Bettermaker Bus Compressor

The VCA bus compressor plugin for your instrument buses, vocal bus, and stereo bus

Tighten your mixes with musical bus compression

Use the Bettermaker Bus Compressor to add bus compression to your drum, vocal, guitar, and stereo buses. This VCA bus compressor plugin is designed to preserve transient material and maintain “punch” while gluing your mixes together. The Bettermaker Bus Compressor will add the warmth and vibe that your submixes have been missing, especially when applied to raw studio recordings.

Unlock an enhanced hardware emulation with added features

The hardware version of the Bettermaker Bus Compressor uses an entirely analog signal path with settings that are saved and recalled digitally; this has led to the unit’s widespread popularity amongst professional mixing and mastering engineers. While the Bettermaker Bus Compressor plugin sounds very similar to the hardware, it’s slightly more forgiving and surgical, allowing you to de-ess vocals and hi-hats.

Furthermore, the VCA Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) knob generates additional harmonic content, subtly saturating your music.

Filter and boost the sidechain signal to avoid pumping effects

When processing bass-heavy sounds, many compressors often respond too aggressively to low-end transients. As a result, you may end up with undesirable pumping effects. The Bettermaker Bus Compressor includes a sidechain high-pass filter and midrange boost option. Use these features to target the punch of kick drums and the sibilance in vocals.

Choose between responsive or smooth compression

The Bettermaker Bus Compressor plugin features both Peak and RMS detection modes, making it an incredibly versatile compressor. Peak mode is intended for tight dynamics control and is perfect for taming aggressive drum transients. RMS mode provides smoother compression, ideal for sustained sounds like pads, basses, and vocal textures.

Features

• Threshold, Ratio, Attack, and Release controls
• Auto Release mode that sets the release time based on musical content
• Mix knob to apply parallel compression
• Gain control to add positive or negative makeup gain
• Internal/external sidechain filtering options
• VCA THD that applies subtle saturation
• Peak and RMS detection modes
• Input, output, and gain reduction meters
• Choose between freely adjustable or stepped knob settings
• Factory presets

System Requirements

• AAX, AU, VST3
• macOS 15 down to macOS 12
• Windows 11 down to Windows 10