Famously used by Bryan May, the Omnipressor has remained popular among some of the world's leading producers and engineers. Now it's back in plug-in form.
Introduced in the early 1970s, the Omnipressor was the first dynamics effects processor of any kind. Originally invented by Eventide's founder, Richard Factor (and later redesigned for production by John Paul), the Omnipresssor made a host of effects possible. It featured variable control of all aspects of dynamic modification. It also introduced the notion of the 'side chain' and foretold techniques that today we take for granted like 'look ahead' processing.
The Omnipressor plug-in is a faithful emulation of the "black-face" unit and is popular among some of the world's leading producers and engineers as a dynamics-modifier with variable expressive controls of all aspects of a signal's dynamics. The Function control allows you to set compression and expansion ratios over a wide, continuous range from extreme expansion to infinite compression and beyond - dynamic reversal which reverses a sound’s envelope, making loud sounds quiet and quiet sounds loud.
One of our first customers was a young Brian May, lead guitarist of Queen. With the Omnipressor in his rig, his sound was never the same again.
Features
Dynamics processing for creating otherwordly sounds
Variable control of attack and release time
Variable control of maximum gain and maximum attenuation
Function control sets ratio over a continuous range from extreme expansion to infinite compression and beyond to dynamic reversal
Gating: Set a threshhold and signals whose amplitudes fall below the threshhold value are 'squooshed'
Hollin Jones was classically trained as a piano player but found the lure of blues and jazz too much to resist. Graduating from bands to composition then production, he relishes the chance to play anything with keys.
A sometime lecturer in videographics, music production and photography post production, Hollin has been a freelance writer on music technology and Apple topics for well over a decade, along the way publishing several books on audio software. He has been lead writer at a number of prominent music and technology publications.
As well as consultancy, full-time journalism, video production and professional photography, he occasionally plays Hammond, Rhodes and other keys for people who ask nicely.
Hollin is Contributing Editor at Ask.Audio.
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