Is there one best mix bus compressor plugin?
If you’re looking for generally accepted bus compressor plugins, this article is not right for you. However, if you’re looking for specific suggestions from a full-time mixing engineer, you’re in the right spot. I will give you four of my best amazing-sounding mix bus compressors in audio that I use daily on every mix. I sometimes use them interchangeably, or sometimes I combine them. Some of them I use to achieve vintage-sounding mixes, some to achieve clean, pristine, modern mixes.
Despite their greatness, these plugins may not be right for you. You should always experiment with their settings, play with the presets, and try to understand how they work in a real environment. Reading their manuals also helps.
Let’s dive into the plugins.
UAD API 2500 Bus Compressor
I’m not coming from the analog era of music making, and I have no idea how some of the hardware units sound compared to their plugins. I haven’t heard of any of the API products in real life; however, whenever I use one of the API emulation plugins from different brands, they naturally become my favorites.
The API 2500 Bus Compressor is also in this category. Universal Audio declares their plugins “an obsessively accurate emulation” of this beauty. People who use the real thing also agree with this. They say even the VU meters’ response is very close to the hardware. As an advantage in the digital era, we also have the mix knob advantage, which saves time in preparing a parallel compression.
The reason I use this compressor on my mix bus repetitively is because of the punch that I get from it, and it doesn’t sound like any other compressor. It’s very clean and transparent; you don’t hear the compression that much, which is another good thing.
If you’re looking for a quick way to reach good-sounding bus compression with the UAD API 2500 Bus Compressor, you can try the general rule of setting all the compressor settings to look at 12 o’clock and dial your threshold setting after that.
But how I use it is also connected to why I use it, which is the punch factor of this compressor, so I use it somehow to the extreme sometimes. I dial the attack to the slowest, which is 30 ms, and release to 100 ms. I realized that this was my favorite setting for bus compressors, but there’s no rule in my book, so I experiment with my options every time.
If you set your knobs correctly for your song, you can expect to hear more energy coming out of this plugin than your input, and you can expect to hear a beautiful sound. I recommend this mix bus compressor every day.
Bx_townhouse Buss Compressor
SSL G Buss Compressor is one of the first hardware units that you might hear about when you first ask about a bus compressor. It’s been verified by many engineers throughout the years; therefore, there are many different plugin emulations of it. One of the most famous ones is the Waves’ SSL G Buss Compressor. When I started searching for a good mix bus compressor, I wasn’t 100 percent satisfied with it, and I didn’t know why. When I met with the bx_townhouse Buss Compressor, I was 100 percent satisfied, but I still didn’t know why. Then I learned that it’s not an emulation of the SSL G series, but it’s an emulation of an early model, which is the B series.
Why I use this early SSL bus compressor model is because of its beautiful sounding color. It glues everything after I put it on; it adds a beautiful color that is not that obvious, and you can shape the sound with your settings after that. Maybe I like punchy mixes more, but I also dial the settings similarly to the API 2500 Bus Compressor with the bx_townhouse Bus Compressor of Plugin Alliance. It sounds fat, and it sounds vintage somehow without losing so much from the high end of your input.
SPL Iron
The two compressors we looked at are plugin emulations of the old designs, but SPL Iron is different in that. It’s a new tube design that is adaptable to modern sounds. You can run two different tube compressions with only one compressor. It’s written as “IRON adds power, size, and depth to any signal—without being obtrusive.” on SPL’s website, which describes this beautiful compressor very accurately.
I use the Plugin Alliance version of SPL Iron, and it was one of my first plugin obsessions when I first started using it. I always liked the sound of the 1970s, and I was always a fan of modern, vintage-sounding records. Records that used the methods of the 1970s, but pushed the limits a bit with the help of modern technologies. SPL Iron finds itself in those areas in a very good spot by being clean enough to use in modern productions but colorful enough to add harmonic content to your record that will result in it sounding very "musical.”.
The only downside of using SPL Iron is the time required to spend dialing the settings. I can dial a bus compressor with API 2500 in 30 seconds, but you have to experiment a bit to come up with something that sounds right to your ears. Therefore, I spend so much more time with SPL Iron. Is it worth it? Hell yes.
But be careful while using SPL Iron because you can ruin your mix by adding too much of it to your track.
Elysia Alpha Master
This one is even a bit different than all the others because, while all the other compressors add some color to the mix, Elysia is super clean and pristine in that sense. It’s not a surprise that the hardware version of Elysia Alpha Master was released in 2008; it is perfectly suitable for modern-sounding mixes. One of the best things that makes this plugin a choice for many mastering engineers is the onboard M/S matrix, which allows you to dial in mid/side compression on your mix bus.
What I feel while I’m using this plugin is that you can never feel it compressing or coloring your mix too much with even aggressive settings. While you use the fast attack feature to catch the peaks in your input, you can still dial the attack settings, which adds a second component to it. In this way, it catches the peaks and releases them immediately; after that, you can set your attack time however you like. For example, what I do with it is that I combine a slower attack with its fast attack setting, so I can both catch the peaks and add a lot of punch to my mix at the same time. It also has a fast attack setting on the release time that can help you; for example, what I do with it is that I combine a slower attack with its fast attack setting, so I can both catch the peaks and add a lot of punch to my mix at the same time. get cleaner mixes with faster release times. You get all the distortion from a plugin when you set your release time faster, but you don’t have to with Elysia Alpha Master.
Even though it’s a very pristine compressor, it even has a “warm” mode. If you want just a little bit of modern saturation, you can activate it. It will also soften your transients a bit more, which can feel a bit dull depending on the input signal. It even adds a soft clipping feature that you can activate.
What is your favorite mix bus compressor plugin?
Do you have any other best mix bus compressor plugin that I didn't mention in this article? Or did you tried and loved any of the plugins I mentioned? Let me know in the comments section.
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