The best place to start looking for compression options is from the stock plugins of your DAW. They may not look the most exciting, but often, there are some absolutely excellent options that you’ve already paid for, and you might as well get to know them!

I’ve had a quick glance around 4 major DAWs to see what they have available.

Cubase

Starting at home – Cubase. Up to v12 (which is what I’m on) there are three included compressors, all quite different from each other. From v13, there’s an additional Black Tube Compressor as well, but I’ve not had a chance to try this.

Here. we have the Vintage Compressor (which is emulating an 1176 Blackface style compressor) – a very fast, aggressive compressor if you want to be, punchy, fast and it has loads of character.

Next is the Tube Compressor (which is emulating an LA2a style compressor, with some significant differences). These are both fixed threshold compressors (you can’t change it) but you drive the audio into the threshold level with the input knobs, then balance with the output knob. Good on individual channels, groups, and with loads of colour options available.

Finally, you have the plain Compressor – it’s not an exciting looking compressor, but it’s fully functional, with a lot of options for you to shape your sound – it’s clean, simple, and highly functional.

Logic Pro

Logic has an extremely versatile built in compressor, so if you’re using this DAW, you should _definitely_ investigate it. It’s another plugin that doesn’t look that exciting, but it’s got some great features, and a lot of options built into the plugin.

As you can see, this has all the controls we’d expect to see on a general compressor – Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release and Makeup Gain, plus a built in limiter, and handily, some distortion options. However, it’s the top bar here that gives you all of the options you might need.

Platinum Digital – The basic compressor. Clean, functional. Get to know it!

Studio VCA – based on the Focusrite Red 3 compressor. Extremely versatile, can be fast or slow, and with some charachter.

Studio FET – your 1176 Blackface. Aggressive, punchy, fast, characterful.

Classic VCA – based on a dbx 160a. Loads of character, fat and punchy.

Vintage VCA – based on the classic SSL Buss Compressor. The king/queen of gluing your drums or your mix together, but also useful elsewhere.

Vintage FET – another 1176, but a different revision. Possible the Blue Stripe or the Silver face. Probably great on vocals.

Vintage Opto – the LA2A of the rack. A slow, gorgeous compressor, lots of colour, and fabulous on vocals, but try it on lots of things – acoustic guitar, bass… It’s lovely. The simplest of the compressors here, the original only had two dials – a threshold and a gain control. Although there are more controls here, try an attack of about 10ms, and a release between 50ms and 5s (I doubt this models the release of the 2A at all, but it’s inspired by it!).

Ableton

I could only see two plugins included here…

All their plugins follow the Ableton ‘style guide’ and are not really great lookers (but who cares!). But this crams a lot into the interface, and is a very versatile stock compressor. I know Ableton users swear by it. But, you also get…

…The Glue Compressor. This was developed with Cytomic, who’s most famous plugin is The Glue. An extremely detailed and more versatile version of the SSL Buss Compressor. Think Drums, and Groups (and mixes), but it works on so much other material as well. This is probably a killer plugin.

Studio One

I could only find one stock compressor in Studio One. However, there are some other available from their subscription service Studio One+ – and a few of those are free to download as well. Definitely worth a look, as Presonus have a history in hardware, and they know their stuff.

This seems to have all the basic controls you could need, though I’ve not used it myself. Dig in and have a try!

As for some free 3rd party plugins, I can definitely recommend two, and there are more out there. The first is based on one of my favourite VST compressors, the rather over complicated but gorgeous Vladgsound MOLOT. This version has been updated, there is a paid for version, and it’s now handled by Tokyo Dawn Labs. MOLOTOK.

This isn’t based on any particular vintage compressor, but it comes _loaded_ with character. The Alpha/Beta/Sigma weighting is gorgeous (alpha is normal, beta has a multi stage release profile – think LA2A or SSL Auto-Release), and Sigma is like pre-delay, but for compression – it delays the compressor, letting a lot of the transients through). The DELTA function is pretty cool as well. Great on anything really. Play with it 🙂

For second choice, have a look at MJUC Jr from Klanghelm. Inspired by Vari-Mu tube compressors, this is extremely colourful, can go from gentle levelling to pumping (play with the Time Constants) but, as it has so few controls, you can really settle in and listen to how it’s not only compressing your sound, but also colouring it.

Klanghelm also have another free compressor, but I’m yet to test it.

So, this is a starter list. I will update this with more as I have time :).