New Music Gear Monday: denise audio Dragon Fire Tonal Compressor Plugin
Let’s face it, by now there are so many compressor plugins available that the world doesn’t really need another one. Unless, of course, it takes a completely different approach to something that’s been done more or less the same way for nearly a hundred years now. denise audio’s entry into the compressor world with its Dragon Fire plugin changes everything though, as it uses a technique that’s very different from the past, yet very intuitive as well.
Dragon Fire uses what the company calls Shape technology to finely sculpt the flavor and behavior of the compressor algorithm. That means there’s so much more control available than with most compressors, but it can also emulate any of the popular compressor types as well. You can go from vintage to transparent and anything in between thanks to the inclusion of RMS and Knee functions that lets you soften the compression sound. You can also interpolate between a fast and slow release curve for an ‘optic’ style response, and use adaptive saturation so it will work like an old tube compressor and become more saturated the more you push the signal.
But the real power in Dragon Fire comes from the Push-pull graph. This is an easy-to-use, eq-style display used to control how the compressor reacts to different frequency ranges. I know what you’re thinking – this is a dynamic EQ. It is, but on steroids since it was built as a compressor first and not an afterthought to an EQ. The Push side of things allows you to add boost and compression to a frequency band. Too much boost? The dial it back and just leave the compression with the Pull.
If you want you can also easily switch the compressor to classic mode for use as a standard single band compressor, or use the transparent clipper function to add some extra dirt and saturation if that’s needed.
Dragon Fire also comes with creative and classic compressor styles presets for mix elements like guitars, bass, vocals, and drums, and is available for both Mac and PC in most plugin formats. The best part is that its currently 50% off for just $49.95, with additional discounts available if you buy more plugins from denise audio.
You can find out more here, or check out the video below.
