WHAT'S NEW IN BODYBUILDER 2

Two detectors, not one topology

  • Feedback detection measures the signal after gain reduction. The detector hears its own work, so compression becomes program dependent and self limiting. Smoother, more forgiving, harder to make sound wrong. It is why the classic units behave the way they do.
  • Feedforward detection measures before gain reduction. Faster, more precise, holds a hard ceiling where feedback would round it off.
  • STYLE picks the right one for the material rather than asking you to.

One compressor, or three

  • VOX and DRUMS run one compressor across the whole signal. A voice is one object and a kit is one performance. Splitting either one apart stops it sounding like a single thing, which is why every classic vocal and drum compressor is broadband.
  • MIX runs three. The spectrum is split with gentle first order crossovers and each band is compressed independently, so a kick cannot duck the vocal and a loud cymbal cannot pull the bass down with it.
  • That is the difference between a buss compressor that pumps and one that holds a mix together without you noticing. You do not switch it on. Choosing MIX is switching it on.

The upward stage, and FLOOR

  • Every compressor you own turns the loud parts down. The upward stage turns the quiet parts up, so the performance stops moving instead of being squashed into place.
  • FLOOR is where lifting stops. Set it above the noise and you get the performance without what was sitting underneath it.
  • It is the control that decides whether upward compression is something you keep on or something you switch off after ten minutes, and very few upward compressors give you one.

It sets its own timing

  • The upward stage adjusts its recovery to the material. Dense passages, with events arriving close together, shorten it so nothing smears. Held notes and tails lengthen it so the lift stays steady and never chatters. It moves continuously between the two, smoothly enough that you never hear the change itself.
  • The floor sets itself too. The plugin measures where the noise in your material actually sits rather than assuming a number, then places its limit accordingly. A clean source gets generous lifting. A noisy one gets protected.
  • The point of both: it behaves sensibly on material it has never heard, rather than being a set of numbers that happen to suit one kind of source.

BAND and FREE

  • BAND processes only the range you choose. FREE processes everything but only listens to the range you choose. One changes what gets compressed, the other changes what decides.
  • Drum buss. BUILDER across the kit in FREE with the detector deaf to the kick, BODY in BAND on the mids. Shells thicken, low end stays put, cymbals stay open.
  • Kick only. BUILDER in BAND with the top crossover pulled down. The kick is controlled and nothing else on the kit knows it happened.
  • Vocal. FREE, high passed so chest thump stops triggering it. BODY in BAND on the mids so the body fills in without the top coming forward.
  • De-essing. BUILDER in BAND above 5 kHz. Only the sibilance is compressed and the voice underneath is untouched.
  • Mix buss. FREE with the detector high passed so the kick stops pumping the whole mix.
  • A wild low end. BUILDER in BAND on the lows only.

Sidechain

  • Key it and the whole plugin listens to another track instead of itself. The STYLE you have chosen still decides how it reacts, so a ducking mix buss still sounds like glue and a keyed drum buss still sounds fast and precise.
  • Downward, this is classic ducking. A bed under a voiceover, bass under a kick.
  • Upward, it is the opposite, and almost nobody has it. The source rises to fill the gaps the key leaves. Put it on your backing vocals, key it from the lead, and they bloom when the lead stops and settle underneath when it returns.
  • BAND and FREE apply to the key as well, so you can trigger from a range of the incoming signal rather than all of it.
  • With nothing connected, or a silent key, each stage falls back to listening to itself. It never goes silent and it never opens up.

Saturation

  • WARM. Polynomial soft saturation. Low order harmonics, fuller and closer without shifting the tone. Transients untouched, so drums keep their snap. Full stereo.
  • HOT. Tanh based tape saturation, harder character. The low end is kept out of the drive so the bass does not turn to mush, and it eases off on transients so a snare front or a vocal consonant stays intact.
  • Both oversampled internally, with filtering on the processed path to stop low frequency build up.
  • Below halfway the low end stays out of it. Keep it under 50 percent on a mix or a master and the weight at the bottom stays clean while the mids and top get the density. Push past halfway and the low end starts to take it too, which is what you want on a single source.
  • Below halfway it will never be louder than bypass. Most drive controls flatter themselves by getting louder. This one does not.

It sits where the level is already controlled

  • Saturation comes after both compressors, so it always receives a consistent signal. Feeding a saturator something already levelled is what makes it sound expensive instead of surging.
  • MIX blends the whole chain back against the original, properly time aligned. Parallel compression with no bus, no send and no phase problem. On drums, run it hard and pull MIX back for the ghost notes, rimshots and shell resonance without shaving the stick attack.
BodyBuilder 2

Start using BodyBuilder 2 today

£39.00 £99.00
Learn more
UPGRADE

This button will sign you in to apply your discount

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

  • 64-bit VST3, AU, AAX and standalone
  • macOS and Windows, Apple Silicon native