FabFilter Pro-C 2

FabFilter Pro-C 2 is a high-quality compressor plug-in for the most demanding engineers. Whether you need subtle mastering compression, an upfront lead vocal, that magic drum glue or deep EDM pumping: Pro-C 2 gets the job done with style!

If you’ve used anything by FabFilter, you know that they don’t mess around. Their plug-ins not only sound fantastic, they have some of the coolest and most helpful features available. The Pro-C 2 compressor plug-in is an update of the original Pro C, which was already a great plug-in. The new features only add to the experience. There are 5 new compression styles, a brand new impressive interface, a side-chain EQ section, and a bunch of new controls. Its great sound and impressive functionality make it ideal for anything from individual tracks, to mixing and mastering.

What we immediately liked about this plug-in was the new interface. Like all of the FabFilter products, they really make it easy to see exactly what your plug-in is doing to a signal. It is size-adjustable, and makes a graphic representation of your waveform. Seeing threshold levels with a handy diagram, and having really large controls for your main compression settings (threshold, ration, attack, and release), you’ve got all you need to get started compressing. But look closer, and you’ll see that there are some unique controls that make this plug-in way more interesting and comprehensive than your average compressor.  For instance, the “lookahead” feature can reduce latency, the “range” control can limit the amount of gain change, and the “hold” control can keep the compressor open longer (without affecting release controls). The different compression styles are comparable to using entirely different compressors in that they impart different sonic qualities onto the track in question – which means that if you don’t already have nice compressor plug-ins, this could be a one-stop shop for all of your needs.

You can really get super-creative once you explore some of the more novel features. There’s a sidechain EQ with high and low pass filters that can be very useful. The plug-in also has stereo (left/right) and mid/side processing capabilities, which can add another layer of precision to the processing. Arguably our favorite thing was the Audition Triggering feature, which isolates the signal that is being compressed and allows you to hear exactly what is changing. The presets can dial in perfect settings for all instruments, notably for drums (individual as well as entire drum busses). There’s also overall mix and mastering settings that are extremely useful in those contexts as well. Overall, there’s not much in the way of compression that can’t be done extremely well with Pro-C 2 from FabFilter.

Main Features:

• Eight different compression styles, of which five are new in version 2: Vocal, Mastering, Bus, Punch and Pumping, in addition to the original Clean, Classic, and Opto modes
• Gorgeous Retina interface, with (optional) animated level knee displays and accurate peak/loudness metering, and multiple interface sizes: Small, Medium and Large, and an additional Full Screen mode, offering a large level display and side-chain EQ controller (Retina support on OS X and High DPI support on Windows)
• Side-chain EQ section, with customizable HP and LP filters, plus an additional freely adjustable filter
• Program-dependent attack and release curves
• Smooth lookahead (up to 20 ms), which can be enabled/disabled to ensure zero latency processing
• Intelligent Auto Gain, Hold (up to 500 ms), Auto Release, and super-fast attack time controls
• Custom knee, variable from hard knee to a 72 dB soft knee (to enable saturation-like effects)
• Up to 4x oversampling reduces aliasing caused by fast or aggressive dynamics processing
• Variable stereo linking and mid/side processing, with mid-only, side-only, M > S and S > M processing
• Audition Triggering option, which enables users to hear on which parts of the audio Pro-C 2 is triggering and how much compression is taking place
• Range setting, which limits the maximum applied gain change
• Mix setting, which scales the gain change from 0% to 200%
• Accurate, large level and gain change meters, with peak and loudness level visualization. The loudness level complies with the Momentary mode of the EBU R128 / ITU-R 1770 standards
• External side chain triggering functionality lets you feed a side chain signal into the compressor to trigger it, instead of the track it is processing
• GPU-powered graphics acceleration
• Stereo and mono plug-ins available
• Optional MIDI triggering
• Supports common Pro Tools hardware control surfaces
• MIDI Learn functionality lets you assign parameter controls to MIDI controller
• Undo/redo and A/B comparison let you make decisions and revisions easily
• Smart Parameter Interpolation reduces zipper noises and artifacts
• Sample-accurate automation of all parameters reduces artifacts and aliasing
• Extensive help file with interactive help hints

Requirements

Windows

• 64-bit: Windows 10, 8, 7 or Vista
• 32-bit: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista or XP
• VST 2/3 host or Pro Tools

Mac OS X

• OS X 10.6 or higher
• AU or VST 2/3 host or Pro Tools
• Intel processor