Why do people get so defensive on this forum if someone states their opinions. We all love music. IT'S ALL LOVE. Now, with that out of the way. Your opinion that R-Verb is a horrible sounding reverb is obviously your opinion. I didn't say R-verb was the best I just stated a feature it had. Secondly, I would love to know how vocal rider is different than a compressor? Isn't a compressor just an automated fader? Also, I understand creative freedom comes from tweaking parameters to your own personal need I just did not word it right. What I was basically trying to say is that Nectar's presets aren't all that great in my opinion. The End.
You are the one becoming defensive, by the way.
And I did say that rverb being a poor reverb is my opinion.
And I was letting you know that nectar has the same eq functions as rverb.
Anyway...
A compressor is different from "riding a fader" or "automating a level" (which is what Vocal Rider is emulating)...
A compressor has a "sound" while automating a level simply evens out levels.
Without getting too much into how a compressor works or what the purpose is or what one sounds like...
A compressor has an (sometimes) adjustable attack that let's some defined amount of the signal through before it reduces the level at some defined ratio... And the level reduction recovers at some defined rate (also sometimes user adjustable)...
This causes sounds to be "punchy" or to "lose their attack" or to "pump and breathe"...
"compression" has a "sound"... Pro engineers don't use compressors to "even out performances"... Pro engineers use compression when the want "the sound of compression"...
It's peaks get lowered... This is different from "leveling out"
This is a quite different result from simultaneously lowering highs and raising lows (and a compressor does not "raise lows")... And it is quite different in sound since automation works without "attack" and "release" being a factor.
Compression is literally "squashing" the signal... It is bringing a ceiling down on the audio and squashing it... That sounds much different from evening out a performance level.
---------- Post added at 11:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:29 PM ----------
A compressor reduces dynamic range, a fader does not.
Actually, if you are riding a fader or automating a level to even out a performance... You are reducing dynic range...
You are reducing the difference between the lows and the highs making them all more uniform... Thereby "reducing the range of the dynamics" or "reducing the dynamic range"...
But it is done in a VERY different way and with a VERY different result from compression.