the API 2500 and the Punch control can give you something close to it's Thrust circuit. Analog 3 is awfully close to the V-Comp. Like the original though, it seems to be calibrated at -22 as opposed to - 18, which explains why it never sounds any good when just comparing the circuits. If you reduce the input into H-Comp by around 4dB you will fair alot better.

I haven't figured out what the other two Analog circuits resemble yet, however. I do know position 2 isn't the PIE, close, but not quite. My guess is the SSL. My guess for Analog 4 will be the Fairlight possibly, but anything that puts off ALOT of odd and even harmonics.

4 compressors in 1, well 5 if you include the Off position. Worthwhile spending $30 on in my humble opinion

[amagras]

Afaik, in H-Delay, Analog only controls noise.

[noah330]

I bought the BSS. It was the only one I didn't own.

I like Duende's Buss Comp better, but there have been times when the Waves one has worked better as well. H-Comp is really, really nice as well.

[musicman691]

Got the SSL G Master bus comp. Initially used my updated WC which installed the W10 version of the plugin as a demo (because I wanted to try before buying). Decided to buy it from Audio Deluxe. Deleted via WC all my Waves plugins and used the legacy installer 9.92 for both WC and my various Waves plugins but it still installed the W10 version of the bus comp.

So I figured what the heck and went ahead and bought it from AD for $25.89. Waited a few minutes and got my s/n from AD and registered the comp on the Waves site. Surprisingly it's working even though I'm on OSX 10.10.5 and according to Waves the comp wants to see a minimum of El Crapitan. Got the permanent license asset on my machine.

Upshot of this is I now have to WC versions - WC-L for legacy and WC which is the newer version.

[simon.a.billington]

Originally Posted by amagras

Afaik, in H-Delay, Analog only controls noise.

No that’s a common misconception. The last two settings a different types of tape emulations, another is modelled on some kind of analogue early digital device. In Waves’ typical fashion they modelled the noise along with the emulation, as they have done with all their other products.

Think about it, what would we need 4 types of noise for?? Even for Waves that wouldn’t make sense. You can actually hear the delay changes tonality and texture as you change the Analog type. It’s also a behaviour consistent with H-Comp. Even the API series has the harmonics and the noise tied into their Analog switch. Turning that off is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

You can actually test it your self by throwing a sine wave through it, changing switch positions and veiwing the results on the spectrogram.