Cut Through Recordings
EpicPRESS
EpicPRESS is a one of a kind versatile compressor that you will find both easy to use and powerful enough for any situation. It aims for simplicity but provides advanced features for the situations that require it. Key Features
EpicPRESS features a one-of-a-kind display which shows the compression gain in real-time.
The compression display is designed to show output compared to the input in real-time, as well as to give a visual representation of the compression curve. The white line indicates the threshold and ratio. The red curve under the white line represents the soft-knee of the compressor. The blue area under the white lines is a meter that represents the output level before applying make-up gain.
EpicPRESS comes with the standard compression controls: threshold, attack, release, ratio, knee, and gain. It also has some more advanced features such as detector mode (feed-forward/feed-back), detector high-pass frequency, and auto-gain.
The threshold knob has a range of -48 dB to 0 dB. Threshold represents the level which the detector must surpass before compression will begin. Once the detector level goes below the threshold, compression will begin to stop.
The Attack knob has a range of 0 ms to 300 ms. Attack is the time it takes for full compression to take place once the threshold has been crossed. If the attack time is set to 5 ms, and the detector passes the threshold (and stays over it), it will take 5 ms for the compressor to reach the full amount of compression.
The Release knob has a range of 20 ms to 5000 ms. Release is the time it takes for compression to stop after the detector level has fallen below the threshold. If the release time is set to 100 ms, and the detector goes below the threshold (and stays below it), it will take 100 ms to for compression to completely stop.
The Ratio knob has a range of 1 to 20. Ratio is the amount of compression that is applied to the signal. It can be thought of as the ratio of the output signal (above the threshold) to the input signal (above the threshold). If the input signal is -3 db (0.707 in linear units) and the threshold is -6 db (0.5 in linear units). With a ratio of 4 we can expect the output signal to be (0.5 + (0.707 - 0.5) / 4) which is equal to 0.552 or -5.12 dB.
The Knee knob has a range of 0 dB to 6 dB. Knee is the width in decibels around the threshold in which a smooth transition happens from no compression to full compression. When the Knee is 0 then it is what is known as a hard-knee. When the Knee is anything higher than 0 then it is a soft-knee. The soft-knee can be seen as the red curve on the display.
The Gain knob has a range of 0 dB to 24 dB. Gain is simply the amount of output gain.
The Drive knob has a range of 1 to 10. The drive is applied after compression and before mix and gain are applied. It is designed to simulate analog saturation and is great for adding some nice harmonics to the track.
The detector knob has a dual purpose. The knob itself has a range of 0 Hz to 150 Hz and is used to filter out lower frequencies when feeding the input level to the detector. This prevents sub-bass and lower-bass from driving the compression which can cause "pumping". This knob also has a toggle switch built in as FB (Feed-back) and FF (Feed-forward). When Feed-back mode is selected then the detector detects the level after compression has been applied. Feed-back mode has a very desireable sound characteristic and is the default mode. Feed-forward mode detects the input level before compression has been applied to the signal. This can also be useful in some situations.
The Mix slider has a range of 0% to 100%. Mix is the ratio of the wet and dry signals to be mixed in. 100% is fully wet (only compressed signal) while 0% is fully dry (only input signal without compression). It can be very useful to mix in the original uncompressed signal with the compressed signal to create what is known as parallel compression.
The Auto Gain switch is used to enable the auto gain feature in EpicPRESS. The auto gain tracks the average difference between input and output volume over time and attempts to automatically adjust the gain of the output to match.
The Bypass switch is used to enable the internal bypass feature. Internal bypass is provided incase the host's provide bypass is not sufficient. In some hosts, bypassing can cause pops and click. The internal bypass should prevent them from occuring.