Since its release, the FabFilter Pro-C 2 has been one of the most used and beloved compressor plug-ins on the market. FabFilter’s latest update, the Pro-C 3, takes it from incredibly flexible to incredibly powerful, with new compression styles, character settings, Dolby Atmos compatibility, auto-threshold, a redesigned preset browser (with new presets), and many other new features that, in typical FabFilter fashion, I didn’t know I needed.
A sleek new GUI design stylistically aligns the Pro-C 3 with the Pro-Q 4 [Tape Op #166], and a “compact” mode does away with FabFilter’s display for a “use your ears” option. But you don’t care about that; let’s talk about the new styles and character settings that make this plug-in worth the upgrade on their own. The previous style options have been incorporated into a three-part menu that now includes Versatile, Smooth, Upward, TTM (To The Max), Op-El, and Vari-Mu. Of those options, Versatile, Smooth, and Upward do exactly what we’d expect them to do. Then it gets interesting. We’re all familiar with the sound of vari-mu and opto compression, but with FabFilter’s seemingly infinite tweakability, we can play around with what’s possible inside these styles and utilize them in ways that might have previously been impossible with a hardware emulation.
Cue the Character parameter, my favorite new feature, which allows for an entirely new creative dimension within the Pro-C 3. With Tube, Diode, and Bright options, FabFilter borrows from the Pro-Q 4 update to introduce saturation. Logically, we can now apply tube saturation to our Vari-Mu compression, or diode saturation to our Punch or Bus compression, and so forth. But we can also refuse to go gently into that good night and apply diode saturation to the Op-El style or add Bright saturation (I would rename it Sheen) to the Vari-Mu style, or just cycle through combinations until something clicks. A Drive slider allows an additional 24 dB of saturation. Saturation can be applied pre- or post-compression to thicken your sound and shave off a bit of transient before compressing, allowing the compressor to work less and respond more naturally. This philosophy has been applied in analog gear for decades, but in the digital domain it typically involves using a separate saturation plug-in.