Fresh from making its musical presence felt as an ‘early bird’ BETA pre-release (for public purchase at an attractive sale price of only $49.00 USD as of June 3), Empirical Labs Inc. (ELI) is proud to officially announce AROUSOR LT™ — available as a simplified version of its AROUSOR™ classic knee compressor plug-in flagship favoured by top-tier engineers with identical processing at an affordable price point, putting the professional audio signal processing equipment designer and manufacturer’s hardware Distressor ‘DNA’ into anyone’s hands with the look, feel, and sound of the best analogue compressors around — as of June 29…
ELI effectively downsized its AROUSOR™ classic knee compressor plug-in flagship in order to bring about AROUSOR LT™ with identical processing at an affordable price point, persuasively making the former’s superlative sound available to anyone, as well as top-tier professionals like GRAMMY® Award-winning record producer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and audio engineer Greg Wells, who is irrefutably an ardent admirer already: “AROUSOR™ is a compressor plug-in without equal — instantly exciting and instantly musical, there’s no turning back!”
Be reassured, though, that there is now no need for those seeking that superlative sound to turn their back on it due to cost considerations as AROUSOR LT™ likewise improves mixes — at a persuasive price to suit most pockets. Put it this way: with AROUSOR LT™, ELI effectively downsized AROUSOR™ by simplifying its controls, hiding a few functions, and adjusting its focus from 12 varied RATIO settings to four carefully chosen ones that provide a perfect balance between versatility and ease of use: 1:1 — no compression, allowing AROUSOR LT™ to be used in a smooth-sounding saturation capacity without compression; 3:1 — a gentle compression curve with a 10 – 30dB knee, depending on ATT (attack) and REL (release) settings; 8:1 — the same ratio and curve as the hardware Distressor’s popular 6:1 setting, and a more aggressive ratio that just works on any instrument or vocal track; and 20:1 — another favourite ratio for peak-skimming purposes, or creating natural ambiences when heavily used with room mics or dry- and lifeless-sounding sources, thanks to the slower attack that mellows out the ‘grabby’ sound.
Such simplification of available AROUSOR™ parameters is reflected in its younger software sibling’s smaller GUI (Graphical User Interface). Indeed, anyone already familiar with AROUSOR™ will readily recognise the ‘LED’ bar graph for AtMod (Attack Modification) — slows down the initial slope of the attack envelope to add just a little bit more of the transient back into the track — that also assists in AROUSOR LT™, albeit this time it is implemented with a fixed setting (set to the equivalent of selecting 3 in the AROUSOR™ ATTACK MODIFICATION panel, as opposed to the latter’s default setting of 2). The ‘LED’ bar graph denoting Pinned, Toasty, Hot, and Warm in the AROUSOR™ SOFT CLIPPING panel similarly forsakes functionality (for introducing more second harmonic distortion and the ability to place the compressor input before or after the soft clipper circuit) in favour of fixed, smooth-sounding settings in an AROUSOR LT™ implementation that duly delivers — whether seeking subtle or extreme amounts of vintage-style harmonic distortion. Although AROUSOR LT™ does not allow for full control of ELI’s proprietary AtMod or independent soft clipping adjustment, it includes a simple, yet incredibly useful single sidechain EQ — 110 Hz DET HP (high-pass) filter — function to remove low frequencies from triggering the compression detector, preventing pumping and low-frequency modulation, making for an easy-to-use, yet flexible plug-in that is right on the musical mark.
Although anyone investing in AROUSOR LT™ — pocket change-priced as it is in effect — will, without doubt, become addicted to its creamy sound and ease of use, it is worth noting that its purchase price provides customers with a coupon for that same amount redeemable against purchasing AROUSOR™ at a discount during any AROUSOR™ sale promotions. Put it this way: with AROUSOR LT™ itself remaining on sale for only $49.00 USD — representing an attractive $30.00 USD discount — until July 8, 2022, what’s not to like?
And anyone upgrading to AROUSOR™ at a later date, however, has a lot to look forward to (including 12 greatly varied ratios; full control of ELI’s proprietary AtMod; independent adjustment of soft clipping; a BLEND control — allowing users to Mix between fully Comp and Dry signals; a fully- sweepable DETECTOR SIDECHAIN EQ; two Opto modes — using time constraints to emulate renowned hardware compressors using an opto ‘light controlled’ element; and more). Moreover, ELI even provides an AROUSOR™ preset perfectly set up to match the default insert settings of AROUSOR LT™ that are a little different in character to those provided by AROUSOR™. As a result, anything AROUSOR LT™ users have been working on will now sound the same when moving on up to AROUSOR™… again, what’s not to like? Just ask GRAMMY® Award-winning record producer, multi- instrumentalist, songwriter, and audio engineer Greg Wells!
AROUSOR LT™ is available for purchase as an AAX-, AU-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting 64-bit effect plug-in for macOS (OS X 10.7 or higher); an AAX-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting 64-bit effect plug-in for Windows (7 or higher); and as an AAX DSP plug-in that runs natively on Avid VENUE (4.61 or higher) at an ongoing ‘pre-release sale’ price of only $49.00 USD until July 8, 2022 — rising thereafter to its regular price of $79.00 USD — directly from ELI here: https://www.empiricallabs.com/product/arousor-lt/
A fully-functional, 15-day trial of AROUSOR LT™ is also available to download from here: http://www.empiricallabs.com/downloads/ (It is necessary to activate AROUSOR LT™ — demo and full versions alike — via an iLok USB dongle or iLok Cloud.)
For more in-depth information, please visit ELI’s dedicated AROUSOR LT™ webpage here: https://www.empiricallabs.com/product/arousor-lt/