Someone had to make the joke. The only reason I did not give this the full five stars is because when you turn the gain up past, say, 16 or so, it starts to distort. This isn't a big deal, I just boost it on my interface instead (or you could boost it in your DAW), but it would have been nice if the entire range was clean.

At any rate, I am using this as part of my vocal chain for streaming, which I realize is a completely ridiculous use case. Nevertheless, I bought it because I had tried out the plugin version and it was actually able to catch those fast transients that a lot of other, cheaper options seem to miss. The auto fast setting in particular is truly incredible for voice as it allows you to set a slower attack time (I'm using around 8-9 ms) but it will still speed up as needed to catch the bigger peaks. It feels like I am dialing in less compression than I have ever used in software, and yet still winding up with an even more even level than ever before. Perhaps that is just the magic of analog, I don't know. One way or another, this is a great little compressor and I highly recommend it.

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Ridiculous! I have two and am using them for drumbus duty and for tracking drums, guitars etc. Anything that needs to boom can benefit from having these comps in the signal chain. I like these as much as my distressors for different reasons. This is a swiss army knife compressor. Super useful in any situation. I haven't found anything weaknesses yet.