New Music Gear Monday: Heritage Audio Successor Diode-Bridge Compressor Plugin

There are numerous types of compressors that all have their own uses, but there’s one particular type with a British lineage that holds a unique position among engineers in the know. That’s the diode-bridge compressor popularized by the Neve 2254 and 33609 hardware compressors from the 1960s, known for their fast response and added “glue” that engineer’s, producers and artists so love. Now the diode-bridge design has been emulated in the new Successor compressor plugin from Heritage Audio.

Some History

“So what’s so great about a diode-bridge compressor in the first place?”, you’re probably asking. Back in the 60s the first compressors were optically-based, which meant that they were rather slow when it came to reacting to a signal. The newer solid state FET-style compressors were much faster, but added a bit of distortion that some engineers found undesirable.

The diode-bridge design fell somewhere in between, with a faster response but very pleasing harmonic generation when pushed hard. The downside was that because of the way this circuit worked, it was prone to noise, but engineers just loved the glue that it added.

Flash forward to today where noise is no longer a factor when it comes to plugins (it’s not a factor even on newer hardware units), and we can have the best of all worlds along with some new parameters added as well.

Parameter Controls

That’s what you’ll find with Successor. It has that old vintage Neve look with a large Threshold control, then stepped controls for Ratio, Attack, Release, Sidechain Filter, and Makeup Gain. An additional Blend control that fully bypassable is also included. There’s also an analog-style gain reduction meter on the left.

Ratio can be set in any one of six positions going from a gentle 1:5:1 up to Limiting. Attack and Release are each have six positions, with the last two release positions featuring automatic program-dependent timing. Likewise, the Sidechain Filter also has six positions going from OFF, 80Hz and 160Hz high
pass, 800Hz and 3kHz bell type boost, and 5kHz low cut.

Successor also has a unique trick up its sleeve with a Nuke control on the upper left next to the gain reduction meter. This ads 20dB more gain before the compressor in order to drive it harder to take advantage of the plugin’s harmonic generation characteristics. When used in conjunction with the Blend control, you’re able to dial in just the right amount of parallel compression. Since there may be a lot of gain reduction as a result, there’s also an Output Trim control that lets you add another 20dB to the output if needed.

The Heritage Audio Successor compressor plugin is available for $99 with a 14 day trial period. You can find out more here, or watch the video below.

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