Wow, seriously, THIS is the most underrated Plugin ever. Insane dynamic compression without any bad compromises? No unwanted coloring at all? I can only recommend, try it for yourselves! This plugin is beyond all you mostly ever knew about compression ... Because it does not sound like compression ... It just rocks the best out, even on crappy input signals. Check it out, you won´t be dissapointed!
an absolute weapon
★★★★★
by dnb head
They are right to call this thing a "secret weapon". It is a mix balancer, de-esser, compressor, limiter, and spectral side-chainer all in one. A cheat code for mix downs. The limiter is the most transparent limiter I have ever heard should you even need to use it after matching in/out levels. Once you master it, it is indispensable for bus and master processing, smoothing out the sound and getting rid of ticky digital highs. With the built in curves and curve capture, it provides an infinite array of colour and compression options. The cpu usage is staggeringly light for what it does. This is the kind of audio tool that computers were built for. An innovation in audio processing, as opposed to all the hardware clone plugs. A true modern classic. Long may it continue to be developed.
Five Stars is Inadequate...
★★★★★
by Lucas
This was an easy review to write. I have an intense dislike for automatic/AI plugins, not because I have an aversion to technology, but because they tend to be heavy-handed, and/or leave me with sub-par controls to remedy any judgements they make. I literally demoed this for 30min, on five separate tracks (all could be described as "completed-ish", but definitely not in any sort of polished, final mix stages,) and I was sold. It should be noted--five test tracks in 30min, with zero prior use--this thing is painless to operate, with not a lot more than essential compressor controls and a couple very smart additionals. The tracks that I tried it on were similar in that, even though they could be tentatively labeled Soul, Funk, Hip Hop, and Rock, they're all heavily, if not entirely, made up of well-sampled or real instruments. But, they all had different leading instruments: one with drums at the forefront, another with a Rhodes, another guitar, etc., and this thing performed wonderfully on all of them. Even tracks that were already controlled, with lite compression on sub-busses, and a bit of tape compression on the main busses, benefited from the precise compression applied by the DSM V3. I must admit that I can't see myself using the preset curves, and saving curves for future use seems foolish (though, some people might find this useful?) but that's only because this thing excels at reading the audio on-hand. Oh, and the CPU usage is ridiculously low, using approximately half as much as the MC77, and a third of the V76U73... not that they're similar in nature to one another, but just for a compressor benchmark. Seriously. Demo it. If it makes your material sound like crap, you're doing it wrong.
Amazing
★★★★★
by Dave T
Love it !
DSM V3
★★★★★
by Rauschinger
Just when you thought you could'nt get anny louder or precise in terms of de-essing...along comes Mr. Frindle and makes your day! Gracias!
SECRET WEAPON
★★★★★
by BLOKADA
A SECRET WEAPON FOR THE HD E-GUITARS AND FINAL MASTERING!!!
Great!
★★★★★
by Amid
You will read it's great for high end enhancement, I'd say it may get more applications, since it's pretty versatile. It's not great on everything, but when it's great, it's really great!
Scary !!!
★★★★★
by 24k
I'm no mastering engineer and I never thought id get this close to a professional master as this. Took me about 2 hours to figure out how it works. But once I did, it scared me how easy and fast it took to match my mixes/masters to reference songs. I'd use its limiter for sessions mixes but not big projects. But still, its good to have one if needed. Life would be easier if the in and out VU meters were one on top of the other, for example the in L next to out L and in R next to out R so I can level match. Now I just have to figure out where Its better to place it in the chain: first slot? last one before the main limiter? or somewhere inbetween? Really innovative. Id expect a frequency matching tool from these developers to go with it.
Pretty cool
★★★★☆
by Psysword
It’s an interesting plug-in with a weak limiter so it’s a hit and miss for tracks of mine. Some sound spectacular right out with a few tweaks. Some don’t. I’m no expert and I’m still learning this crazy plug-in but it’s always a consideration on my master. Sometimes I can replace this with Shadow Hills Red which doubles up great. It’s a mix and match thing I feel, but when done right can deliver devastating results. Once the limiter is improved to solid brick wall power, I’ll put 5 stars.