What are your favourite compressor plugins?

[Orvillain]

I'm a suckah for a good 76 and LA2A plugin. The ones in T-Racks are my favourites as it goes. Really big fan of T-Racks in general.

The CLA 76's are crap. The 2A's are a bit better.

I don't think the UA LA2A collection is any better than native plugins tbh, and I know you can get them using their Spark service (I have them) but I'd rather reach for the above, or even the Black Rooster plugins.

 

[Orvillain]

Oh, and the DMG-Audio TrackComp is pretty sick too.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

waves rcomp and renaissance axx get used a ton on every mix here.

UAD Fatso is great on busses, I love the mpressor plugin too (versatile like a distressor but the negative ratios and inverse release curves can be awesome for injecting groove).

Tokyo Dawn Kotelnikov is great and free, you get attack and release for the peak and RMS detection and can blend between the 2.

Arturia are making killer stuff, love their STA level.

UAD API2500 is cool.

Fuse Audio Labs make some quirky bits, their dev made a lot of the better Plugin Alliance and Black Rooster opto compressors.

IK’s Distressor is amazing.

 

[Bruce]

My go to ones are UAD SSL (I can get it to the same flavor as my hardware SSL comp) and the ones on both the UAD API and SSL channel strips.
I also dig the API 2500 from UAD. I used to use the waves one but the UAD one seems more betterer. That’s really about it for me. Simple and boring, I know.

 

[Blix]

I dig the Waves SSL ev2 channel strip lately, good compressor. Love the API 2500 in UA Spark which I'm checking out.
Another fave is the Jon V Fircomp, when you just want pure compression without any colour, it's like magic

And it's free! https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3257/
The DBX 160 simulation in Logic is great too.

 

[DrewJD82]

I use the CLA-76 on all my vocal tracks. Sometimes two of them!

I like all three of the CLA comps and usually put the 3A on acoustics/strings.

Easily my favorite compressor is the Brainworx Townhouse Buss Comp; I use it to parallel compress all my drum tracks and it’s the first thing that goes in my master buss when I start a new session. I don’t even tweak it, I just use the presets and they’re perfect. I never got into using the presets on plug-ins until I saw Devin Townsend doing it with some vocal compression, “I just throw it on here and whatever it’s set to works, so why f*ck with it?” I guess I needed a free pass from him, but sometimes it works!