Does MDE (stereo) ever go on sale?

Also, what do you guys think- MDE vs UADx Capitol MC?

I'm not sure, but I guess I haven't seen any discounts about MDE, except for the Christmas sale(maybe I'm still wrong). I compared MDE and UADxCapitol and I always choosed MDE. Did you try P11 Abyss?

Interesting, because the guy who designed the hardware MDE used to be a mastering engineer at Capitol. I gotta try MDE on my mixbus again now

I swear I just made this comparison because of Ian : ) That's why I was so curious about UADxCapitol after MDE : )

I have both the MDE and the P11 but the P11 is a very complex plugin, at least to me, and I'm not sure I know all the ins and outs of it well enough yet to give a fair comparison of the two. However with that disclaimer in mind, trying the P11 Mu presets against the original MDE, the P11 had a slightly more open and airy soundstage but then it has a lot of extra features which are not on the MDE. Perhaps the Stereo MDE might sound closer.

One thing I would say is the MDE and P11 sound very close in my initial brief testing. P11 is not just a Mu compressor though and can also do FET and Opto too but it's not cheap.

Update: listening again today with fresh ears and my opinion is the opposite. MDE sounding more open and airy I'm sure if I knew the P11 better I could coax more out of it so best test these two out yourself.

Yeah Abyss is rightly named... it's a deep well of configurations and sounds and worth exploring. MDE is dead simple and just works for what it does. Room in my world for both, but MDE wins for just doing what it does, easily and graciously.

Far too expensive for a single plugin.

It's a few years on now but I second this. I much prefer the grey version and would love the option of having it optional as a UI.

An example of the grey UI:
https://session-recall.com/images/co...compressor.jpg

Bump… and make the fine gain knob do something too, for the love of god

Loving MDE. It would be nice if I could control+click or double click any of the controls to reset a value back to unity like most other plugs do.

+1

I hate when plugins don't have this shortcut.

Every time someone responds in this thread, a part of me thinks that the fine-gain knob has been added in an update.

How does this compare to the other compressors out there now? Unisum, Arousor, MDWDRC2 etc. etc..

It’s based on vari Mu topology, so very different to the compressors you posted. As Vari Mu’s go, it’s quite polite in terms of saturation, very very gentle action (even when it’s being hammered), but it has a characteristic “prettiness” that I associate with really nice, high voltage valve gear. It’s also very easy to setup and has an enormous sweet spot.

I have the Unisum and MDE, haven't had much experience with the other two.

Unisum is definitely more versatile and has more options, it lives on my master bus actually. I'm not trying to get color with it, just some glue and transparent control and it does that beautifully.
Having said that, I feel like the MDE has more flavor overall and the release behaves really nicely.
Gives it a 'finished record' sound fairly easily, especially when used on the mix bus.
But I find myself using the MDE on buses/groups, like drums and bass the most, ofc I use it on other things too, like BGV bus etc.
Both are really really good at what they do so it's nice to have both.
Btw El Rey is another one that I'd put right up there with these two.

Firstly I wouldn't put Arouser in that category which is bus/mastering comps. I have Unisum, MDE & demo'd DRC2 extensively, I believe you need all 3. They are completely different to each othe. Ive been using MDE for a few years & I only recently discovered its true potential when you drive the input level up to a very high gain, soemthing I normally wouldn't do in mastering.

shhhhh...

Going home to try it now, thanks for the tip : )

As Timmy pointed out, it’s got a lot of tricks up its sleeve, and it sounds good with a hefty amount of gain. With the appropriate settings (often medium timings), it has the ability to remove “stiffness” in a way no other box can, whilst keeping the sound pristine.

It’s does the Manley Vari Mu trick amazingly well (high threshold, high gain, kissing a bit of the audio here and there).

I’ve been meaning to create a bunch of presets for both MDE comps, but I never get around to it..

It's nuggets like this that are the payoff for trudging through all the bickering and bs that goes on in so many GS forums.

If you do and if you don't mind, please share!