Ableton/Live/UG/29 Audio Effect Reference/21 Glue Compressor
- Glue Compressor is an analog-modeled bus compressor made with Cytomic, based on the bus compressor of a famous 1980s mixing console. It works on single tracks but is aimed at the Main track or Group Tracks, to "glue" several sources into one mix.
- Threshold and Ratio work as in Ableton/Live/UG/29 Audio Effect Reference/09 Compressor. There is no knee control; the knee gets harder as the ratio rises.
- Attack — in ms
- Release — in seconds. A (Auto) uses a slow release for the overall level and a fast one for transients; gentle on most material but slow on sudden level changes.
- Dry/Wet — 0% bypasses, 100% fully compressed
- Range — limits how much compression can happen. −60 to −70 dB behaves like the original hardware; −40 to −15 dB works as an alternative to Dry/Wet; 0 dB does nothing.
- Makeup — set it near the needle's reading to get back roughly the original level.
- Soft clip — a fixed waveshaper capping output at −0.5 dB to catch loud transients. It colors and distorts the sound, so the manual suggests leaving it off unless that is wanted. With Oversampling, peaks can still pass 0 dB.
- The needle shows gain reduction in dB. The Clip LED turns red above 0 dB, or yellow when Soft clip is catching peaks.
- The title bar button unfolds the sidechain controls.
- Left, external: Sidechain picks any internal routing point as the trigger. Gain sets trigger level only (never heard); Dry/Wet mixes sidechain and own signal as the trigger.
- Right, sidechain EQ: triggers from one frequency band, of this track or the external source.
- The headphones button between them plays only the sidechain signal.
- Oversampling — processes at twice the sample rate to reduce aliasing and harsh transients, for slightly more CPU. Output may then exceed 0 dB even with Soft clip on.