Plug-In Review: Waves Renaissance Compressor - by Oresti

Loud, louder, loudest… punchy, hard-hitting, screaming, intense. These are some of the adjectives towards which we strive with our pop and rock music - we want to make it stand out, be in your face. How is that done? Compression! Sure, things have gone too far lately, with tracks becoming louder than ever - to the point where they don’t even sound good anymore and are simply distorting. That actually has a lot to do with mastering, and that’s not really what I’m focusing on here. What I am focusing on is plug-in compressors, and more specifically, the Waves Renaissance Compressor.

Sure, we’d all love to have amazing outboard compressors like an LA2A or 1176, or maybe a pair of Distressors, but these are all going to cost you a couple of grand. Perhaps some of us are lucky enough to have access to one, if not a couple of these, but for the most part we’re relying on the compressors in Pro Tools and Logic, or whatever platform you may be using.

Sometime this summer, I found myself in a bit of a rut when I was recording a pop-punk band in my home. I tracked everything as best as I could, but when mixing, nothing was really happening for me. Things sounded “okay,” but the guitars weren’t screaming, the drums weren’t rockin, and the bass wasn’t rumbling. After talking to some friends, I realized what I was missing was a reliable compression plug-in, I was just using the standard Bombfactory 1176 emulator that comes with Pro Tools and it simply wasn’t cutting it.

I found out that I could buy an academic Waves bundle at school with their Renaissance plug-ins like the reverb, eq, and of course, compressor. Of course, not everyone has access to academic pricing on the Waves gear, but it doesn’t mean you can’t go on www.waves.com and check out some demos until you’re convinced you should spend the money to upgrade your sound.

Anyways, upon implementing the Renaissance Compressor into my mixes, on individual tracks as well as a master buss compressor, the tracks were finally rocking! Waves gives you a slew of presets to start getting your sound with, from a “drums,” preset to “electric guitar,” “vocal,” etc. They even have settings for buss compression.

Though it’s a digital plug-in, the plug-in actually manages to “warm-up” your sound. You get options between “Opto,” optical compression, which is a more vintage sound, and a bit slower to attack, like the LA2A, as well as an “Electro,” version that is a more modern sound. There’s also brick-wall limiting built-in so that you won’t clip. This allows you to really crank certain things without getting nasty digital distortion, a really great feature for modern rock and pop music.

You can pick up the plug-in all by itself for $200 on the Waves site  or if your looking to get a sweet bundle of great plugs, you can start with the Silver bundle which is available at a discounted rate of about $800 right now. The latter includes 16 great plug-ins including verbs, equalizers, a stereo imager, delays and other useful stuff.

I’ve gone ahead and done six Renaissance Compressor comparisons for you using their presets. All with and without the plug-in activated so you can hear the possibilities of using Waves software. I did some more straightforward stuff for you, such as bass guitar and electric guitar, drums and vocals.

• Bass (Reference) | Bass (With Waves Compressor)
• Drums (Reference) | Drums (With Waves Compressor)
• Guitar (Reference) | Guitar (With Waves Compressor)
• Vocals (Reference) | Vocals  (With Waves Compressor)

Something a little different was severe stereo compression on a simple piano track, just to show you how the compressor can also be used as an effect at times

• Piano (Reference) | Piano (With Waves Compressor)

And finally, I used the plug-in as a master-buss compressor on a small clip from one of my Indaba sessions:

• Stereo Mix (Reference) | Stereo Mix (With Waves Compressor)

Alright, do some listening… I’m sure you’ll find that it’s a fun and effective tool for bettering your mixes. Try out the demo from Waves, and maybe you’ll like it enough to buy it! Don’t shy away from trying other Waves compressors as well, they’ve got a variety of amazing emulations available (API, Neve, SSL).