For a lot of standard compression jobs like bass, piano, guitar and vocals - keeping the ratio, attack and release knobs set to around the 12 o'clock position gives some nice consistent results that are transparent yet a subtly 'goey' and 'gluey' feel just like a good analogue compressor although not quite as strong.
The ratio ranges from 2:1 up to 10:1 so it is fairly flexible in this department.
TUBE TECH CL1B SOFTUBE FREE MANUAL
Upon opening the plugin in your DAW, the default setting will have the attack and release setup on manual selection which means the user can control the attack and release settings over the left like a normal standard compressor. It also features a side-chaining option like a lot of other compressors, the manual has a section where it gives settings to try for different applications such as vocals, guitars etc and this could be a starting point for new users of the CL1B. 'Manual' allows the user to set the attack time from 0.5 to 300 milliseconds and the release time from 0.05 seconds to 10 seconds.Īnd 'Fix/Man' is a combination of both and you will definitely need to read the manual for this as it is quite complex 'Fixed' has an Attack time of 1 millisecond, and a Release time of 50 milliseconds. The manual should be briefly consulted to get yourself familiar with the 3 different 'attack/release SELECT' sections, or you could just take my word for it when i say From the beginning, installation is straight forward although you do need an iLok to run the plugin.and the less said about that the better.Īnyway, once you have everything up and running in your DAW the configuration is very simple and the GUI is exactly the same as the hardware unit and beautifully done, infact you'll probably spend the first 5 minutes foaming at the mouth at how good it looks but of course it's not all about the looks, luckily though it sounds even better.
It has a legendary reputation and a starring role as the go to compressor in many top studios around the world, so it's easy to see why Softube decided to make a plugin to mimic the hardware. The hardware compressor has been around since 1987 and was created in Denmark as an updated LA-2A opto style of compressor. The Softube Tube-Tech CL1B is a plugin emulation of the original hardware unit by the same name.