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BEST FREE VST COMPRESSORS

FREE VST COMPRESSOR PLUGINS

Below you will find a list of free compressors with links to the respective download sites. If you scroll down further you will find descriptions of the listed compressor vst plugins.

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The vst plugins mentioned may be working either on PC or Mac or on both and a few are 32-bit only. However, by the use of a bit bridge and / or a plugin-adaptor (like jBridge, 32 lives, DDMF Bridgewize or Blue Cat’s Patchwork) you should be able to use these vst plugins in almost any DAW. In Klangheim Studio we use Cubase in combination with jBridge and that works like a charm without any hickups. You can read more about bit bridging in our article About Bit Bridging

MCompressor by Melda Production

DC1A by Klanghelm

MJUC Jr. by Klanghelm

Molot by VladG

Tan by Acustica Audio

TDR Kotelnikov by Tokyo Dawn Records

RoughRider3 by Audio Damage

ReaComp by Cockos

SAFE Compressor by Semantic Audio

Leveling Tool by AdHd Audio Tools

jsCompShaper by JS Audio

FRComp87 by eaReckon

GComp by GVST

LA Thrillseeker by Variety of Sound (Windows)

Density mkiii by Variety of Sound (high quality buss and mastering compressor) (Windows)

Thrillseeker VBL by Variety of Sound (Vari-Mu compressor – this is primarily a saturation tool but it also has a simple compressor that works very well on bass) (Windows)

Nasty VCS by Variety of Sound (channelstrip with opto style compressor) (Windows)

Older vst compressor plugins – but good:

Compressive Pro by Martin Eastwood (Windows)

FL4TT3RY 2 by platinumears (Windows)

Side Chain Compressor by slim slow slider (Windows)

Sidechain Compressor by Christian Budde (Windows)

dlm Sixtyfive by de la Mancha (Windows)

Kjaerhus Compressor by Kjaerhus (Windows)

Blockfish by Digital Fishphones

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MCompressor by Melda Production (Windows and Mac)

MCompressor is a very nice and very versatile vst compressor plugin. It has a good graphic user interface (GUI) that gives you good visual feedback about what you are doing both in terms of how you are compressing (soft knee, linear, or hard knee) and how much gain reduction you are employing.

You have full control over attack, release, ratio and threshold and you can target either the audio peaks or the average loudness (RMS) of the incoming signal – or set up the MCompressor to target the audio signal somewhere in between these two.

MCompressor also has a sidechain and a highpass and lowpass filter which makes it extraordinarily flexible. It comes with the Melda Free Bundle that includes quite a few other nice vst plugins. Highly recommended.

Download link: MCompressor

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DCA1 by Klanghelm (Windows and Mac)

The DC1A compressor from Klanghelm is a simple yet powerfull free VST compressor plugin. If you are a beginner this could be a good compressor to learn by since it is very easy to tweak plus you are forced to use your ears and not rely on numbers.

The DC1A is resembling an OPTO compressor. Its attack and release timings are program dependant although you have the choice between a faster response (which is the default mode) and a slower response with the ”relaxed” mode engaged. It has a fixed threshold and the more you gain the input the more compression you will get.

Use the output knob to match the compressed level to the uncompressed. This way you will not be fooled by differences in loudness between the unprocessed and the processed audio.

The DC1A can add a nice saturation effect to the audio. The saturation is stronger with higher gain reduction. You will have less saturation when the ”relaxed” mode is enabled. If you use it for just a few db of gain reduction in ”relaxed” mode it will work in a much more transparent way.

On stereo tracks you can compress the left and right side separately by enabling the ”dual mono” mode and Klanghelm has also given us an internal sidechain high pass filter which comes in handy when you want to keep the low end more intact (for instance on the drum bus). Finally you have the option of using negative compression ratios.

So, even though the DC1A looks simple at a first glance it is quite surprisingly versatile and can work well on many different types of audio material from drums and percussion to vocals, guitars, and keyboards. It is a very good sounding free VST compressor and should you want even more flexibility you should check out its ”big brother”, the DC8A, which is a high quality compressor with a lot of tweakability for just a little more than 20 US Dollars.

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MJUC jr by Klanghelm (Vari-Mu compressor) (Windows and Mac)

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Yet another simple but powerful vst compressor plugin by Klanghelm. MJUC jr is a scaled down version of the amazing MJUC compressor plugin by Klanghelm. However, the MJUC jr still gives you a little of the flavour that you will find plenty of in its bigger sibling. Both plugins are emulations of the Vari-Mu compressors type and thus they add quite a bit of tube coloration / saturation.

With just a few controls – compress, make up gain, and a choice between three time constants (fast, slow, and auto) – the plugin is very easy to operate and you may be surprised about how much you can get out of this scaled down version. If you need more control and would enjoy playing with a lot of extra parameters you can buy the full version for very little money.

Download link: MJUC jr

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TDR Kotelnikov by Tokyo Dawn Records (Windows and Mac)

TDR Kotelnikov is a free VST compressor designed primarily for mastering purposes. It can function in a very transparent way and will definitely also find it’s use as a channel compressor or a group bus compressor.

The developers have added control features that you will not find on many compressors such as separate control over peak and RMS release values and a way to balance the importance and influence of each of these release times on the processing (through the peak crest knob and of course through the peak release knob and the RMS release knob).

You can also control the stereo sensitivity and chose whether the compressor should work on the full stereo audio or on the mid (”sum”) alone or the ”side” (”diff”) alone. If you want to dial in both mid and side compression and control these individually then you can simply use two instances of TDR Kotelnikov.

TDR Kotelnikov offers an internal sidechain function which gives you the option of relaxing the way the compressor responds to low end frequencies. There is also a mix option for parallel compression.

Timingwise the TDR Kotelnikov is capable of very fast settings. The attack time can be as low as 0.02 milliseconds and the release time can be as fast as 10 milliseconds for the peak release and 20 milliseconds for the RMS release. Of course you can choose slower settings as well since the attack time is fully adjustable up to 250 milliseconds and the release time likewise fully adjustable up to 2 seconds. All in all a very versatile tool for transparent compression.

TDR Kotelnikov is a fabulous free VST compressor plugin and it is amazing that you can get this quality for free. For mastering it is one of the best free vst compressors around. Highly recommended.

Should you want even more options there is a ”Gentleman’s Edition” at a very affordable price.

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Thrillseeker LA by Variety of Sound (Windows only)

This is definitely one of my favorite free VST compressors and probably the one free VST compressor that I use the most. The Thrillseeker LA is a very versatile compressor. In many ways it works like an OPTO compressor but although some people on the internet describe it as a free version of the LA-2A it is much more flexible than that.

Yes, indeed, the Thrillseeker LA can work very much like an LA-2A but you have many extra options on this Variety of Sound plugin. First of all you have faster attack times (both attack and release times are dependant on the incoming audio material – just as is the case with the LA-2A – but you can tweak and control the timing to some extend with the attack and release knobs).

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This means that it is possible to tweak the Thrillseeker LA to work very much like a dbx 160 when it comes to timing – or a Tubetech CL-1B as well as a Fairchild or an LA-2A compresor.

Variety of Sound has also given us control over the total harmonic distortion (THD) with the interstage section. Once you have found the right amount of compression and adjusted the attack and release to your liking you can turn on the interstage section and add 2 order harmonics. If you want to go further than that you can use the slider to add even more THD and obtain thicker saturation effects.

Finally you have the ability to colour the saturation effect to your needs and even switch on a transformer circuit simulation to fatten up the sound even more.

Thrillseeker LA has internal and external sidechain options and in the top left corner you will find a little knob that calibrates the plugin to a conservative (and advisable) mix level of -18 db.

In other words Thrillseeker LA can work as a clean compressor or as a more vintage sounding unit. It can work with much faster attack times than an LA-2A and it has its own little colour tool box in the interstage section.

You can use it as a channel compressor or indeed as a bus compressor. And last but not least: it sounds amazingly good. It proves that free plugins can sound as good as commercial plugins – and be more innovative than most of them! That is just one good reason to dive into free VST compressors and other free VST plugins. Highly recommended.

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SAFE Compressor by Semantic Audio (Windows and Mac)

The SAFE Compressor is special in the sense that it allows you to type in more intuitive or descriptive terms or words into the plugins textbox – such as for instance bright, warm, punchy etc. – and if the word or term is on the developers server the compressor will be set to parameters that can bring forward the wanted and described effect.

You can save your own suggestions for semantic terms that represent a compression effect and it can then be shared with other users via the server. In other words SAFE Compressor is a unique intuitive compressor that may be of special interest to beginners.

Download link: SAFE Compressor

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FRComp87 by eaReckon (Windows and Mac)

FRComp87 is a delightfully simple vst compressor plugin. It only has a few controls: threshold, makeup gain, and three timings (fast, medium, and slow). Finally, you can switch in a limiter to tame peaks after the compression. Because of the simplicity FRComp is very fast to use and may be just the right starting point if you are a beginner when it comes to compression.

Download link: FRComp87

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dlm Sixtyfive by de la Mancha (Windows)

The developer de la Mancha has created a really good free VST compressor plugin inspired by the dbx 165 A compressor. However, de la Mancha’s Sixtyfive gives you several extra options compared to the hardware which inspired his work.

If you are looking for a dbx-style compressor plugin Sixtyfive is a good choice. It sounds very good and adds a little, nice coloration and character to the audio material you run through it.

De la Mancha has given you extra features like a dry/wet knob which makes it easy to dial in ”New York” or parallel compression. While the fastest attack on the original hardware is 1 millisecond de la Mancha lets you dial in even faster timings. Like the dbx 165 A de la Mancha’s Sixtyfive also has an auto attack and release button which activates a program dependant attack and release response. It also features a peak stop option for hard limiting on the final output.

Sixtyfive is a soft knee compressor. You can tweak it to give you smooth, musical compression or to work in much more agressive ways. So if you need a vintage style VCA compressor plugin with extra features you need look no further.

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GComp by GVST (Windows and Mac)

With the GComp vst compressor plugin you have full control over attack, release, threshold, hard knee or soft knee or anything in between as well as dialing in the balance between how the compressor should react to audio peaks versus RMS (the average loudness of the program material). On top of that it also includes a limiter.

You can adjust the input and output volume and GComp gives you a good visual feedback of what is going on and how much compression you are applying.

GComp has a sibling called GComp2 with a few different parameters that you could check out as well.

Download link: GComp

Article Content

Option overload is a very real thing, particularly in the world of compressors. Compressors tend to be a little daunting to learn to begin with, as there’s a lot they can do (I have a comprehensive course on it if you want to understand compression thoroughly). Couple that with the fact that almost every software brand has its own compressor series and you’ve got an overwhelming number of options.

In this article, I’m going to pare things down a bit and take a look at my favorite compressor plugins, along with a few mix tips to go with each of them.

1. Klanghelm MJUC

You know what’s great? When a single compressor covers almost all of your compression needs. You know what’s even better? When that compressor costs $30. This is true of the MJUC “Vari-Tube” Compressor by Klanghelm. The MJUC is actually 3 compressors — the first being kind of like an Altec style Vari-Mu, the second like a STA-Level 176, and the third being kind of its own thing. While the second and third modules offer the most functional controls, I find myself using the first model most frequently.

Surprisingly, while it is one of the cheapest compressors in my arsenal, it’s the one I reach for most commonly for vocals.

Mix Tip

Vocals: The secret to vocal compression is in the timing constants. On Pop vocals, I’m frequently using module 1 with the timing constant set to “5”. This setting is a fast release and program-dependent release, similar to the Fairchild 660. This means that as the incoming signal changes, the release timing changes as well, making for a more transparent release.

For Rap vocals, I’m frequently going to module 2 where I start with the “density” button clicked in. The “density” button emulates a second compression stage that radically effects how the ratio and threshold seemingly interact. I find if I don’t begin with this in, the compressor is a little tricky to set. From there I’m setting the attack to 12 o’clock and the release as fast as I can get away with without any distortion creeping in (which is usually all the way left or a click or two off). As an added bonus I like to turn the “timbre” control a little to the brighter side to add a bit of pop. But that’s a saturation thing, not a compression thing.

2. Sound Radix POWAIR

It’s no secret that I’m a big Sound Radix fan and have been for a long time. The POWAIR plugin is unparalleled when it comes to transparency. It is about the closest thing you can get to level automation in the form of a compressor. It was designed with mastering in mind but it’s very useful for instruments, group busses, vocals — really anything.

The compressor functions in two stages. The first is a general leveler which pulls the source toward a target threshold whether upward or downward. The second is a compressor stage with a fixed threshold, knee and ratio. We also have variable attack and release, sidechain filters and stereo linking. We also have a few unique controllers, and that’s where the magic in this compressor lies. The first is a “Punch” control that allows initial transients to come through without changing the attack time. The second is an “Adaptive” mode that effectively moves the threshold relative to the incoming signal level so that compression is applied more uniformly regardless of whether or not the playing is soft or loud. And the third mention is a two-fer; the release has a tempo setting which allows you to auto time to the music (very convenient) and an automatic makeup gain toggle that is actually accurate (pretty much the only makeup gain that is programmed to work correctly in any software).

Aside from the architecture being atypical of most compressors, the actual sound is so transparent it can throw off an experienced ear. It is surprising how much gain reduction one can get away with doing while using this thing. This makes POWAIR a little trickier to use than most compressors. However, once it’s learned it’s an irreplaceable tool.

Mix Tip

Music Buss: Working in Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Reggaeton and Dance music, it’s extremely common to receive reference files that are highly compressed. The vocals parts are usually tracked to the compressed 2-track. But the individual trackouts (stems) simply do not match up to this highly squashed version, because the compression inherently changes the balance and feel of the record … usually in a good and also bad way.

When mixing these genres it can help to do a bit of compression on the overall music buss to help get some of that 2-track feel, but doing it on our own terms rather than trying to rework a brickwalled, decently mixed version from the producer. The two stages allow us to get the “glue” effect of heavy limiting without the overly dense, transient dead, and somewhat distorted side effects.

Introduction to POWAIR

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3. Waves RVox

Good ol’ RVox. The fixed value, single slider compressor that’s been around longer than some of the people using it. I am not going to lie — to this day it is still one of the best compressors, particularly for vocals, ever made. It’s an “opto” style compressor that adds a little low mid presence along the way, along with a gate. It’s very simple and very effective.

Mix Tip

Vocals: There are two little tricks to RVox that really make it sing, for me. The first is to hold shift and click both the gain and output slider so that as you are applying more compression you are also turning the output down. This way the level stays about the same and you can focus more on what the compression is doing. Once it starts feeling “choked” or “pumpy”, back it off and that’s the sweet spot. Vst plugins for garageband free. The second trick is where it’s placed in the chain. I like it as the last compression stage. It’s a finisher. Get everything all nice and situated with POWAIR or MJUC, and then use RVox at the very end to just give that vocal a little extra punch. 2 to 3 dB of gain reduction usually does the job here.

4. Eventide Omnipressor

POWAIR is to “transparency” as Eventide’s Omnipressor is to “very obvious.” Omnipressor is not subtle. Maybe it can be if used a certain way, but that is not the intention at all. Going from all the way left to all the way right on the function control — omnipressor first acts like a gate, then expander, then lands in bypass right in the middle, then becomes a typical compressor, followed by a limiter, followed by a dynamic-reversal control where the output yield is actually below the threshold. Effectively this means you can do anything from completely killing the sustain of a signal, to making the sustain louder than the attack. This is almost a sound design piece more than a compressor as you can modify the envelope of a sound to something completely unrealistic.

Mix Tip

Drums, Hell Yes, Drums: When it comes to compressing the royal snot out of things, few elements are so obliging as drums. One of the coolest things to do with Omnipressor is to set your drums up on three tracks. A dry track, a track with Omnipressor set as an expander/gate, and a track with Omnipressor set at in dynamic-reversal mode. This essentially allows you to shape the attack sounds and the release sounds on two parallel tracks and then blend them in as you choose.

For super boomy, fun drums I recommend playing up the dynamic-reversal track, and then using the expander/gate track in the context of the mix just to get the drums to poke forward a touch and still have bite to them. It takes a second to get the feel for this but once you do it is money-money-money. This works on the drum buss as well as on individual close mics.

5. FabFilter Pro-MB

I’d be amiss to have a compressor list without mentioning my favorite multiband: FabFilter Pro-MB. This is another compressor that has a lot of options. You have pretty much every compression control you can think of — variable timing, ratio, expansion mode, mid/side, stereo unlinking, knee, and so on — and you have those settings for every band. The GUI is fortunately very intuitive so the learning curve isn’t too steep. That said it does take a while to get a feel for multiband in general, particularly when it comes to using more extreme settings. Once you have it, the FabFilter Pro-MB is a very powerful tool.

Mix Tip

Kick Drum: Whether it’s an acoustic kick or a sample, we often want the low end to either sustain longer for a weightier kick, or cut a little shorter for a punchier kick. Kinda depends on where the bass instruments are living and what they’re doing. To make the sub of a kick extend, create a shelf band on just the deep low end (maybe 80 Hz or lower). A softer slope is usually good because we retain better transient definition and pulling up a bit of 100-200 Hz by proxy might not hurt anyway.

Set the attack very fast (first quarter turn or faster), just making sure we aren’t really messing up our initial transient. Set the release fairly fast as well. Set the GR to -12 to -14. We are aiming to do 6 to 12 dB of gain reduction here! Lastly, set the knee pretty hard (5 dB or less). Once we’ve got our compression action working, now we turn the output up on that band by the same amount as our total gain reduction. This gives us the same overall amount of low end, but with a lot more body!

If we want a punchier kick drum we are going to use expansion mode. We are going to use the same settings, except this time we aren’t going to use any output gain. We want our attack super fast, our release fast, our knee hard, and we’re going to use our threshold to determine where the low end needs to start attenuating and ratio to determine how much. Once this is done we may want to turn up the kick overall as it won’t have the same power and presence it did before. By shortening the low end of the kick we can bring clarity to our low end, particularly if we have another instrument driving the sub.

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