Solid State Logic
Blitzer £96
SSL’s latest plugin delivers a variety of classic compressor colours, but can it match dedicated emulations? Jon Musgrave finds out…
Many SSL hardware compressors are already available in fantastic plugin emulations. But the company has also developed further compressor plugins from the ground up like X-Comp and X-valvecomp. That continues with its latest addition, Blitzer. A ‘compressor with attitude’, it looks conceptually similar to Empirical Labs Distressor. It aims to deliver everything from soft, saturating compression right up to brick wall limiting, and combines regular compression controls with dedicated Drive and Transient-shaping processors. Nevertheless, one-knob-style controls coupled with a clear layout and dedicated gain reduction meter keep things easy to understand. Throw in a few convenient extras like output wet/dry mix, output Auto Gain, oversampling mode (HQ), undo/redo, context-sensitive tool tips, and a very well spec’d sidechain EQ section (see box out) and you get a great combination of sonic flavours all in one easy to use plugin.