New Music Gear Monday: PSP FETpressor Compressor Plugin

PSP’s impressive plugins always make my Top 10 list and rightfully so. There’s a lot of expertise that goes into making these gems, and each one has a variety of real-world uses. The latest from the company is the FETpressor, based around the sound of the 1970s hardware blackface Universal Audio compressor/limiters that we all loved so much.

The FETpressor isn’t a straight emulation of those FET feedback style units though. It’s a modern representation with all the parameter controls that an engineer needs for today’s mixing. Along with the Threshold, Makeup Gain, Ratio, Attack and Release controls, there’s also a Side Chain High Pass Filter frequency control to better help control the low end so the processor doesn’t pump, and a Blend control for instant parallel processing. The plugin has the ability to just work on one side of a stereo mix (you can pick the channel), and a switch to link or unlink the channels. It also has an output transformer emulation to add some extra character even when its set to a 1:1 ratio.

Controls are nice, but it’s all about the sound, and the FETpressor is sort of a cross between an 1176 and an LA3A. Both are classic compressors still admired and copied to this day, so it’s like getting two for the price of one. I personally think that the 1176 is the most versatile compressor/limiter ever made and would probably be a “desert island” processor for me. Likewise, electric or acoustic guitars just don’t sound right to me unless they go through an LA3A, so the FETpressor is a welcome addition to my plugin list.

The PSP FETpressor has a special introductory price of just $79 until January 8th, and the deal is even better if you’re already a PSP user (the price is secret until your shopping cart though). Like all PSP plugins, it’s available for Mac and PC in all plugin formats. Check out the web page for more details and some very cool user quotes, and the video below for some sonic examples.