Pressure4
TL;DW: The Airwindows compressor, malleable into many forms if you know how.
What can I even say? This is the golden ear favorite. Version 4 brings new functionality that has never existed in Pressure before: the stereo version (default for VST, and the Audio Unit that doesn’t specifically say ‘Mono’) uses a special linked mode based on diade bridges in hardware compressors. That’s not to say that it is ‘analog modeling’ because it isn’t. From the beginning, Pressure has been made out of a lucky algorithm with a particular organic, pleasing quality, and part of Pressure4 is knowing what to strip down, how to simplify that algorithm until it lets all the music through.
But then, when you explore the way Pressure4 squishes up depending on how hard you drive it, and then start listening to the textures of different speed control settings and what that does, and then begin exploring what the ‘µ-iness’ control does… and it turns out that each one of those things gives specific and controllable shapings of the sound, but in ways very difficult to put into words, yet you can learn what it does and make the plugin do what you intend even if it’s tough to articulate exactly what you’re going for…
This is why we turn to odd little tools like this. The whole character of Pressure4 can change with tiny adjustments of the controls. It can do about twelve wholly distinct things when set up right, but they’re all inherent in that one curiously simple, but chaotically strange, algorithm. And now the linked stereo form of Pressure does all that with a naturalness and fluidity never before seen with this plugin.
I hope you like it. This is one of the really good ones, and it is AU, Mac and PC, VST and free (please support my Patreon and I’m sure I’ll come up with some more really good ones I haven’t imagined yet.)
Hi Chris, Thank you for doing this. I’m really enjoying your plugins. I learned of them through the harrison mixbus forum. I am writing also to let you know that there is a problem with pressure4 in Mixbus. The “mu” micro-symbol is preventing the session from loading if it is saved with pressure as an active plugin. Strange! The people at harrison are on the case, but I thought I’d let you know as well. Keep up the good work. I wish you all the best!
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I’m really enjoying your plugins please make more for VST Windows i like all your plugins so nice and useful
I think it would be great if just this once you created some presets, specifically to highlight the 12 (or more) characters you mention as being coax-able from Pressure.
[…] https://www.airwindows.com/pressure4/ […]
[…] Another compressor that Chris released a few weeks ago is Pressure4. […]
Oh, I hope somebody can add a gain reduction meter to this one :D
I’ve used it in the mastering of a new single I’ve just released.
I was looking for something to control the peaks with character and Pressure4 seemed to do just that.
Though setting it up without any readouts or metering is difficult. I can’t be sure how much of an effect it has, until it’s too much.
Anyways – thanks, Chris!
Oh, the song is here if you’re curious:
https://youtu.be/VMqPf4Q-CcQ
Made with Ardour and 100% open-source plug-ins on Linux.