Description
Blue Cat's Dynamics is a complete dynamics effect processor: it can be used as a compressor, limiter, gate, expander or even distortion unit. You can manage the dynamics response of the plug-in with a unique two-thresholds system. The plug-in includes an input filter as well as a side chain filter, in order to control the frequencies affected by the compression. Its continuous VCA/Opto and Peak/RMS controls let you smoothly and precisely choose the behavior of the envelope detection like you have never been able to.
A brick wall limiter/clipper has been added to the output for a complete control of the dynamics response. You can use this software as a real time side chain compressor as well, thanks to its unique MIDI CC & automation output. Side chaining has never been so easy, as you can see in our tutorial, and it even lets you trigger external hardware devices! It's also possible to trigger other effects according to the dynamics response, as shown here: you can build your own dynamics processing effect.
The real time display of the detected envelope under the compression curve let you know what's exactly going on in the dynamics processor. You can also visualize what's been applied to your audio signal with the real time in/out envelopes display: there is no easier way to compare the input and output signals in real time. You can also record all this information as automation curves, so that it's possible to monitor the modifications applied to the signal on top of the audio signal representation in your favorite host. See our monitoring tutorial.
All these features can be controlled from a user-friendly and skinnable user interface (customize it to your own needs!), or from any hardware/software MIDI controller. MIDI learn has not been forgotten so that MIDI setup is fast and reliable.
The package includes a mono and a stereo version for optimal CPU usage.
Main Features
- Full featured dynamics processor: compressor, gate, limiter, expander, distortion.
- Total control over the processor: continuous peak/RMS and Opto/VCA modes selection.
- Total control over the signal: dry/wet control, input fiter, side chain filter.
- Post brickwall limiter or waveshaper.
- Optimal monitoring: dynamics response and input/output envelopes real time display, main compression information can be recorded as automation curves.
- Best quality: up to 4x oversampling for the best sounding quality
- Side chaining made easy: a unique way to perform side chain compression and much more.
- Multiple skins included for optimal user experience.
- Plugin window transparency management.
- Smooth Bypass: activate/deactivate the plugin with absolutely no noise.
- Undo/Redo.
- Import/Export presets and share them between the directX and VST versions.
- No latency.
- Native DSP code for optimal performance.
- Skinnable user interface.
- DirectX and VST plug-in formats support.
- Smooth Update: silent (zipper-free) parameters update.
- Full automation support (all parameters can be automated, with smooth and continuous update)
- No CPU load on idle: when the plugin is fed with silence, the processing smoothly shuts down, to optimize the CPU usage of your Digital Audio Workstation.
- Real time MIDI control with advanced settings (MIDI channel and CC numbers, with complete response curve control) and MIDI learn.
- Any sample rate supported.
Screenshots
Click on the thumbnail to enlarge.
You can find more skins for this product here.
User Comments & Reviews
"Blue Cat's Dynamics is a very well-specified compander which, with the exception of multi-band capability, offers just about every form of dynamics processing there is, including simulated VCA and opto compression, true downward expansion, gating and limiting. [...] Its strongest suit, to my mind, is the ability to apply both conventional compression and downward expansion at the same time, which is useful if, for example, you have a recording with a wide dynamic range and a lot of background noise.[...] For the price this is a versatile and powerful Swiss Army Knife of dynamics plug-ins."
-"I would dare say that this could be the most important new VST compressor on the market. The amount of control here is just mind-boggling.
I can get a thunderously good parallel compression going in seconds with this. I can dial parameters in by ear or I can type in exact ms amounts, blend between RMS or Peak compression, plus adjust the RMS average for even more control. And to top it all off, there is the ever-popular side-chain filtering and a great visual graph so you can see what you’re doing. It’s like Blue Cat set out to make the dream software compressor, that could satisfy every user’s needs.
This is above and beyond the call of duty, and I think it's a masterpiece, destined to be one of the “greats”. Excellent job."
- palebluedot.ca"A very flexible, "tweakers dream" compressor. When you know what you are doing you can create some very interesting compression. It also works rather well as a transparent compressor for all kinds of material. [...] You can perform tasks with this thing that I have not been able to reproduce with anything else. The overall 'sound' of this compressor is clean, very clean.[...]
Overall it's a very flexible compressor that provides just enough unique features and sound to be highly recommended!"
-"The Dynamics Gate is one of the best Gates that I have ever used."
-"I enjoy using this plugin a lot because it can do lots of different things and rewards experimentation. [...] The sound is fantastic, at a great CPU point[...]. For features it's hard to beat.
[...] In summary, the key word here is flexibility. If you're in the market for a dynamics processor, or something to augment what you've already got, give this demo a spin and see what you come up with -- you might just surprise yourself!"
- . [Read full review]"No CPU load on idle channel is fantastic: I find that the feature by which the CPU load of the Dynamics plug-in (and I believe all BCA plugins) decreases to zero when the inputs are idle is just great. This simplifies quite a bit the CPU management strategy in a live setup whereby I do not have to worry about shutting down this particular effect when it is not being used.[...]
After using it for a while it becomes so natural that I wondered if all effects are like this...I tested a few others and no way, there does not seem to be many out there with that particular feature. Very nice touch.
- . [Read full comment]" Anyone in the market for a good single band compressor should seriously consider Dynamics. [...] It offers a very high value for money rating. It will easily become your to-go to compressor. The skinning system makes it usable in both simple and complex situations, and eases the learning curve. It also has enough tricks up its sleeve to keep the creative compression freak happy. Strongly recommended!"
-To add your own comment about this product, please contact us.
System Requirements
- Microsoft Windows XP or Vista.
- Any DirectX or VST compatible host software (you can easily find one on www.kvraudio.com)
- Note to Sony software users (Sony Vegas, Soundforge...): please follow this Sony DXi tutorial in order to be able to use the DirectX version.
Demo Limitations
- One single instance of the plug-in per session.
- The effect is bypassed for 4 seconds every 45 seconds.
"Approximately 10 months ago I began a quest for finding a single channel dynamics processing plug-in that I could use while mastering any mix.[...] With 6 months of trying different plug-ins I was unable to find one, until Blue Cat. [...]
I am strongly considering using the plug-in as a main software example in advanced dynamic processing instruction at RID.[...] I am convinced that you could probably use it with good results for any job that required single channel dynamic processing and that it could be used where other single channel dynamics processing can't do the job.
I am therefore recommending it as a main dynamics processing tool." - Bob Dennis, Recording Institute Of Detroit / Superdisc Mastering. [Read full review]