Klevgrand has introduced Richter, a tectonic compressor, designed to achieve heavy compression with a minimal amount of artifacts.
Here’s what they have to say about it:
“Normally a heavily compressed audio signal gets distorted, often with a nasty “zipper noise” artifact because of how the internal envelope followers are engineered. The experiments led to a brand new approach resulting in a compressor that empowers you to squeeze every bit of sonic perfection out of your tracks. Use it for meaty mixes, punchy drums or smooth, transparent vocal tracks.
Due to how the algorithm is designed, there are a few unconventional controls to tame Richter. First of all: one single parameter controls how much compression will get applied. The other (important) parameter controls how the internal envelope follower will react to transients vs continuous/lasting sounds. These two parameters make Richter a highly intuitive compressor where the user quickly will be able to dial in the wanted sound. On top of that there’s a boost switch that literally makes the amount span go to eleven. And, as the name suggests, earthquake levels are possible.”
Features:
- Superheavy compression with minimal unwanted artifacts
- Intuitive Transients and Amount dials
- Real time graph visualization
- Tonal control
- Three-step boost switch
- Input trim control
- Makeup gain, Dry/Wet mix and Output control
Richter Audio Demos:
Pricing and Availability:
Richter is available now for desktop with an intro price of $29.99 USD (normally $69.99). The iPad version is available for $4.99.
Another compressor offering from Klevgrand??
I’m not a huge fan of compressors (especially when they are abused). The “lack of artifacts” is pretty impressive. With the SoundCloud examples, there weren’t any examples where I preferred the compressed versions. Seemed to reduce the energy & impact.
I suppose they could have called it Neuter.
It’s amazing how many software developers release compression plugins. For audio geeks, it’s not surprising for them to have dozens if not hundreds of them.
You would think that some company would just say– it’s not rocket science, we’ll release a compressor that does it all– tube/tape saturation, circuit simulation, all kinds of attack/knee/ratio/release, shaping, variable/relative/level-sensitive thresholds/ratios/releases, etc. etc. And combining all the features of the best hardware and software versions.
There are a couple great multi-band compressors out there for not much dough that do great things and are quite flexible.