KC1 | Tube Compressor

More Versatile Than It's Competitor

The sound emulation itself is great, and with the added feature, it makes it more versatile than it's competitor. I would recommend it to other engineers and producers for sure.

best comp ever

cant believe this exists in the box :)

One special piece of algorithm

Kiive plugins all have their unique qualities and character. Not all of them are suiting my style and taste - as a rock guy, who also enjoys synth-pop, modern folk, metal, jazz and some sixties vibes. I mainly focus on mixing recorded performances with real instruments and all their imperfections. That being said, the KC1 is maybe my favourite from Kiive so far. (I'm loving NFuse as well, and Complexx gets a some serious use, when it fits the bill.) KC1's action is really musical and smooth. It seems to interact quite a lot with the specific material it's being fed - making it part of the performance. I'd describe it as "honey and cream". In technical terms: think of soft knee, reactive attack (never aggressive) and a reactive RMS as well (allthough I don't know, if that one's true...) It really is a "colour-curve". KC1 will make vocals, acoustics, bass and percussions bolder and prominent, without overbearing or harsh. Here are some tricks I found: - I often reduce the THD (and would love an OFF-switch for that one - tbh), which will open up the lower mids. - Feed it two acoustic guitars, hard panned in dual mono mode. If they play in different registers, the attack knob (!) will help you balance out the performances. - Add a TINY bit of mono-reverb to lead vocals (with a good amount of predelay) BEFORE you enter KC1... it will add body and size. - KC1 really enjoys teaming up with Klanghelm's MJUC (Mk3) for serial vocal compression. Use MJUC for some quick transients before or after KC1, which should be doing the heavy lifting. Quite a duo...