Review: Goodhertz Vulf Compressor

After Vulfpeck’s Jack Stratton read about a compression algorithm from the legendary Boss SP-303 Dr. Sample, he enlisted two friends, Rob Stenson and Devin Kerr (co-founders of Goodhertz), and started working to bring that algorithm to life in a digital form. After quite some time they successfully emulated the Boss SP-303, but this time, Devin expanded the algorithm and fine-tuned the sound and the Vulf Compressor was born.

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Features

Goodhertz has a unique character to its plugins and is very appreciated amongst many well-known producers. In the color bar, you will see a visual representation of your affected signal. Goodhertz notes in their user manual that, “we’ve opted for simple and direct controls & interfaces that don’t rely on photorealistic knobs or ornamental screw heads to communicate their meaning.” For this plugin it’s all about the audio, they don’t sacrifice any CPU usage for fancy looks even tho this plugin looks pretty elegant yet simple.

While there are many sliders the real players here are the Compression amount, Wow, and Lofi parameters. Tweaking these will result in a signal that sounds beautifully compressed, wonderfully warbled, horribly crunched, and so much more.

Compression Amount controls the overall compression amount, even at 0% the Vulf Compressor still imparts a bit of its signature compressor sound.
Wow/Flutter Amount controls the depth of the vinyl wow and flutter, you can also control the Wow/Flutter Mix, Wow/Flutter Speed, Wow/Flutter Phase in the advanced Wow/Flutter controls.
Lo-Fi Amount Controls overall fidelity. Higher Lo-Fi Amount produces more total harmonic distortion, decreased high-frequency resolution, and more noise.

When first opening up the plugin, you’ll only see 50% of its interface, there is a whole other section which is called advanced settings which can be useful for the more experienced producers. The advanced section allows you to dive in more if you prefer but you don’t need to. They’ve made it so you can get right to the juicy stuff from the main section. If you dive in, however, the advanced section will let you adjust your Wow speed, the type of Lofi effect, and the associated parameters of each effect. Built-in sidechaining makes this the perfect companion to your native plugins and will make for smooth mixing.