Creamy 660

Compressor/Limiter

IMPORTANT: I've seen people in forums commenting about how they can't use
the SHQ versions of my previous compressor release, which tells me that they
didn't look at the manual very closely. So starting with this one I'm going to have
some links right here that will let you jump ahead in the manual to what I think
are some of the most important things which you WILL need to know to get the
best use out of this set. If you aren't going to look at the whole manual, be sure to
at least check these items out, especially before you go posting anywhere about
how something doesn't work, because maybe it isn't supposed to work the way
you are trying to use it.
1. SHQ programs
2. Nebula Configuration Adjustments Required
3. Distortion/saturation
4. Bass heavy inputs

General Info
This set is made from/modeled after a modern recreation of the classic
660 compressor. This particular recreation is very highly regarded, and widely
considered to be as good as it gets. It can sound 'creamy', yet still clear and
detailed, and that aspect of the sound has been translated to these programs. It
has been called the best compressor around for vocals by many, as well as for
slamming drums, and among other uses it can even give sounds a nice sheen
without engaging the compression. This amazing tube compressor has been
sampled with the Lynx Aurora 8.
The complete set (parts A and B) includes:

At the core of the library are 4 compressor vectors (the sample/impulse sets), all sampled from
the same unit, but using different input drive levels and different combinations of control
settings. The way the controls on the unit work would make it very difficult to get every
combination of possible results in one sample/impulse set, so I sampled different ranges,
across 4.
Those 4 vectors each have a handful of different programs using them. Each has its own main
program, which was programmed to reflect the hardware as accurately as I could get Nebula
to do, based on my 3 years of experience at custom tuning Nebula programs. Then there are 3
alternate versions which use compression behaviors unlike the sampled unit. These give new
results, but still retain the tone/character of the unit. With previous compressor releases I had
many more alternate versions included, but this time I decided to trim it down to just 3, which
I think makes the set much more manageable for users, and for myself when I work on
possible future updates (which in the past has been a nightmare with so many extra
programs). I think this makes for a much more streamlined set, and it allowed me to focus
more on fine-tuning the main compressor programs so that they more accurately reflect the

hardware (just the program dependent release alone took days, for example).
There is at least one advancement I feel I've made with the compressors in this set, that I
don't think has been properly accomplished with any Nebula compressor before. I noticed
while doing this one that the program dependent attack/release system in Nebula is not
handled properly by the compressor program templates (that all comps are based off of).
There are a few types of what can be called 'program dependent' comp behavior, but Nebula
only has a system built in specifically to handle one type- it can adjust the attack/release time
depending on the input level, or the level of compression. Only it isn't actually set up to do
either, by default (it's weird, it's like the system to do it is there, but it's just not being used),
so you get a static result no matter what the level is. After I realized that what I was looking at
could only ever produce static results (which was verified by tests), I had to figure out how to
set it up to actually adjust the release according to the level of compression, then I had to
calibrate those adjustments to actually reflect the hardware (using custom tones going through
the programs, which were closely and painstakingly compared via various analyzers with the
same tones but which had been recorded through the hardware unit at various settings). In
the past I think it was always kind of assumed (even by myself) that the NAT sampling process
handled all of this stuff largely on its own. Turns out, that's not the case. Setting it up is fairly
complicated, but I think the result is that the comps in this set are that much more unique.
See more about the program dependent behavior here: Program Dependent Behavior.
There are an additional 4 effects sampled from the unit in various ways, all without triggering
the compression (which is tricky since it can't be bypassed). These are called 'Pass-through'
programs. These can give varying degrees of saturation, or can just be used for a subtle bit of
coloration, as you would do with a preamp program. One was sampled in between two 1176's
in a chain, and provides the most saturation.
I've also dropped the idea of having 1k or 5k programs as I always did in the past. For one
thing, I think most people should have computers that are modern enough to handle a
standard 10k program by now. For another, having them just adds to clutter. I've decided to be
more mindful of the clutter that results from having too many options which probably most
people just don't use anyway. So to that end, there are only 10k, and SHQ (super high quality)
versions of all programs. I think the result is a more focused set.

The differences between what's in parts A and B:

The initial release of this set was one part that included everything, but I had some comments
that the demo programs weren't showing off the full set very well (from people who had bought and
liked the full set), so I decided to release the set in halves as I had done with my previous releases.
This allows someone who maybe isn't 100% sure about the set to buy just half of it for half the price,
and then decide if they want the other half. If you have both parts you can skip this part of the
manual.
So, part A has 2 of the 4 compressor vectors (a vector is the sample set at the root of any
effect, which can have multiple programs using it in different ways), and 3 of the 4 pass-through
vectors. The 2 compressor vectors in part A are the ones called called 'comp' and 'limiter'. These are
described in the later section called 'Differences Between the Vectors'. Part B includes the 2 other
compressor vectors, called 'combo1' and 'combo2'. The difference between these is that various
controls on the unit, and the input level coming into the unit was set differently. This means you can
get different tones and compression behaviors between them.
Part A includes the 3 more standard pass-through vectors/programs (Pass-Throughs A-C, also
described in the vectors section below). They sound fairly similar, with subtle differences. Part B
includes the more unusual 'Pass-Through D' which was sampled with two 1176 comps in the chain,
with lots of overdrive happening, so it's a lot more 'saturated'.
Basically, part A and B each provide you with fully functional compressors and some pass-

through effect, but include vectors that were sampled differently and so they will give you some
slightly different tones/compression behaviors. So if you buy and like one part, the other part would
give you more of the same. You may find different positions of the thresh controls, between the
different versions, to be your go-to for different situations, or you may find that you prefer one passthrough to another for a particular situation.

Installation
Just copy the .n2p files to your Nebula 'Programs' folder, and the .n2v files
to the 'Vectors' folder.
Organization
The programs will all be found in the 'COM' category in Nebula, then in the '60' and/or
'60*' sub-categories, for the 96khz and 44.1khz sets respectively. There is a sub-category
below that called 'Alt' which contains the alternate versions of the compressor programs.
There are also copies of the pass-through programs placed in the 'PRE' then 'CW' and 'CW*'
(again, for 96khz and 44.1khz respectively) categories. I've been doing that with all passthrough programs of mine from all of my releases, so that anyone who has several of my sets
will accumulate a nice collection of preamp style pass-through programs all in the same place.

Differences between the vectors

Ok, first I want to explain that the vectors (.n2v files) are the actual impulse sample
sets themselves, which can each have multiple programs (.n2p) using them. The programs
are like a set of instructions that tells Nebula how to use the impulses in the vector. So the
vectors are really like the 'heart' of a Nebula effect, and multiple programs can share the
same heart, if that makes any sense.
In this set there are 4 different compressor vectors, and 4 different pass-through
vectors. Each are entirely different sets of samples, and were sampled differently. Then each
has various programs that use the samples in those vectors in different ways, to get slightly
different results. So you could think of it as there being 8 different 'root' effects (from 8
different samplings), with variations (the actual programs) of each.
The actual unit has two different threshold controls, and no ratio. The second one acts
more like a typical threshold (although it seems to be inverted from a usual thresh), and the
first is kind of like an adjustable knee/ratio/thresh all in one, and it's labeled with 'comp' on
one side and 'limit' on the other. I believe on the comp side you have a softer knee, and on
the limit side you have a harder knee. It's very confusing and hard to really know exactly
what is going on between these two controls. This made it tricky to sample, and is why I
decided to do it 4 different ways. So, for the compressors, we have:
Comp- The 2nd thresh control was kept mostly on the far clockwise side (which
compresses more) and a range on the comp side of the 1st thresh was sampled.
Limiter- The same as the Comp vector, but this time the 1st thresh had a range from
the 'limiter' side of the control sampled. There was also more input drive, because there is
much less compression towards that side of the control.
Combo1- This one had the 2nd thresh (the one that seems more like a 'normal'

threshold control) set at about its mid-way position. The 1st one was sampled across its entire
range. The input was also increased slightly as the 'limiter' side was approached, to try to
keep the knee more in the sampled dynamic range.
Combo2- This one had the 2nd thresh at about the 2 o'clock position and was done
much like Combo1 except the input level was never adjusted while sampling the various
positions of the other threshold.
Between all of those, I think I managed to capture the range of variety of the unit's
compression ability fairly well. Two things I'll note here is that the thresh controls in the
Nebula programs have been switched from how I described them above, so what I called
thresh 1 in the above description is 2 in the programs. The other thresh control has been
inverted so that it's more typical to what you expect. I think it makes the final presentation a
bit less confusing than it is on the unit. Now, for the pass-through programs we have:
Pass-through A- For this one the unit wasn't overdriven during sampling. Use it just
to get a subtle bit of character.
Pass-through B- This one was overdriven a bit, then used a passive volume
reduction stage after the unit to bring the volume back down before conversion.
Pass-through C- Like B, but an active stage was used to lower the level.
Pass-through D- The oddball of the group. It was sampled with a (black) 1176
driving the 660, and another after it to bring the level back down. This one produces more
saturation than B or C. Because of its extreme nature it may not always produce nice results,
so consider it as a bonus which was designed specifically for saturation effects (which is an
area Nebula has limitations with).

SHQ programs
The SHQ programs give higher quality results than the standard programs, at a cost of
much higher CPU use. They are not intended to be used 'live' while mixing, and are
for RENDERING ONLY. My PC is fairly powerful and I can't run a single 96khz SHQ
instance, so I'm doubting that many currently can. This means you shouldn't load one of
these programs unless you are ready to render, because the moment it loads your system will
take a hit in performance. Here are the improvements you get if you render with SHQ:
Improved response to transients. This is most noticeable with fast attack settings when
compression is triggered. With SHQ you get more consistent behavior here, which is
more reflective of the hardware.
More accurate bass response. The standard programs cut some of the signal below
50Hz by up to several dB, and also have a subtle ripple in the response of the
frequencies above the area that's cut, which is an unwanted byproduct of the shorter
kern lengths and not reflective of the hardware. This isn't only in my programs, but all
Nebula programs using only 10ms kern lengths (which includes most comp programs
out there), and even some programs with up to 50ms (the standard preamp style
kernel length) can have some of this effect. You can see it with an analyzer like
Christian Budde's VST Plugin Analyser, by loading a program and zooming into the bass
area to see the response. This is something that usually won't affect your audio since
it's so low, so it only affects bass instruments. The ripple above that produces a very
subtle effect that most people probably wouldn't even notice (and still only affects
bass), so it's not like the standard programs are hugely flawed, but the SHQ version do
improve on their accuracy here.

Some other things which result in a subtle improvement in sound overall.

A problem with SHQ in general is that when you switch to the SHQ program just
before rendering, you lose your settings for the controls. To get around this will be left up to
you, but I would suggest trying to find out if your host software has a simple way of doing it
via its automation handling. For example, set up the compressor the way you want, then tell
the host to save its current control positions to automation. That way, after you switch
programs the controls will still be in the same position. Depending on your host there may be
even better ways of doing this. It might also be a good idea to bypass Nebula when you
switch the program, then you can make sure the settings are correct and un-bypass it just
before rendering.

Alternate Compressor Programs

These programs are found in the 'Alt' sub-category, and are bonuses. The main
programs are designed to be as close to the hardware as possible, but these are programmed
to give different flavors. Alt 1 uses a feedback signal for the detector (the main programs use
feed-forward) and a different detection mode. Alt 2 uses a different mode and a 33/67
feedback/feedforward ratio. Alt 3 uses a couple of detectors in a tricky way, each using a ratio
of feedback/feed-forward. These sound a bit different from the main versions, and you don't
really need to know how or why. Just try them and see if you like them. One thing to consider
is that when using these, the makeup control will actually have the effect of increasing
compression, as well as increasing output gain, which doesn't happen with the main versions.

Nebula Configuration Adjustments Required

If you want the programs to work as I intended, then you will have to make sure some
settings in your Nebula config .xml file are changed. The changes shouldn't affect any other
programs in your Nebula library in any adverse way, but another developer has said that they
somehow negatively impact his programs. I have no idea how that could be possible but I'm
telling you so you can know before you decide what to do. Basically, the settings you need to
change aren't supposed to directly alter any behavior of a program. All they do is allow for a
program to have longer Timed kernel lengths and longer look-ahead times, IF a program
wants to use them. So any program not using those longer lengths should not be affected in
any measurably negative way. That said, it is possible that somehow it could happen, even if
I have my own doubts. So if you want to be safe, you should probably create a special
Nebula instance just for use with Cupwise programs, and alter the settings for that one. You
do this simply by creating a new copy of the Nebula vst .dll and matching .xml files, and give
them a new name (like Nebula_Cupwise). Then (after editing the .xml to make my setting
adjustments) you would always use that Nebula to load any of my programs in your
collection. You can even edit the .xml so that the Nebula instance will only show my
programs, if you know how (the simplest way to keep different libraries organized is to use
Zabukowski's Nebula Setups program).
To make the adjustments, you need to edit the .xml and look for these tags:
<LTIMED> XXX </LTIMED>
<AHEADLENGTH> XXX </AHEADLENGTH>
where 'XXX' is whatever they are currently set to. Change those numbers to allow more time
for each. Here is what mine are set to:
<LTIMED> 5500000 </LTIMED>

<AHEADLENGTH> 23000 </AHEADLENGTH>

Now save the xml. This will allow you to use SHQ programs and have up to the full 10ms
look-ahead. If you don't do this, you can't have SHQ, and the look-ahead control
will not work the way it is supposed to.

Program Dependent Behavior

Here I'm just going to explain how the program dependent release works. The attack
is pretty much always the same (like the hardware, based on all of my tests). The release
time decreases (speeds up) as the amount of compression is increased. So higher amounts of
compression will actually release faster than smaller amounts. Amounts below 2-3dB take the
longest. This behavior scales accurately in these programs, depending on what you set the
release control to. I had to analyze the behavior at all settings of the control and adjust the
programs to recreate this behavior for each position on the unit's release control.
I think the result lends a fair amount to the overall sound of these compressors and
really makes them unique. I looked at other compressor programs that are out (including
mine) and noticed that they all seem to have the opposite result, which is that greater
amounts of compression take longer to release. However, this isn't due to any program
dependent behavior sampled from whatever hardware was used, it's just how Nebula's
envelope follower naturally works (it's always the same). I'm pretty confident that this is the
first compressor released to fix the program dependent system and put it to use.
This may come off as bragging (and to be honest it partly is I guess), but I feel that it
should be acknowledged that this advancement provides a behavior that doesn't exist
elsewhere in Nebula, and I think you can hear it in the results if you listen closely. With
previous Nebula comps I think the main differences between them had always been the tone
and the knee, but I feel that this one provides another detail, recreated from the unit, that
helps set it apart.

Controls
Attack- Variable from 1 to 100ms. The hardware has a fixed attack which is very fast,
so stick to the default speed of ~3ms or faster to get results like the hardware. The ability for
slower speeds was added in by me to provide more possibility.
Release- Variable from .3 to 5 seconds. The hardware has I believe 5 fixed positions
along that range, but these programs are fully variable.
Thresh1, Thresh2- These determine how much compression you will get. The first
one is more like a typical threshold control as you see in other comps. The second one is kind
of like a knee, ratio, and threshold control all in one. I can't really explain it any better
because I'm not even 100% sure on the details myself, but the main thing is that if you lower
them both, you will get compression. If you raise either, you will get less compression.
Experiment.
Ahead- It allows you to add a look-ahead of up to 10ms, and can be used to achieve
a peak limiting effect, or just to soften the attack a little. If you haven't followed my previous
directions on altering Nebula's default settings, this control will only give up to 1.5ms lookahead even though it still reads up to 10ms.
MakeUp- Allows up to 25dB of gain after compression. With the alternate
compressors this control also increases compression (it's like lowering threshold).
Hipass- Adjusts the cutoff point of a high-pass filter on the internal side-chain in

Nebula that determines how much compression you get. If you are compressing a more
complex input, like a mix of elements, you may not want the bass elements to
dominate/control the compression effect.
Dry db- This control can be used to add some dry signal back in. It's not a wet/dry %
control that adjusts the level of 'wet' signal relative to dry. It only adds some dry into the
output, and doesn't lower the wet level. It can go from no dry (reads -192db) to +6db, which
provides a dry signal at 6db louder than the input into Nebula.
Trim- This is an input drive control, that compensates with the opposite amount of
output adjustment. For example, if you boost input by 6dB, the output is lowered by 6dB.
This helps keep a somewhat steady level, allowing you to more easily hear the difference in
effect you get by having different input drive levels. Only in the pass-through programs.
Dist- Only in the pass-through programs. This control directly adjusts the level of the
harmonics that the program creates. It's the same control that is usually called 'drive' in lots
of other Nebula programs out there, but I always rename it to 'dist' because I think calling it
'drive' is misleading. It's really like a mixer control that adjusts the level of an element, that
element being the distortion. If you do that though, you get kind of an unnatural result,
because you are breaking the natural level balance between the distortion and the
fundamental signal. It can still be useful. Try boosting it with pass-through D.

General Usage Tips/Ideas:

Distortion/saturation- if you want to get a nice saturation effect from the pass-through
programs, it's easier to get a good result if the input going in has a fairly limited
dynamic range. If you consider that overdriving a tube device would compress your
signal anyway, this shouldn't really be seen as too much of a limitation. These
programs will compress the signal themselves a bit if driven hot enough, but it makes
it easier on them if the signal is already compressed going in. It would be good to
make sure to limit any sporadic peaks that may be much higher than the rest of the
signal as well. So first use a compressor and/or limiter (from this set or any vst you
like), then go into either pass-through B, C, or D. Pass-through A doesn't saturate as
much as those. Then I would suggest to slowly increase the input level with the trim
control, until your sound starts getting nasty in a bad way, and back off on the control
from there until you get it as hot as possible (to your taste) while still sounding ok.
Then if you want more distortion you can try increasing the dist control.
Bass heavy inputs may or may not work well with any of these programs. It can result
in artifacts (especially if you use attack/release settings that are too fast, but this is
true of just about any compressor) or just strange handling of the signal. The SHQ
versions may provide better results, but even those may or may not give you what you
want. Experiment and see what works, or doesn't. It's a limitation that you have to
accept, and I've accepted it and considered it when pricing my comp programs. I still
think they have a lot of value even with this limitation.

V1 use this version number to keep track of updates. If the manual posted at my site has a higher version
number than the one you have, your set probably isn't up to date.
Programs and manual copyright Nov 2013 Tim Wisecup

www.cupwise.com

Thanks:
Giancarlo, Enrique, everyone else at Acustica and everyone involved in advancing Nebula in
any and all ways.
www.acustica-audio.com
Thanks to Steven at Techno Empire for letting me use their pictures!
All of my supporters! Especially those who help me out a little further by telling others about
my stuff (which helps me to be able to continue putting out new things). Cupwise FX is a
small operation and I need all the help I can get, in terms of financial support, in order to
continue doing this. I think my prices are set relatively low. So if you like my stuff and get
some good use out of it, consider giving it an honest review somewhere, or just let your
friends know about it. I don't want to ever include any form of copy protection with my stuff
either, so please, before you share these programs with others, consider how you would feel
if the fruits of your labor were shared freely rather than you being compensated for them.
Contrary to what some people seem to think, making Nebula programs is NOT just a simple
matter of 'running some tones through some hardware', especially not for things that are
more complex, such as these compressor programs.