Blue Cat's Dynamics is a full featured dynamics processor: it can be used as a compressor, limiter, gate, expander, waveshaper or all at once! The dynamics response of the plug-in can be tweaked with a unique two-thresholds system, and provides detailed visual feedback about its behavior.
The plug-in includes several filters to control the frequencies affected by the compression. Its continuous VCA/Opto and Peak/RMS controls let you smoothly and precisely choose the behavior of the envelope detection like you have never been able to.
The plug-in also provides advanced stereo features, with mid/side processing capability, multiple stereo linking options and the ability to choose the channels affected by the processor.
An additional brick wall limiter and clipper with optional lookahead protects the output for complete control over the dynamics response.
Three different modes are available for external side chaining, using either the external side chain input, MIDI control or automation lanes.
The configurable visual feedback shows every detail of what is going on inside the plug-in. You can also record this information as automation curves, to monitor the modifications applied to the signal on top of the audio representation of your favorite host application.
All these features can be controlled from a fully configurable user interface, or from any external controller.
The package includes a mono and a stereo version for optimal CPU usage.
If you are looking for a multiband dynamics processor, check out the Blue Cat's MB-5 Dynamix plug-in, or Blue Cat's MB-7 Mixer that can host this plug-in on multiple bands.
Main Features
- Full featured dynamics processor: compressor, gate, limiter, expander, waveshaper with a unique two thresholds system.
- Total control over the processor: continuous peak/RMS and Opto/VCA modes selection, peak envelope shape control, depth control to limit the gain range, lookahead.
- Total control over the signal: dry/wet control for parallel compression, input and side chain filters.
- Stereo or mid-side processing with multiple channels linking options.
- Post brickwall limiter or clipper with lookahead.
- Optimal monitoring: dynamics response, envelopes and gain reduction real time display with zooming capability. The main compression information can be recorded as automation curves.
- Best quality: up to 4x oversampling for the best sounding quality.
- Multiple side chaining modes: a unique way to perform side chain compression, ducking, gating and much more.
- Fully configurable user interface for optimal experience.
- No latency (except with lookahead).
Blue Cat Audio Standards:
- Available in most plug-in formats for Mac and Windows.
- Full MIDI control and automation support, MIDI Learn.
- No CPU load on idle: processing shuts down when fed with silence (optimal CPU usage).
- Customizable user interface with transparency & zoom.
- Automation and MIDI output: record output parameters as automation curves or send MIDI CC messages to other plug-ins for powerful side chain effects.
- Smooth Bypass: noiseless plug-in activation / deactivation.
- Undo/Redo.
- Full featured integrated presets manager.
- Copy/paste the state of the plug-in between instances.
- Any sample rate supported.
Credits: this plug-in includes many factory presets created by Sink.
User Comments & Reviews
"Blue Cat's Dynamics is a very well-specified compander which, with the exception of multi-band capability, offers just about every form of dynamics processing there is, including simulated VCA and opto compression, true downward expansion, gating and limiting. [...] Its strongest suit, to my mind, is the ability to apply both conventional compression and downward expansion at the same time, which is useful if, for example, you have a recording with a wide dynamic range and a lot of background noise.[...] For the price this is a versatile and powerful Swiss Army Knife of dynamics plug-ins."
-"You would not believe how long I have been searching for a side-chain dynamics effect like [Blue Cat's Dynamics].
I have had dreams about what I wanted to use in the studio, but could never explain exactly what I was looking for - you have created my dream come true!
They even function in the exact same way I would expected them to! The midi CC send/recieve function is GENIUS and works perfectly, as opposed to so many sidechain plugins that fail when you re-open the project or don't even work correctly. These plugins are more exciting to me than ANY other I have purchased since I began my studio. […]
I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to have found them. I was looking for a dynamic equaliser for so long that I would have compromised on quality just to get one, but I am happy to say that that is a not even an issue."
- - [More comments on his blog].
To add your own comment about this product, please contact us.
Demo Limitations:
- 5 instances of the plug-in allowed per session.
- The effect is bypassed for half a second every minute.
System Requirements
MacOS
- An Intel or Apple Silicon processor.
- Mac OS 10.9 or newer.
- Any VST / Audio Unit / AAX compatible application (64-bit) .
Windows
- An SSE2-enabled processor (Pentium 4 or newer).
- Microsoft Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8 or 10.
- Any VST / AAX compatible host software (32 or 64 bit).
For more information about supported platforms, see our Knowledge Base.
Versions History 
V4.42 (2024/09/09) |
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"How can this cat possibly get any better? With its flexible, powerful approach and superb sound, Dynamics 4 could easily become your go-to dynamics plugin." - 9/10 rating
- Computer Music Magazine - Sept. 2015[read review on musicradar]