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I remember seeing a vst plugin that was for an alternative to sidechain pumping.. It wasn't called compression, it was something else.. but I don't remember what it was called. I remember it was a free plugin that had 3 vertical sliders, but that's pretty much all I can recall. I think it was a sponsored post on KVR something like October - Decemberish.. I looked back through their news feed and still can't find it...

But anyway, I remember whatever this compression method was, if I googled it, it was the first plugin to show up. Anyone remember? Or just know off your head?

solved. Upward compression.
http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2012/09 ... r-records/

or, I guess Live's multiband does upward compression too. Basically compression with a negative ratio, so it doesn't even need a sidechain, just enough volume difference between the kick and other parts and everything should start pumping like crazy.

Is this different from an expander with a high threshold and some bias added? how?

I think it's similar, just upward compression specifically adds gain, whereas expanding could also further lower the volume when below the threshold. But I think you can dial in an expander to do the same thing.

In my very scientific drawing here, upward compresion is a, expander is b, and c is downward compression. Though b with a negative ratio could be a, or c with a negative ratio could be a. It's all fairly relative I guess, since it's bending the same line on the same input to output mapping.

Thanks Ken, my first compressor was built into Cool Edit Pro, and was simply "Dynamic Processing", which did comp, exp, and I guess upward compression as well. Or even downward expansion if it exists. So I don't think of them as different to begin with. Just a name thing..you say tomahto, I say tomayto.

Still, upward comp is a good thing to bring out more transients from a muddy drum loop sample

yes, cooledit's dynamics processor was a bit of a revelation for me because it put everything on one graph. Just in, and out. And I was like, oh, so that's what it's all about, just value mapping. (sort of) BTW, for clarification, after reading a bit about upward and downward compression, the "normal" compression is downward, since the signal above the threshold is attenuated "downward".

The other one was Cyanide, which was a distortion plugin, where you pretty much could draw in the in to out curve (or line)... and so then I started to see distortion in a similar light as well. Just that distortion had squiggly lines or complex lines compared to typical dynamics processing.
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/cyanide ... electronix
For ex, in cyanide, if you made a sine-ish curve, you'd get massive signal boost, and a bit of overdrive depending on how much of a "hump" you created... but that's also like a compressor with a super soft knee, with mega makeup. Of course, compressors have attack and release whereas a waveshaper is just immediate. (and cooledit had, or has a waveshaping distortion designer as well)

Cooledit was a dsp marvel, I miss the days where I spent late nights reading through the manual, which was full of DSP information.

I still use it as my primary editor and noise removal tool

And every so often I consider getting the latest Adobe Audition just to add ASIO support

And the Cool Edit Author wrote a book on Audio DSP..I'll have to dig it up. It included a bunch of source code, and all of it was inside a simple cool edit like example!

oh wow, is he still in the scene? The guy could probably make a killing making vst plugins.. I mean, all the basics were already there in cooledit, long before ASIO and vst.

i use cooledit still its a great program for creating single cycles

and also for chopping up my transwaves for the vectron

You can use Audition 3 "for free", according to this link: http://bedroomproducersblog.com/2013/01 ... on-3-free/

Cool Edit was my first audio editor as well... Loved the "brainwave synchronizer" part

haha funny thread on homerecording.com about cooledit history and its authors.
http://homerecording.com/bbs/user-forum ... ry-235201/

another Cool Edit starter here, smart app back then

cheers, Tom