FabFilter User Forum
New Plugin Suggestion – Spectral Compressor
Hi all,
I’d like to propose that FabFilter create a "spectral compressor". There are a couple of these on the market that I know of, but seeing how FabFilter revolutionized the standard limiter, compressor, EQ, ect with their ingenious interfaces, flexibility, and high sound quality, I can't even imagine the kind of mind blowing work they could do with something like this.
Examples of the kind of effect I'm referring too.
Pro Audio DSP - Dynamic Spectrum Mapper:
www.proaudiodsp.com/products/dsm
Melda Production - MSpectralDynamics:
www.meldaproduction.com/mspectraldynamics
The videos demonstrating the dynamic spectrum mapper are pretty amazing and do a great job explaining the concept of spectral compression.
vimeo.com/user979579
However, both of these have their weaknesses...for example, the dynamic spectrum mapper has only three bands to edit the spectral curve, so doing a lot of surgical work is out of the question. The MSpectralDynamics uses a “draw” tool to edit the curve which overwrites the original spectrum capture, which kind of renders the capture feature useless if you re-draw the curve and loose all of its original characteristics.
I think the ideal setup would use the EQ-style bands to edit the spectral curve similar to the dynamic spectrum mapper so that you can adjust parts of the curve without loosing the original characteristics, but would include a lot more bands to work with than just three. It could be setup similar to a paragraphic EQ-style interface so you can fit a lot of bands without needing a lot of space for of all the controls.
Here is a drawing to help illustrate my idea (sorry for the cheesy paint doodle. lol) I put the spectral curve and the curve editing onto two different parts screens as it may be kind of cluttered to superimpose them on the same screen…but FabFilter are the interface gurus, so I’m sure they can do something much better with it.
www.dropshots.com/zoom.html?large=http://media9.dropshots.com/photos/670604/20120610/b_042147.jpg
Combine that with the different FabFilter compressor/limiter algorithms (puncy, transparent, etc) and an amazing FabFilter interface and you will have a real winner here for sure! This kind of compression is highly unique as the two plugins I mentioned above are the only ones I have seen of this style.
I hope you will consider making something like this in the near future. And thanks for developing such innovative tools, keep up the FABulous work! ;-)
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the suggestion! A Dynamic EQ is actually high on our wish list... :-)
Thanks for the response Floris. It's great to hear that something like this is already on your radar. :-)
The two plugins I mentioned are a little bit different from a standard dynamic EQ because of the use of the "capture" feature which captures your materials frequency response and uses that as the threshold for the compression. The dynamic spectrum mapper allows you to press and hold the capture button to get an average of your material's frequency response while you have it pressed (the MSpectralDynamics doesn't have this averaging feature, it is only a one time snapshot).
So essentially it uses your own material's frequency response to compress it, which according to the dynamic spectrum mapper videos allows for more natural sounding compression since it is based off of your program material. This seems to be the case as one of the videos demonstrates 24dB of compression and it is barely noticeable at all, even over the highly percussive jazz track that he used in the demonstration.
Also, you can capture the frequency response of other material, save it, and then apply it directly to your own material (or in the case of the dynamic spectrum mapper it also comes with several preset spectral curves from other material). I've seen other EQ-type effects make a similar effort to try to "copy" and "paste" the response from other material onto your own (Samplitude's FFT filter does a similar thing) but these methods are all static and are not done with dynamic compression. Spectral compression seems to be the best method for achieving this kind of task.
Hopefully you will consider this kind of "capture" feature when you start development on it. Thanks again, and I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!!