Recording - January 2018 - 42

Plug-In Outlet

Reviews By Paul Vnuk Jr.

Boz Digital
Labs Manic

Compressor and
Transgressor
$149 each; bozdigitallabs.com
Manic Compressor

Boz Digital Labs Manic Compressor is a plug-in compressor
designed out of the gate as a parallel compressor with six
different sonic voicings, each with its own skin. It also adds a
full-featured sidechain control and a 3-band EQ.
The six compressors are:
Clean - transparent and forward with little to no coloration.
Sheer - clean and open but subdued, moving the sound
"back" a touch.
Gritty - nicely rough around the edges.
Digital - more controlled than Clean, super fast with a solid
midrange evenness.
Vintage - big and full, the thickest of the group.
Smooth - the most rolled off and round sounding.
In all six, Manic Compressor retains the same controls: fully
variable Attack, Release, Threshold and Ratio, analog input
Drive, and Knee control. There's a unique control called Loud
Relief, which lets some loud peaks "slip through," making the
sound less compressed-sounding but still controlled, bold and
full. Last is a 3-position toggle labeled Beef, with Thin,
Neutral, or Thick settings that do exactly as their names imply!
Below this on the left is a unique 3-stage waveform meter.
It can be set to show input signal, the compression curve,
and gain reduction, viewed one at a time or all together. This
window can also be switched to display Manic Compressor's
two EQ settings. One is a flexible 3-band EQ for sidechain
control. The other is an audio chain pre or post compression
EQ with high and low bell/shelf and mid bell/slant (a "pivot"
EQ), making the plug-in a "channel strip" of sorts.
Manic Compressor's parallel compression doesn't have a
simple wet/dry mix control-you get a 3-fader mixer section
for wet, dry and master. For simple wet/dry control, the compressed and dry faders can be linked, which then boosts one
as you pull down the other and vice versa.
Each sonic mode lends itself naturally to different uses. Digital
is great for drums and drum buses: solid, tight control that lets
drums punch through a mix without undue coloration. Gritty and
Smooth are great on drum bus and room mic, especially driven
42

RECORDING January 2018

hard in parallel compression mode. On the master bus I like
Clean the best, but I've learned a cool trick with it: getting
perfect bus settings in Clean, and then switching to Sheer to add
more openness and dimension if a mix calls for it.
On vocals, it's Vintage all the way, controlling voice while
adding density and tone. I love Gritty if a vocal is too pristine
and I want more aggression out of it. Most other instruments, like
guitars and bass and strings, are source and style dependent,
but Manic Compressor can easily find a home on them all.
Unless you purposely design a sound to be lo-fi, squished
and pushed over the edge, it's hard to make Manic Compressor
sound bad... and if you do like your sounds described as
above, then "bad" is a subjective word. Manic Compressor
really covers a lot of bases (and guitars and vocals and
drums...) and its six tonal choices, the EQ options, and the
parallel compression make it quite the versatile powerhouse.

Transgressor

The Transgressor is billed as the "ultimate drum manipulation
plug-in," which makes it a perfect addition to this month's issue

http://www.bozdigitallabs.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2018