The fact that you show the machine up-close its almost like being there myself .. the smell of it, you know .. the knobs ..the feel .. amazing video editing man! :)
Love this compressor! Always enjoy these videos. I would note one exception in the video just incase anyone is considering buying it. You mentioned the release time isn't very fast in practice. It's actually the attack time that is a bit slower than some. The release is VERY fast. That's what gives you the dirt and distortion at the fastest rate. It is jittering between attacking and releasing at very fast speeds. To compare to other well known compressors its release is 3 times faster than the dbx 160, and 50 times faster than the API 2500, UAD 1176, and Distressor.
I love that the premise of this video is that it almost didn’t happen because “you couldn’t understand it” as if you don’t quite regularly shill products with the quote “I don’t really know what it’s doing but you need one!!!”.
This thing is amazing especially considering its under $2k.. Considering that compressors were created to level audio but were discovered to do emphasize or reduce transients , this seems like a piece of gear that focuses on all the other things we want a compressor to do outside what they were intended to do .. Really nice
That was the fastest 26 minutes in my life! Damn you understand to make content! Keep it up :-D And nice little box! You are right about that its VERY different from what we normally see on the compressor and expander market
Yup, RTFMS, I do, every time and get way more out of my gear than most of my colleagues, way more, because most of the time reading the manual, especially audio gear, you’ll learn what the people who made it were trying to achieve with it and not just “how” it works, often there are more usable function in there if you learn how they have implemented the electronics to achieve the results…btw the Eventide channel strip has a reduced version of the omnipresent as well as a “normal” compressor, it was the first digital channel strip I ever bought and still use to this day ps, I got the impression that the level you were feeding the omnipressor with was way too low, it’s old analog design, you gotta feed the input hard, push it to audible distortion and then pull it 3 to 6dB back, then it will sing (I started in studios in 1976, noise floor was always your enemy…)
Dude, I'm an actual Old Timer. I've been using this sucker. Virtually, since its introduction. And later in, Software Emulations. And so I've had the real thing. And I've had the Eventide Clock Works, emulated version. Which? Strangely enough. Works, very much like the original hardware unit. And it is very versatile and usable. What do you mean you needed to read the instructions? Are you kidding me? I guess not? LOL. Yup. I'm glad you discovered this useful, compressor. I love it. RemyRAD
I struggled with ATTEN LIMIT & GAIN LIMIT knobs for a while, and also was hard to wrap my head around negative ratios... That's what i used a manual for eventually.
Great review man, I bought the Blackhole plugin and was eyeing Omnipressor. The Valley People Dynamite box does crazy shit like this, it's my favorite outboard dynamics unit. Completely reverses the dynamic range, it's trippy as hell.
I love the plugin use it a lot but not for normal stuff. I use it on a electronic piano that had no dynamic. Anything that lack life, to compress and creative crazy madness. But it's not a meat & potato device. But i love it.
Awesome video Colt! really enjoyed the review. My question here is why would it cause Distortion to the audio signal when reducing the Release knob on the compressor?!
It's way better to review a compressor like this with some room in the drum sounds. Your sounds are very 'close miked' sounding and kind of limits what's capable with the compressor. I would like to hear some roomier sounds compressed with this. The snare sound in the example did little for me. Good job on explaining the functions! It is a unique device.
Colt, I think the aten limit, and gain limit kinda work like a GML8900. Which I believe is the most incredible compressor ever made. If you look on RU-vid, there’s a video of George Massenburg himself creating a window of dynamic range that he’s able to move around inside of the track. I highly recommend looking that up and if possible, I would love to see you do a demo on the GML 8900. Most people don’t know about it at all and they are very expensive now and very hard to find. But their hands down the best compressor ever built.
I have been using the plugin for quite some time now. It works wonders. I just don't get why you had troubles understanding it? What exactly made it confusing for you?
The vibe I’m getting is that it’s probably too tedious to set up and the pay off isn’t quite worth the effort, I’m pretty sure whatever is good about this could be surpassed with a nice 1176.
not really. you’re never going to be able to get the same functionality out of a what? 4 knob device. Don’t give up so quick. Nerding out over gear is part of the fun bud
If it's a box to plug into, then it is an analogue of cripple ware. Just dip down to the analogue world an introduce noise to " their" heart''s content.
The Omnipressor, and the valley people dynamite and gain brain are all in the same category old engineers called Zappa Dynamics. Frank Zappa loved these style boxes, these were extreme VCA compressors.
It's really weird that you don't exploit the 'Atten Limit' and 'Gain Limit' knobs. Those two are what makes this box so special. The gain limit thing works in compression mode too! It should NOT be ignored. What you have is a threshold that is a sort of pivot point for the complete dynamics processing, it's not meant to be used as a normal compressor. Also, trust the VU meter it really does show the amount of gain reduction happening, in BOTH directions.. that's why there is the positive scale represented as well.. but you never explore that part of it. You just use it like you would a normal compressor and that is not exploiting the benefits of this particular unit.
Tremendous song by Brenna Bone - Wow! Great demo on this Omnipressor - I am still learning compression in any respect - it is still a bit like voodoo to me though I do utilize it.
Really good walk through. Great jpb, Colt. First, I have to mention the singer, exceptional tone! The song is very well-written. The compressor sounds interesting. I would agree, definitely not my choice for a first hardware compressor. The Distressor wins that title imho. I definitely want to check out the plugin version first but, this seems like a really fun tool. I feel the same way as you do about hardware compression.
Nice video thanks for doing this! Aphex Compellor has an Upward compression as well as the Elysia Xpressor... they can reverse dynamics - Expander style :-)... sure there are more Drawmer made some expanders as well
folks dogging on this box are missing out. Kind of lazy to discount a piece of hardware with out at least a little bit of experimentation but oh well lol some engineers have that hyper focus and some dont
Quite aggressive. No for me but kudos for those that can’t live without this. I feel like you can get these sounds with most other comps but without the versatility of other compressors. Meh. To each their own :)
YES! My most used compressor beyond the standard needs.... Alas , I own the plugin... but damn... Its my fave.. Its been In every project for the last few years..... Lurv it. (Wish i had the hardware also)
Hey Colt. You've gotta get that Attenuation limit in action bro. That's a big part of the sound. Being able to dig into a signal with that threshold but put a cap on how much reduction you get, yet still have it react like a comp would, set to a particular ratio.
the plugin is in my master chain. I have no clue what it really does different than a regular comp but I lightly mix it in and it creates another stage of “mmm thats good” 😂
