Tbh NY-style compression is pretty well known, all it means is heavily compressing something and then mixing the heavily compressed signal in with the dry signal in parallel, mostly used on drums. This is known as "NY-style compression" and has been for quite a while (at least since I got started with music production about 15 years ago). Why it's called that though, I have no idea...
my conspiracy theory is that some companies deliberately don’t do gain compensation because they want to trick people into thinking it sounds better than it actually does
Im thinking you are right, its probably like.... should we put time and money in making it sound less exiting...? With that in mind I kinda undarstand them, but also it is hurting their credability and pro people wont recommend it as much as we see here
Actually it is worse than this, because many compressor plugins are designed to over-compensate on the gain. Compressors actually make things quieter if there is no gain adjustment, because all compression does by itself is squash the peaks. However, this over-compensation (or peak-based compensation) made sense during the loudness wars, when compensating to keep the true peak the same was appropriate. But it certainly is deliberate in some cases to keep it that way, over-compensated from a modern LUFS or perceived loudness perspective. In this case it is parallel compression, so it would already make the signal twice as loud just from doubling the signal if they didn't do any compensation, and then turning up the compressiom would make it quieter from there. When a compressor makes something louder there is compensation or over-compensation happening, not just compression.
The processing changes the dynamics, therefore you cannot have an absolute gain match. What do you use, LUFS? PEAKS? It's a can of worms. How about mix it yourself, you're a mix engineer.
Please tell me if I'm missing something. From my perspective this plugin is very convenient because unlike normal parallel compression, you don't have to create a send bus because you use it as an insert. In fact, once you understand that it's an insert plugin, the flow diagram makes perfect sense. The parallel signal fader is similar to the input knob on say an 1176 (no threshold), SPANK is the amount of processing and output is your pre-fader post-effect gain, ie you control how much you want coming out as opposed to having auto-gain compensation. I don't see the inconvenience of that. But maybe there's something I don't understand. If anyone reads this, please enlighten me.
Attracted to Super VHS I ended up getting the new bundle last week and have to say love them all! I'm a big UAD fan and have lots of plug-ins, but I have to say the creativeness Baby Audio gives you for the dollars may be the finest in the industry! The NY is great and Comeback Kid is an 80's dream... Thanks Baby A!
@@jmorrisey79 Sorry dude. I just thought it was funny. And wanted to share the fun here in the comments. I wasn't trying to hurt anyone with this comment.
@Central Sun Nah dude. I don't really give a shit it's the internets I just never thought commenting a joke under a vid would cause such an uproar like wtf. I guess everyone is bored cause of covid.
1) Now this is what i find absolutely wonderful about this company. At 2:55 when he is reading what it does. They dont call it "secret sauce" and stuff like Process audio does on the "Sugar" plugin where they let 0 info out as to what it does exactly. Very nice. 2) it is not "weird" at all. It is a typical parallel Wet signal to the Dry signal. Also any plugin with a Wet/Dry knob has this signal flow. 3) do a review of Leapwing Dynone 3. Its like a family of Heart Ny on steroids
I agree with you about how good this plugin is. I think the guy doing the review is using it as a send not an insert and that's why he doesn't "get it". But I could be wrong.
It's an East Coast Hip-Hop production trick for sampled funk breaks. DBX 160 was popular for that purpose and DJ Premier breaks based drums are a good example of the sound.
Part of NY compression isn’t just parallel compression, it was the way way the devices they used accumulated saturation effects from heavy compression, many times from SSL busses, and blended it back in on the console. It was especially a thing in hip hop circles but you got to know that side of history
I think that is the key that many plugins are missing when they reference NY Comp is that doing it with hardware especially the hardware popular at the times adds all kinds of different colour. Same thing with the accumulative sounds of dubbing to tape multiple times in the 60s in order to increase track count, had a huge effect on the sound that isnt really ever emulated in the box.
JimijaymesGuitarist very true. I believe this plugin only gives one instance of how it was done and many plugins are designed like that. But for the hobbyist singer or rapper this is all they need to do parallel and get away with it
@@MellowXBrew Yeah and it is a fairly priced plugin, for more control you can use a parallel chain in your daw or something like bluecat patchwork or just a multitude of cool plugins with mix controls. I often use Slate Digital FG-Grey (SSL 400 comp) in parallel using its mix control and Slate VCC on my mix bus
JimijaymesGuitarist I’m typically going with a limited actually instead of a compressor with a hint of saturation depending on if the vocals were recorded thin
yes, "new york compression" was the original nickname for parallel compression, which actually [parallel compression] wasn't a popular name until more recently. also, the word "spank" is amongst some of the nicknames for compression or sounds created by musicians and engineers over the years. things like "smack" "thwack" "crunch" "air" "punchy" "warm" its really funny. not sure but im pretty sure the most nicknames are used here in the United States.
Ny style was about hip hop breaks ( drums) from vinyl, they parallel drums for hard smack it was specyfic sound on vinyl sampeld drums. They start call it Ny compresion.i agre that you can do it with eny fast atak compressor. Hip hop i known for ssl.
it's incredible how most times these videos are actually "it sounds nice, but it doesn't have gain compensation" it does make you wonder what exactly a developer is developing if they don't include the very thing digital is good at: make things easier
NY style compression == Basically Valley People Dynamite solid state compression added to Master Bus signal. Doing this kept the RMS level consistent and additional EQ to emphasize high-mids/high end so that audibility of this portion of the signal would survive when it was printed to oxide tape. It was a neat trick for overall compression. The Valley People box gave you a nice 'spank' to transients that seemed to emerge from printing to tape (which we slammed sometimes to get more 'bottom end' ). I guess this box is trying to subjectively recreate that sound without using the Valley People dynamite plugin and EQ. Great work on your channel, btw. I am a big fan (and and old man) and have learned cool new stuff from your work. Keep up the good work, bro.
Denise have had a New York Compressor for a while that is cheaper and has more controls and a better interface. It also does not have gain over-compensation like this one, but it does have gain under-compensation (ie no compensation, which leads to compressed sounds being quieter than uncompressed ones).
Sorry but do you use Pro-C as an insert or a send? Cos I think the point of this plugin is that you use it as an insert. So that means you don't have to create a send bus for the compressor and you can control everything from one channel. I think that's convenient and less of a hassle. But I haven't used Pro-C. Hence my question.
@@mgmthegrand Pro-C can do both. By default it has Mix set to 100%, but you can use it as an insert and mess with the mix setting. It also does auto volume compensation, but of course, you should really watch the levels yourself too to make sure it's what you want. I've been playing with Baby Audio's newer "Parallel Aggressor" plugin which has a simple interface over both parallel compression and saturation, and it's pretty nice and convenient. I've only used it on one track so far but it seems like a strong recommendation for an inexpensive headache-free way to get compression and saturation onto a track.
@@mgmthegrand No problem. Pro-C is way more flexible and transparent about what it's doing, but it's also more expensive and leans on your mixing skills to put it to good use. I guess I didn't explicitly mention this in my original comment, but the good thing about Parallel Aggressor is that it has automatic gain adjustment.
@@harvestgoon5291 Gotcha. Still I feel the reviewer is a bit too cynical. This plugin does a pretty good job especially considering the price point. Plus I got it while it was free. Thanks for the tips on PA and Pro-C.
New York Compression is the other name for parallel compression, probably the original name for it, probably because the technique was discovered/started in some studio or circle of audio engineers based in New York. I believe in the mid-70's. It's just sending the e.g. all the drums to a second sum bus and crushing them with a compressor, then mixing that in with the main drum bus to taste. I agree that having output automatic output gain compensation would make this plugin somewhat worth it, as you say it's not hard to do it manually in any DAW.
Why would anyone buy this? Im so confused. Video is great tho. (Guys, subscribe and become patreons! This guy is making such good content we need to keep him making it)
Because it's an easy way to do parallel compression and fairly cheap and also because of the marketing. However Denise have an even cheaper NY compressor with a better interface. It has gain under-compensation instead of over-compensation like this one, which makes it less snake oily but still not ideal. Not sure which if either makes a better sound tho.
Actually I'm completely fine with it having a seperate gain knob a big issue I have with paralel slamming, is that the level is very hard to control, since you're usually working on 2 different busses. And having a sound that I usually would have spread around multiple plugins on 2 busses, in 1 plugin, is a very good thing. I can see myself using this since I work with very high track counts (I make symphonic black metal) and this could safe me processing power. I usually prefer post gaining rather than auto gaining anyway, since the gain in/decrease usually gives me a better understanding of what I am doing. Otherwise my brain would kinda lie to me like: "No they are the same level! You're not doing enough!" Also I can use the output knob for gainstaging for the next plugin.
Ironically, this compressor is veeery beloved by Trap Producers. Alledgedly Pierre Bourne uses it but i would not bet on that. It makes your Trap Drums more Crunchy and brings them to Push out more, especially if you go with the eq and soft clipper mastering system (Standard Trap Mastering)
A New York style compression is simply a parallel bus that is crushed and you bring up the compressed channel until it feels good. Doesn't matter which compressor you use. This is a bit of a stretch for what they're calling it.
You're really freaking out about the auto gain compensation? Wouldn't you want to re-check the new level after processing anyway??? You're a mixer, mix it. Holy shit LOL. This is a sounding good plugin. Very useful.
One thing i noticed that really irked me with this is the fact that if you suddenly run a signal thru it, it immediately slams it to full volume for several milliseconds without *any* compression, rendering it entirely useless.
Hi buddy I am 63 years old and been doing the music thing since the age of 6. First band at 10 (drummer), first record at sixteen. First productions as an engineer and producer at age 23 :) I have been subscribed for a while and generally like your content. Keep up the good work. However I disagree with you on this one :) I suggest you look into NY style compression seriously and forget about what you learned in engineering schools beyond the basics (physics of sound or electronics) the rest is opinions and bad habits rehashed. All this to say you're beside the mark on this one :) No offense meant. NY compression process require db160s, EQs, gates and even Fatsos to achieve as well as a hell of amount of time that no Pro C (FabFilter) alone is going to give you. So respect your elders and look into the art form that NY comp. is, and don't dismiss that I heart NY app. You have no idea how much time and money you can save for 29.99. ... And no I am not a rep or shill for that company. Just buying it after coming across this video. Peace out
I have it and even TAIPE and Cristaline from BabyAudio. The I HEART NY sounds f**ing good and is fast and easy... and that's enough for me! Not just "THE COMPRESSOR" but... well... another flavour and tool.
Wytse, I am just pondering on the auto-gain question. You lately had another plugin where you also missed that. It does make sense to want it. But what would it mean? assuming the plugin does not analyse the incoming audio first then how should it determine the output level? The output is dependent on the input. e.g. 1:2 ratio, all audio, above the threshold, will be amplified b 0.5, so the peak is lower. But if you don't know how loud the incoming signal is then you don't know how loud the output is going to be, so how do you set a level? Also for the attack time. Is there a big transient at the beginning of the signal that you will let through, etc... And do you want the output level to be peak or RMS equivalent of the incoming signal..?? Just looking at the compressor in Ableton Live, which has a Makeup gain switch. Using the makeup gain button makes everything significantly louder on the meters (peak?) from -0,5 (no compressor) to + 5.7 dB (with compressor, makeup gain engaged). This does not seem an ideal solution. So my question to you is: how should automatic gain compensation on a compressor work?
"assuming the plugin does not analyse incoming audio". Well there is your mistake. Some plugins do this just fine. Ideally you should be able to choose the type of compensation (LUFS or true peak) and some plugins do, but now that we mostly use music services with loudness normalisation, LUFS should certainly be the default.
"Just looking at the compressor in Ableton Live, which has a Makeup gain switch. Using the makeup gain button makes everything significantly louder on the meters (peak?) from -0,5 (no compressor) to + 5.7 dB (with compressor, makeup gain engaged). This does not seem an ideal solution." Definitely not ideal. The same problem occurs with the stock Reaper compressor. This might just be because the compensation is using true peak and the meter is not measuring true peak, and instead only measuring peaks at ms intervals. However, 5.7 dB does sound like a lot, so it might be over-compensating even based on the true peaks. Perhaps it is not analyzing the incoming audio and just guessing based on compression settings instead, and to make matter worse those guesses may be based on peak compensation rather than LUFS compensation. Regardless, the NY compressor is ALSO doing some form of gain over-compensation, just like the stock compressors, you just can't turn it off, which makes it even worse. With gain compensation turned off, a compressed signaled, will actually sound *quieter* which is also not ideal. Replacing peak compensation with LUFS compensation is perfectly achievable and should be the default whether or not other options are provided.
Accurately measuring LUFS does take some time (a second or two), so the best system would start with a fair guess of the change in LUFS based on the compression levels, perhaps leaning towards an under-compensation so that no one's ears get hurt, and then quickly adjust to the actual difference in LUFS as measured.
Hi Wytse, is this awesome track a real song to buy anywhere? Is it released somehow? I like it very much from what i here. And yeah i know its not darude/sandstorm..... Would be really cool to get an answer. Keep up to awesome work! Bedankt, proost!
Spank is a British/American expression for a defined percussive sound. As in 'My Fender Strat has more spank than my Tele'. But it also does mean to slap someone's bottom.
I understand your complaint about only being "half easy", but I think the whole/only point of this plugin is to simply remove bus routing from the equation. I dont think it was intended to totally innovate the process of parallel processing. Just removing that one step.
Perhaps I'm in a minority on this but for the most part I've abandoned compressors altogether in favour of transient shapers. Compressors are not the most user-friendly things in the world (I still have no idea what a load of the controls on one do) and transient shapers do basically the same thing but are mindlessly simple and quick to use.
Baby Audio?? A bit of maturing needed as a company. I recently bought the bundle - asking me for Licence key every time i open the plug in which means After 5 uses / licence key entered it goes back to demo mode.
For me is normal in parallel chain/ parallel compression increase level of summed signal. Compensate the audio output is like a Blender with dry/wet btw 2 type of sound.
when considering paying for a plug-in, i first ask “can i do this with stock effects or 3rd party equivalents i already have?” and since the answer is usually “yes”, the next question is “does this plugin save me time?” if the answer is no, why buy it?
Well the signal flow is in fact very basic, its just that they presented the main path (below) as the dry signal, and the processed one on top, Its not a signal chain graph but a dry/wet diagram. They should have put a summing symbol beofore the output to make it clearer...
I think it does have gain compensation the problem is it is probably reference peak level and then compressing the hell out of so the rms is way higher. Ive tried other parallel comps that dont have gain comp and they are the opposite, as you turn up compression the volume gets so low the mix control is almost useless, WA Production Combear (which is free) had this issue and I noted it in my review of that product, the sound of this comp is better though reminds me a bit of the waves r comp with some juicyness from analog modelling comps
Doesn't New York compression involve a mild high and low pass too? Without that it's just regular parallel compression. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to stand corrected
Okay okay.. Here you got a comment..! :P Everything is super fine.. But i'm still into the console 1 as a all in one solution.. (was a super nice video btw..^^) What do you think about those apollo interfaces with intergrated cpu power..?
Thanks for the demo! can we have a video on those different compression techniques? I'm not an engineer, so wtf is 'european compression' supposed to look like. (; btw: How do you maintain such a clean shave? Do you wax your face? (;
Maybe companies have a reason for no auto gain... but why no button to apply it? or a plugin that does auto gain? you'd have to have two that you put pre and post of a plugin
Not a bad sounding COMPRESSOR for $29. But yeah.......why?. I'm guessing everyone has at least several comps that will get the same sound, and you can eq them, and the process of setting up a parallel comp buss is easy. I HEART NY is just marketing, honestly 🙄
I recreate this effect in Ableton with the racks and various compressors of my choice, sometimes I add a gate on the wet signal driven by the sidechain of the source signal, so the compressor does not interfere too much on the transients of the attack and keeps the tail that adds body to the signal
I made a rack in Ableton years ago. Use an EQ with a big wide notch in the center and heavy compressor. Not gonna pay 29 bucks for a VST that brings nothing new. So it's snake oil imo
You should look into the Black rooster audio plugins. They got a sale right now due to the virus and I think a bunch of people are probably gonna take advantage of that
I think you need to do a snake oil video on the new "Punchy Worm" plugin. that thing is so complicated and mysterious, we need your insight on this. its the biggest best new release of the decade and changes everything!! ive tossed all my fab filter plugins. no need now that I got the "Punchy worm!" do it! It needs some Darude!
I definetly undarstand what you mean, if your balance in the context of the mix still feels right its fine. Just to consider is streaming services brings down the volume if everything is pushed and paralell comped, im sure you know this but anyways :)
Oh, I thought the GUI has to be big enough to hold all the code or it won't work properly and that's why bigger plugins are better, because they can hold more code. 😂
