Just did a shootout of all my SSL Bus compressors and holy moly! Cenozoix pretty much obliterated all the others in terms of getting useful, stable and punchy SSL compression on the mixbus. Especially at 16x oversampling it's smooth as butter.
Yeah, even the mighty DMG Audio Trackcomp 2 fell in this shootout. It started breaking up and sounding slightly grainy and unstable at difficult settings (like fastest attack and fastest release, so 0.1ms attack and 100ms release) compared to Cenozoix. It's by far the most "stable" of all the bus compressors that I have available.
The problem with comparing these is that I tried to calibrate the amount of actual gain reduction, attack and release using Plugin Doctor and it is immediately obvious that Cenozoix is far more program dependent than any of the other candidates. I suspect it's much more so than any hardware SSL buscomp I've used. Cenozoix has a built in sidchain filter which even seems to be dynamic, meaning it constantly changes depending on the amplitude and frequency of the signal going in. You can see this clearly in Plugin Doctor both in the Hammerstein view and if you manually sweep through the frequencies in the dynamics tab's attack/release inspector. Heck, some of the Cenozoix models even vary the attack and release times depending on frequency. This is by far the most program dependent compressor outside of my own experiments.
Anyhow, I tested Cenozoix Glue VCA against these:
Trackcomp 2
PA Townhouse
Softube Console 1 Mixbus
Acustica Audio Sand 4
Tim Pethericks L-BUS for Nebula
NI Solid Bus Comp
It wasn't even close. NI Solid Bus Comp was the only one that stayed a tiny little bit more stable and less grainy than the others.. but it was absolutely no match to Cenozoix, like not even close to being in the same universe.
Cenozoix Glue VCA is virtually impossible to distort, which means it's keeping the release time artificially slow no matter what. Seems like it allows for only a maximum of about 3dB of "quick" movement and then it slows down a lot, whereas all the others have a much less program dependent release and are pretty much linear. This causes them to breakup.
The cool thing here is how easy it is to setup Cenozoix as a SSL style bus compressor and just forget about it. You can push into it as hard as you want and it will not let you down, will not crackle and go grainy (unless you go nuts with it).. it'll just do it's job. Yet you get almost all the benefits. You can set it to 30ms attack (or more) with a short release and you have all the gluey punch you would expect. It's only drawback is that it can't do as "clicky" of a punch with the SSL type bus compressor as something like Cytomic The Glue. At least that's my feeling of it right now. And of course Trackcomp 2 is very tweakable and can be set to silly ranges and thus can do all kinds of weirdness.
Also worth noting that the SSL type bus comp model in Cenozoix is way easier to use for actual loudness than any of the other plugins. You have far less stray peaks going everywhere. It easily nets you a dB or two of extra peak control without any penalty, even when doing the 30ms attack + 100ms release thing. It just goes louder and smoother without any artifacts. This is one of the key differences I've found between analogue hardware compressors vs software counterparts. So yeah, am I saying Cenozoix sounds more like hardware? Yes, I guess I am. It can at least be used like hardware, for actual dynamics reduction.
Anyhow, I'm extremely impressed.
Yeah, even the mighty DMG Audio Trackcomp 2 fell in this shootout. It started breaking up and sounding slightly grainy and unstable at difficult settings (like fastest attack and fastest release, so 0.1ms attack and 100ms release) compared to Cenozoix. It's by far the most "stable" of all the bus compressors that I have available.
The problem with comparing these is that I tried to calibrate the amount of actual gain reduction, attack and release using Plugin Doctor and it is immediately obvious that Cenozoix is far more program dependent than any of the other candidates. I suspect it's much more so than any hardware SSL buscomp I've used. Cenozoix has a built in sidchain filter which even seems to be dynamic, meaning it constantly changes depending on the amplitude and frequency of the signal going in. You can see this clearly in Plugin Doctor both in the Hammerstein view and if you manually sweep through the frequencies in the dynamics tab's attack/release inspector. Heck, some of the Cenozoix models even vary the attack and release times depending on frequency. This is by far the most program dependent compressor outside of my own experiments.
Anyhow, I tested Cenozoix Glue VCA against these:
Trackcomp 2
PA Townhouse
Softube Console 1 Mixbus
Acustica Audio Sand 4
Tim Pethericks L-BUS for Nebula
NI Solid Bus Comp
It wasn't even close. NI Solid Bus Comp was the only one that stayed a tiny little bit more stable and less grainy than the others.. but it was absolutely no match to Cenozoix, like not even close to being in the same universe.
Cenozoix Glue VCA is virtually impossible to distort, which means it's keeping the release time artificially slow no matter what. Seems like it allows for only a maximum of about 3dB of "quick" movement and then it slows down a lot, whereas all the others have a much less program dependent release and are pretty much linear. This causes them to breakup.
The cool thing here is how easy it is to setup Cenozoix as a SSL style bus compressor and just forget about it. You can push into it as hard as you want and it will not let you down, will not crackle and go grainy (unless you go nuts with it).. it'll just do it's job. Yet you get almost all the benefits. You can set it to 30ms attack (or more) with a short release and you have all the gluey punch you would expect. It's only drawback is that it can't do as "clicky" of a punch with the SSL type bus compressor as something like Cytomic The Glue. At least that's my feeling of it right now. And of course Trackcomp 2 is very tweakable and can be set to silly ranges and thus can do all kinds of weirdness.
Also worth noting that the SSL type bus comp model in Cenozoix is way easier to use for actual loudness than any of the other plugins. You have far less stray peaks going everywhere. It easily nets you a dB or two of extra peak control without any penalty, even when doing the 30ms attack + 100ms release thing. It just goes louder and smoother without any artifacts. This is one of the key differences I've found between analogue hardware compressors vs software counterparts. So yeah, am I saying Cenozoix sounds more like hardware? Yes, I guess I am. It can at least be used like hardware, for actual dynamics reduction.
Anyhow, I'm extremely impressed.
Statistics: Posted by bmanic — Thu May 16, 2024 2:55 am