Let me start out by saying that I am a HUGE fan of modeled classic gear. The accuracy has become astonishing and everyday more and more great modeled gear is becoming available.
When I heard that Softube has emulated the Drawmer 1973 years ago It really peeked my interest. The S73 is a more affordable scaled down recreation of the award winning Drawmer 1973 a once staple in the best recording studios worldwide and still used in many studios today. Softube has added some nice goodies like the STYLE and AIR settings. It is formatted for AAX Native, VST, VST 3, AU.
I first put in on the Master two buss of a couple of songs that I mixed at my studio at MusicMixPros. The first is an unplugged rock acoustic guitar driven song. I found myself never going pass 60 percent on the AMOUNT knob. I found that keeping the percentage below 45 percent gets me a real nice even result. Anything over that really brings out the grit and was sounding too compressed for what I was after. There is a lot going on with this beast under the hood.
The second was an R&B style dance song. The AIR switch in this case worked astonishingly well! Talk about adding some AIR would be an understatement! The AIR switch was powerful and smooth, however very easy to over do it. Be careful because it may make you think about adding a de-esser to your vocal tracks if overdone.
There are several useful styles, Clarity 1, Clarity 2, Neutral, Gentle Comp, More Air, De-Rumble, Punch, Wide Mix, Ambience, and Vocal Enhance. Out of all of these styles they pretty much say what they are doing. I found them all to be helpful. Just remember, on this compressor a little goes a long way, it is VERY easy to over compress your mix with this beast. I actually prefer it as a buss compressor in most cases over a mastering compressor, I recommend giving it a try!
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