Exactly this. The plugin doctor signal is always identical. Thus it shows and measures the shape that happens on THAT signal.

It can't show what happens when the acceleration of an attack stops before the whole cycle has gone through the timings, or what happens when there is underlying bass energy at the same time as some high frequency transient content.

Thus the only option would be a set of static visual guide lines, like in plugin doctor, that could give you a general idea of what would happen.. but it wouldn't be what actually happens to your audio. Still, the idea is not bad at all. Some sort of visual aid would indeed make it easier for people to get a general idea of what is going on. Perhaps Unisum 2.0 could implement something like this?

Is that a thing?

No idea. We can always hope!

Genuinely asking : what would you change / add for an hypothetical v2 ? I’ve been relying daily on Unisum since its release and find it perfect as is.

To be perfectly honest, yeah, it's pretty much perfect as it is.


... having said that, as a tweak freak, there are still more things I would like to have control over.

For instance, I'd love it if we could dynamically ride the threshold the same way we can the ratio, that would open up some truly bizarre and potentially creative options for groove.

Now combine the above with a fully dynamically tweakable Gain Reduction Limit knob and you could get some really interesting things going (possibly NOT useful but none the less interesting.. you never know).

Basically what I'd love would be a sort of modulation matrix, like you find on a synthesizer, that you could freely apply to all the major functions of the compressor.

I'd also love it if the various tiny menu options for xRatio and Memory were actual continuous controls instead of preset values.

.. and finally, I'd love a few different "algorithms" for the overall smoothness of the compression action. Basically I would like a few lo-fi options so that I could make Unisum "sound bad" (aka "clicky"/"clacky"). Perhaps even a drive control for the side chain so we could distort the control signal and make it all kinds of wonky! Of course, not useful for mastering but would be awesome for various single sources and sound design.

Yeah, like I said.. I'm totally comfortable with stuff that has hundreds of features available but I suspect I'm in a very small minority when it comes to that stuff. I'm usually an absolute nightmare when it comes to testing and prototyping stuff as I can always think of more stuff to try out. Luckily Rune (and many other developers!) are good in reigning in my crazy ideas.

External sidechain! Stems innit

Ah yes! That one would actually be super useful!

The different saturation algos from Kelvin being assignable on the Hygge switch so you can get different flavors would be cool. To keep it simple and streamlined just a toggle for different ones, not adding the whole kelvin tone control system into Unisum

Ok I'm just gonna be "that guy" for a minute... I love this compressor and use it almost daily, but can we please get some more visual feedback to show simple-minded folks such as myself what is going on with the multi band detector and att/rel modifiers?

Yes, I mean animations on a frequency analyzer thing.
Yes, I know this is mastering gear where such things are taboo.
And, yes... I know I should be using my ears not my eyes, etc etc.

But I feel like there is so much (brilliant stuff) going on with this thing and I'd just be really interested in a more visual representation of the controls beyond some blinking LEDs. I know this isn't gonna happen... figured that I would ask anyway. <3

I also think some kind of visual feedback will help to make attack and release modifiers more intuitive.

The problem for me is that understanding that there is a threshold and a different multiplier that will be applied if the amount of compression is bellow or above that threshold does not translate to understanding the behaviour and shapes I'm achieving while tweaking this parameters.

We have been discussing the fact that, being dynamic, the resulting shape may not be straight to illustrate, but I'm starting to think this could be solved by assuming a gain reduction based on the X-Over parameter and not in the actual GR. In the end, some technique has been applied in order to draw the attack and release curves that are shown in the manual.

Then, a small button could show and hide these curves in order keep the UI clean and avoid confirmation bias.

Is there a walkthrough video similar to the new Michaelangelo? I would really like to master this compressor finally instead of just relying on tweaking presets.

lots of them on yt