I’m happy to announce release of the very first plug-in, code named SN01, from my Signal Noise line of VST effects (currently Windows only, though). It’s a VCA style dynamic range compressor, and when it comes to its name – S stands for Signal, N for Noise, and 01 is obviously the ordinal number.
Vintage look with a modern sound 😉
The plug-in comes in two flavors. One is GUI-less (SN01) and the other one has a nice colorful user interface (SN01-G). Now, you can probably starting to see were the G came from. If not, it denotes the version with GUI. Of course, both flavors come as 32-bit and also 64-bit.
To copy/paste straight from the manual:
SN01/SN01-G is a dynamic range compression plug-in, inspired by two classic VCA buss compressors of UK and US variety. It has switchable linked feed-forward/feedback topology, with highly variable knee, optional internal side-chain filtering and ‘push’ effect, and adjustable wet/dry ratio. The plug-in is designed to work both as musically pleasing buss glue while also being an efficient channel insert with low ASIO/CPU footprint.
Delving further into the details, the features look like this:
- threshold from +20dB to -20dB (zero mark is at -20dBFS)
- ratio from 1:1 (no compression) to infinity (brick-wall)
- gain up to +24dB
- attack in range from 0.03ms to 30ms
- release in range from 50ms to 2 seconds
- adjustable knee width 0-24dB (0dB = hard-knee)
- adjustable knee strength (0% = hard knee)
- 2 optional filters for internal side-chain
- optional ‘push’ effect for more extreme compression
- dry/wet control for parallel compression (0-100%)
- switchable topology (feed-forward/feedback)
- no saturation modelling
Maybe it would be also useful to add that the effect works in stereo, i.e. you can put it on both mono and stereo tracks. I think that it’s a pretty much given in this day and age, but just in case anyone would wonder.
Well, if you are in need of a VCA like compressor with the ability to adjust all meaningful parameters of audio compression process, one that’s without excessive digital fakery of so-called ‘mojo’ (whatever that means), SN01-G is made for you. If, on top of it all, you like to play it solely by ear, SN01 is your match made in heaven.
And don’t let the price fool you – the best things in life are free 😉
Sender Spike 
Well love it have test it already in my buses pretty lit give some thing to the mix is more tight that’s fantastic. I would love to have just a GUI for the other flavor . I know that its part of the game nit having s GUI but makes me feel a placebo effect so i dont if its adding a but of saturation while is compressing But love it. Gonna share with others.
Pd. Where i can sign up for your newsletter? I wanna be updated with your stuff.
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Hi there, thanks for feedback 🙂 The GUI should work now (64-bit), please download the fixed version (1.01). As for newsletter, I have none, but there is a follow button on the bottom right under the tags, so you can keep an eye on this blog (or my profile on KVR, I guess–not sure exactly how that works). Anyway, once again thanks for encouraging words 😉
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GUI doesn’t load in Studio ONE 4.54 on my win10 x64 machine
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Hi, it was a pretty lame bug in initial release. Please download the updated version (1.01). It should work now.
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hi – thank you for sharing this great plugin! however, it appears that the G version does not, in fact, have a GUI. using Cubase 10 (x64) on Win10.
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Hi, yeah — a confirmed bug. Please download the updated version. Hope it will work now (works here in Cakewalk 2019 64-bit).
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Hi there,
Thanks a lot for the freebie. I mentioned here : https://www.projethomestudio.fr/sender-spike-annonce-sn01g/ 🙂
All the best,
Adrien
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Hi, and thank you, too 🙂
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Thanks 4 Cool Sound Toy … Best Wishes !
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The pleasure is mine. Best wishes to you, too 😉
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Nioce work on this! Took me a little bit to figure it out (I never read manuals….probably should) and the B style is VERY cool on vocals. Or should I say it’s very WARM on vocals????
Anyway, a TEENY nitpick- your mix control seems backwards to me. Almost every compressor plugin that has a mix control has the wet processing going clockwise, not counter-clockwise. Perhaps switch that as it’s kind of a “standard” (if such a thing exists for plugins) but it is very much a standard on hardware units. Like I said- super cool VCA compressor and one teeny, tiny niggle that I’m more than happy to workaround with. Superb!!!
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I’m glad you like it 🙂 As for the mix control, you are right–most (if not all) comps have 0=full dry, 100=full wet and call the control MIX. I didn’t notice until you mentioned it. Probably because I named it DRY. Thanks for pointing it out, it’s never a bad thing to stick to (some) standards. Goes into my TODO list.
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I liked the compressor. Very good development.
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Thanks for the response! When are you planning to release the code? I want to use it in Mac, so maybe I can help you porting the code to OsX.
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First I’d like to finish a plug-in I’m currently working on, then I plan to make some minor tweaks to previous releases. So, after Christmas or around new year at best.
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Hi guys,
@senderspike, first of all, thank you for the plugs! And to both of you – if and when @senderspike does decide to release the source code for the plugins I’d be happy to do anything I can to help port them to MacOS – I’m mostly a website programmer, but I know my way about compiling stuff from source, so the least I could do is test things on my Mac. Let me know if you need a hand! The address is “me” – – “subsonic.cz” 🙂
All the best,
Dan
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You’re welcome! And also thanks for offer, I will definitely let you know when it becomes actual 😉
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Спасибо за хорошие плагины. Удачи в дальнейших разработках. С Новым Годом
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Ďakujem. Tiež prajem všetko dobré do nového roku 😉
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Hi! This is a very good compressor. But I think there is a bug: I put it on a drumbus with a punkish kick/tom/snare groove, and it all sounded great, except for the first stroke: It was only treble that came though at the first beat. The rest of the track was fine.
Btw I have also tried the SN03 tape Martine emu, and it sounds great! Looking forward to whatever you will come up with in the future.
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Hi. Thanks for feedback. I tried to reproduce that problem, but to no avail. Could you please give some more details on steps that lead to it?
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Hi. I will try to send you audiofiles before and after compressing, plus the settings when I get back home 🙂
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Ok 😉
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Thank you, sounds usefull on drums (will experiment further on synths). Would you mind to change pad to 6db/12db (with switch) for Airwindows Bitshiftgain ultra clean gain? And also steep antialiasing filter would be great to get cleaner (not bouncing back in mids) harmonics also for higher spectrum.
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Thanks. I’m afraid I don’t get what you mean. Do you mean the “PUSH” switch? I never used Bitshiftgain, so I’m at loss here. As for anti-aliasing, well SN01 was the first plug-in I ever made and I just went by ear. Literally. So, I didn’t look into it (as in how it looks on the plot), but now, I definitely will (goes into TODO list, too). Thanks for suggestions 🙂
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OK, so I checked that aliasing thing. You are right with pure sine and with some very specific settings SN01 aliases. Then again the aliasing I saw on the graph was peaking around -80dB i.e. some 70dB below fundamental. I also run some real world tests (aka sound comparisons with actual musical material, not test signals) against some plugin comps that don’t alias and I must say that I still prefer the sound of SN01 as it is. Well, maybe I like the sound of aliasing, who knows. Then again with aliasing below -80dB I wonder how much impact it really has on the sound. Maybe what I like is just the absence of that anti-aliasing filter you mention. Anyway, I’ll probably make some further test (as in trying the aforementioned filtering, but I would not hold my breath for it) and let my ears be the guide 😉
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Sorry this was comment to OPamp plugin. Sh*t. Mobile phone… 😁
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No prob, at least I went through all plugs and specifically looked for aliasing.
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Greetings! I really love your plugins, and I really wanted to start using them on my freshly installed Windows 10 … and I noticed that none of the x86 versions work. I tried in Cubase 7 x86, VSTHost and Wavosaur. Wavosaur is the only one giving the message that it does not recognize them. Cubase and VSTHost just don’t recognize the plugins at all, like they don’t exist.
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Thanks for feedback. Please try using only one version of each plugin, i.e. either the one with GUI or the one without. If that doesn’t work, you may try to install Visual C++ Redistributable Packages for Visual Studio 2013 (VC++ 12.0) that can be found at https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads and see if it solves the problem (though if you can run other, especially older, VST2 plugins with no problems I doubt this could be a solution).
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Great, its several times better than stuff like the synapse re160 and most other pricy vca comp stuff out there, amazing work thanks a lot. i will make a comparison against waves dbx 160 in the next days.
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Hi! Are your plugins VST2 or VST3? I see no mention of it in the product pages. Thanks.
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Hi, they are all VST2.
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I love this plugin. Period.
This is my standard choice for a VCA comp. I love it being light on the CPU and the two sidechain options.
A little suggestion on a new feature would be a 0~100% stereo link knob, if you ever plan on updating someday.
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Thanks for feedback 🙂
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