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Hola bola! It’s ANDI VAX and you’re watching the first review where I’m going to discover Elysia Alpha Compressor for you.
Elysia Alpha plug-ins bundle includes Elysia Alpha Master plug-in and a simpler version, which you would normally use on a single channel Elysia Alpha Mix.
As you might have noticed control knobs of Elysia Aplha Master are doubled.
The Compressor works in two modes. When M/S Mode button turned on everything to your left controls Mid (mono) part of the signal and respectively controls to the right are to treat Side (stereo) part of the signal.
When this button is off you get the controls of compressor’s left and right channel.
There are also On/Off button and a Channel Link button which links some of controls so they rotate simultaneously when linked.
Please notice that EQ, Gain and Mix controls act independently even if Channel Link button is on.
Now let’s take a closer look at controls of Elysia Alpha Master.
The upper part contains four control knobs, which are usually found on any mastering compressor. These are Threshold, Attack, Release and Ratio.
There’s also a Feed Forward button to activate the respective mode; the Compressor works in Feed Back mode by default.
Now let’s listen to how adequate the latter controls would make things sound. First I suggest we turn them into something aggressive.
The Gain Reduction dial indicates about 17 db of compression.
Feed Forward mode works extremely aggressive and with a lot of pumping being added. This might come in handy to those making New Rave and New Disco.
And If you’re not trying to get pumping on a Master Bus I would recommend to turn Feed Forward mode off and work in a Feed Back mode. It is a slightly softer compression mode, more unnoticeable so to say.
I should say that the overall impression of mine about Elysia Alpha Master was how amazingly unnoticeable it works. But you’ll get a chance to check it out further in this review.
We adjust the attack.
At minimum peaks are stopped, at maximum peaks are passed through.
There’s also an Auto Fast mode, which works in the following way.
If, for instance, we sat an Attack time to 61,8 ms which is rather high and most of peaks will have a chance to pass through, with this mode on the Compressor attenuate these peaks automatically.
The Release can also be controlled in the same semi-automatic mode with the respective button.
When Release is set to minimum we get pumping and when Release is at it’s maximum we get quite a pale signal.
So our goal here is to find a golden spot of Release *** for maintaining the force of the groove and avoiding signal distortion, which may occur at low Release settings.
Ratio control ***.
Further we get a very interesting EQ controls which are turned on with this button.
Now this *** I’m rotating increases the lower frequency range if, say, our mix is lacking a low end or it may by turned towards the high end of frequency range giving us a significant amount of “Highs”.
To visualize this, here we have a low frequency boost or a high frequency boost. A so called Tilt EQ.
The point of frequency crossfade is determined by the position of this ***.
There’s also a button to multiply frequency by 10. So in fact we are able to position frequency crossfade spot anywhere within the frequency range and get very flexible settings of Tilt EQ.
The most important control of any mastering compressor, to my view, is a Sidechain.
Here we activate Sidechain and rotate Sidechain control *** clockwise to get kick drum separated from the rest of the signal, meaning that compressor passes that frequency and does compress the rest of the signal.
So we don’t loose pressure and yet compress the track except for the kick drum frequency range.
In this position we get completely opposite effect – we compress only the kick drum frequency range and the rest of the signal is left uncompressed.
And Sidechain Frequency control *** is the one that controls the spot for frequency crossover.
Personally, I’m quite fond of extreme settings of Sidechain Gain controller so that the kick drum is out of the equation and the signal isn’t overcompressed.
Now lets use the Threshhold control *** to adjust peak limiting within 3 db.
In my personal mastering experience I rarely use setting when peak limiting is involved for more then 3 db.
With the Mix *** we are able to use so called parallel compression, actually mixing clear and compressed signal.
With the Gain *** we can compensate the limited 3 db of the signal. Please note that the same thing you should do for the Side engine of the compressor because though the Channel Link button is pressed, these knobs are not connected.
Then there’s a Warm button, which emulates compressor’s output stage transformer. Soundwise it gives your signal softer “Highs” and more defined and velvet low end.
And there’s also a Soft Clip buton. If you take a look at peaks, allows a very gentle attenuation of the very first transients.
Please take a look at peaks. Soft Clip mode operates much like analogue tape machine – first transients are gently attenuated.
Soft Clip mode, compared to brickwall compressor, sounds very musical and almost unnoticeable.
You can see that Soft Clip is engaged by looking at yellow leds near the peak limiting dial.
More info and demo download (ilok 1): www.elysia.com
Thank you for watching!