New Music Gear Monday: Three-Body Technology Cenozoix Compressor Plugin

There are many types of compressors and because of the way they’re built, some work better on certain mix elements than others. That carries through to look-alike plugins that simulate analog optical, FET, VCA, and Vari-mu originals. But digital technology is very advanced today, so why can’t there be one plugin that simulates them all? Now there is one, with the Cenozoix compressor plugin from Three-Body Technology.

Different Styles

Cenozoix compressor delivers 12 vintage model simulations and 12 modern compressor styles, bringing your mix the best of all worlds with just one plugin. Plus it has some very interesting parameter controls to make the compressor more transparent than most of the analog models that it emulates.

Let’s begin with the vintage compressor styles since that’s where most engineers will start when they insert this plugin into a signal path. These are the Vintage styles available:

• Brit VCA, which is inspired by the compressor in a channel strip (probably an SSL)

• Glue VCA, inspired by the classic SSL buss compressor

• US VCA, inspired by dbx 160

• Black VCA

• Red VCA

• Dist. VCA, the classic VCA compressor with a lot of saturation

• Black FET and BLUE FET, inspired by the different versions of the legendary 1176

• Vintage Opto

• Diode Bridge, like the famous Neve 33608

• Virtual-Mu, based on the Fairchild 660 and 670

• Vintage Tube, based on the Teletronic LA-2A

The Modern styles are more designed for specific mix elements. They are Clean, Tight, Open, Natural, Vocal, Pluck, Smooth, Drum, Hard, Loud, Bus and Mastering.

As you can see, this plugin covers all the bases.

Unusual Parameter Controls

There are a number of unusual parameter controls available that have a very specific purpose. For instance, in the Attack section there are Clamp and a De-click controls, which are there to reduce the artifacts induced by short attack and make the compression sound more natural. Punch/Pump allows you to select whether the compression produces a punchy sound or pumps with the track.

The Release section has Tight and Sensitive controls, and again, they’re there for the purpose of making the compression sound more natural, especially when there’s a lot added. Then there’s the ability to fine-tune the compression with Peak/RMS, Feed-Forward/Feedback, and Odd/Even Order Harmonics.

I think it’s fair to say that Cenozoix provides much more control over your sound than virtually any other compressor plugin on the market.

Cenozoix compressor is available from Plugin Alliance where it’s available for an introductory price of $124.99 (regular price is $224). It’s also available in all plugin formats for Mac and PC. You can find out more here, or watch the introductory video below.

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