Post Description

DC8C is one of the most flexible compressors around.
While making a lot of different compression styles possible, it's general nature may be described as: clear, smooth, open, distinct.

The main goal while designing DC8C was to get a very clean compressor action without unwanted and often almost inevitable artifacts/distortion. This way you can achieve almost invisible compression for your most demanding mastering sessions, when you want to avoid coloration.

If you aim for color you can choose between two saturation models.
From opto-style, peak compression, external side-chaining, RMS compression, Feedback, Feedforward compression (and everything in-between) to negative ratios, zero latency brick-wall limiting, from snappy transient treatment to smooth transient rounding - everything is possible.

DC8C Feature List

detector network and gain reduction smoothing for extra smooth operation
choose between two different attack and two release curves
four different operational modes: NORMAL, CLEAN (100% clean compression with no intermodulation, no distortion, no aliasing), SMASH (ultrafast compression characteristics, almost clipper territory), LIMIT (use DC8C as a zero latency limiter)
optional soft-clipper at the output
up to 8x oversampling
side-chain filter with high pass & low pass filter plus tilt control, which let's you shift the frequency response of the detector
the saturation stage can be put freely into the signal chain: pre compression, post compression and side-chain only
three different compression curves selectable
customize the program dependency of the compressor separately for Attack and Release
GR-smoothing control to determine, how sensitive the compressor reacts to changes in the computed gain reduction, great to emulate opto-style compression
hold control, great for heavy pumping compression effects
pre-attack control to delay the start of the attack to leave transients completely alone or radically shape the attack
VU and peak metering
calibration control not only to set the reference level for the VU-meter and the saturation
unique Feedback-Mix-Control, which lets you determine, how much of the compressor's output is fed back into the detector. This way it is possible to morph between Feedback and Feedforward Compression topologies
true zero attack (0.0 ms)
negative ratios possible
parallel compression, peak-compression, RMS-compression
external side-chain
side-chain listen
Easy Mode which features 4 distinct compression styles
AGC (automatic gain compensation)
GUI resizing
comprehensive preset-browser with lots of presets to keep you started

06/27/18 version 3.0.1

- FIX: attack and release labels on the GUI of SMOOTH, PUNCH and SNAP Easy modes to match their actual ranges
- FIX: latency reporting in the VST3 version in Studio One
- NEW: added option to the global settings to disable dynamic latency reporting
USE CASE: some hosts do not adjust latency for offline rendering separately.
So when you have your Realtime OS set to eg. 1x and the Offline OS to 2x some hosts might not adjust
the changed latency correctly during rendering.
Currently I'm only aware of Studio One is behaving like that when the VST3 version of a plugin is being
used. So if you're encountering issues like that, you can use this new option in the global settings.
If dynamic latency reporting is disabled, DC8C always reports the maximum possible
introduced latency (128 samples) regardless of the oversampling settings. To stay in sync differences
between reported and actual latency are compensated by an internal delay.
- NEW: added option to the global settings to have equal OS settings for realtime and offline(render) processing
USE CASE: If your hosts doesn't adapt to latency changes when rendering, you can
optionally apply equal OS factors for both realtime and offline processing to keep things in sync.
The advantage to the aforementioned option is, that you still can use DC8C with 0 latency when no OS is being
used instead of the fixed 128 samples. The downside is, that you can't set a separate OS factor for offline
processing, hence the realtime factor is being applied during render too.

nJoy!