New Music Gear Monday: Korneff Pawn Shop Comp Plugin

There are so many compressor plugins available that I almost feel hesitant to feature another one. The Korneff Pawn Shop comp is different in both look and features though, and that makes it a unique new entry in that category.

The Pawn Shop Comp is made to be a color machine, as it emulates what you might find in a home-brew analog comp from days gone by. The audio path is an emulation of a vintage tube amplifier circuit, while the compressor circuit is designed around FET (Field Effect Transistor) curves of the classic solid state FET limiters of the 1970’s. 

All the typical controls are there. The Threshold control is interactive with the Auto Make-up Gain function, which allows you to focus on creating music instead of tweaking levels. The Ratio control has a standard range of vintage limiters, from 2:1 all the way up to 20:1. The Attack can be set from 1ms to 100ms, while Release settings go from 10ms to 300ms. That’s all on the uniquely old-looking front panel of the plug, coupled with an equally vintage looking Gain Reduction/VU meter.

Then you get to the second panel of the Pawn Shop Comp and that’s where it gets interesting. You’re able to adjust the preamp Bias and Gain to emulate a range of tube circuit sounds. Adding more Bias adds grit, while the Preamp control adds gain and saturation. 

After that there’s the Weight and Focus controls that allow you to shape the lows and highs similar to tone controls on vintage outboard equalizers. The idea here is that you can compensate for losing some of the low end as a byproduct of the way many compressors work.

Then you can squeeze out additional overtones by cranking up the Operating Level control. And then get the right balance of effect to original track by using the WetDry control for built-in parallel processing.

And finally comes what I think is the Pawn Shop Comp’s most unique feature. You’re able to swap out different component emulations to really tweak the sound. You can choose between resistors: carbon for a warmer, noisier sound, metal film for modern clean sparkle. Or swap out the FET’s to change the compression from round and subtle to hard and pumping.

The Korneff Pawn Shop Comp plugin is just $99 and is available for both Mac and PC on all plugin formats. Check out the site for more details, or the short video below.

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