Recently, ToneEmpire has introduced AI and neural network technologies into their pedal-type compressor.
Its appearance is vintage and charming.
Purchase it here.
■Pros
- The UI is vintage and cool
- The sound is vintage and cool
■Cons
- High system load
I purchased it 3 years ago, but is it because my machine is a bit outdated…
When I open my DAW and load SoulSquash on just one audio track, the system load becomes quite heavy…
While numbers alone can’t measure it,
i7-9750H
32GB RAM
seem a bit outdated…
Even though it’s meant for tracking, raising the compression on just 9 tracks is enough to max it out!
Bouncing is necessary (which is quite obvious).
The basic analyzer, along with Kick, Snare, Bass, SoulSquash, EQ, and Reverb applied, leaves you unable to do anything else~
So, high load gets a low rating.
It’s not practical for me.
I recommend using it with Reaper or Digital Performer.
The compressor seems to have an S-curve response.
You can see that it’s applying a high-pass filter from a relatively high position.
It seems suitable for electric bass, although in some cases, it feels like the low-end might be slightly reduced.
When tested, the Low-Mid to Mid range tends to rise, resulting in a thicker sound, and it doesn’t feel overly thin.
Turning on “Thick” boosts the low-end.
Another extreme case, haha.
However, since the kick’s sound is in the frequency range that this affects, it gives an impressive boost to the impact.
The distortion is roughly like this.
It doesn’t distort as much in the high frequencies, which is a common characteristic of recent hardware simulations.
Is this around where the latest technology is?
Purchase it here.
