…and the Empirical Labs Distressor has another emulation with the Comprexxor from Ik Multimedia.
The TR5 Comprexxor brings a few added goodies to the table: M/S capabilities, an adjustable sidechain, and additional tone controls for the distortion module.
You can see how it compares to the UAD Empirical Labs Distressor, and where there are differences in the way they are modeled. (Which are pretty apparent.) The most interesting thing I see going on with the TR5 Comprexxor is in the compression curve with the default optical settings (last chart below). There is an unusual bump when it starts compressing. Now sure how that matches to a real EL Distressor, perhaps someone has some info on that. Also, the overall levels increase when engaging the Dist 2 setting, but not with Dist 3.
Compare this to the Empirical Labs Arousor and the Kiive Xtressor as well.
Hints:
- It is best to start with everything straight up at unity gain.
- Both the Dist settings will add slightly more compression, so you can may need to tweak adjustments when changing those settings.
- On a stereo mix you can compress the mid more than the sides which can control bassier sounds (if you most of your lows are in the middle). You can also widen the stereo image slightly.
- Go to MAX ratio, drive the compression hard, and then set to full dry. Add more of the wet sound slightly to hear the punch come in.








Hi Penny,
Misplaced the email you responded to me with.
Since you appear to be a small( problem Babylon very small operation) I thought that I’d mention this in passing. Technically, you’re so far ahead of a 70 year old retired doc/ musician that is just learning all this digital madness. I have a brilliantly mix engineer in the UK tgat I study with in real time weekly.
But who knows.
Anyway, onto my point.
With a little PC detective work, I was easily able to locate proper places to place your presets. No problem at all.
But I like to see adventurous people like yourself succeed. So, if you’re already doing gangbuster business, then ignore the following.
If things are going slower than you would hope, you might consider the following advice.
Regarding the various presets you sell( of which I’ll be picking any I haven’t yet) I think you might want to take a closer look at how and where goid old windows 10 places these things.
That is, I think your installation instructions might be a bit generic and might leave a buyer frustrated. I’m pretty goid at getting sroubdein 10, do finding the places fir soundtoys, waves and UAD presets took a little while, but was not difficult. But( IMHO) others might get a bit frustrated. Specifically, each of those companies have different ways to both place and or load them. It’s not as easy as you state in your instructions.
One example is UAD. For some stupid reason, the path with UADistgrough program files/86.
Seems ridiculous, as tgat is y’all’s the path to 32 bit plug-ins. But not in their case.
I don’t recall each company at the moment. It’s only about 8 am here in Boston and I haven’t started up yet. I’d be glad, at some point to share my experiences with you, ifiteould bexof help to you. Personally, if you make a preset for things I have, I’ll be buying them.
I guess I’d be curious if snycof your customers have struggled with loading and placing them correctly. If so, I’d be glad to offer tidbits like that, if they are helpful. If not, just blow them off. I’m looking forward to messing with the ones I’ve picked up. I’ll be showing them to my mentor and see what he thinks.
I’m in a creative period composing wise, so not that focused on the art of mixing right now. But will start lessons again next week.
Anyway, just thought I’d mention this stuff.
The search for placement was, for me, really helpful in finding destination paths I hadn’t even thought about.
So, if I can be of any value, let me know.
Steven Kaufman
stevenk734@aol.com
6173885024
Boston, MA
USA
Let’s see more of those round toys, waves, UAD and more.
First time anyone has mentioned it or had a problem, and since I don’t use a PC or Windows I can’t really provide more than saying “search a little”. Sorry about that, but as I said this is the first time anyone has contacted me about having this issue. Perhaps yout post may be helpful to someone in the future.