Dynamics effects

One set of controls in front of five circuit types, after Logic’s Compressor:

Platinum Digital: clean and exact; Threshold, Ratio, Knee, Attack and Release mean exactly what they say.
Studio VCA (SSL bus, dbx 160 style): stepped attack and release, and Auto Release, which recovers fast after transients and slowly after sustained compression.
Studio FET (1176 style): a feedback design with a very fast attack; the ratio buttons are 4, 8, 12 and 20:1 plus All (“all buttons in”), which over-compresses loud peaks. Adds odd-harmonic colour as it works harder.
Classic Opto (LA-2A style): a slow optical attack and a two-stage release that depends on how hard and long it was driven. The threshold shows as Peak Reduction; Compress and Limit replace the ratio.
Vintage Vari-Mu (Fairchild style): a very wide knee whose ratio rises with level, six Time Constant positions (5 and 6 are program-dependent) and even-harmonic tube colour.

Around every circuit: Make Up gain and Auto Gain (Off, 0 dB, -12 dB, -24 dB), Detection (Peak or RMS), Stereo Link, Lookahead (up to 20 ms, reported to delay compensation), Distortion (Off, Soft, Hard, Clip), Mix (dry/wet, for parallel compression) and Output. The Side Chain Filter (Off, HP, LP, BP, with a frequency) shapes what the detector hears, and Listen plays it. The panel shows input, output and gain reduction meters and the transfer curve. There are 14 factory presets, from Vocal Leveler (Opto) to Mix Bus Glue (VCA) and Side-chain Duck.

Limiter

A lookahead brickwall limiter, after Logic’s Limiter and Adaptive Limiter: nothing passes the Out Ceiling (-20 to 0 dB, default -0.1 dB).

Gain (0 to 24 dB) drives the signal into the limiter.
Release (1 ms to 1 s) and Lookahead (0 to 20 ms, default 2 ms). The lookahead is reported to delay compensation.
Mode: Precise (transparent), Smooth (a soft knee from 6 dB under the ceiling and a program-dependent release) or Adaptive (rounds peaks with a soft saturator first, for loudness).
True Peak (on by default) limits the 4× oversampled peak, so the ceiling holds between samples too.
Meters: Input, Output and Gain Reduction. Factory presets include Master -1 dBTP Streaming and Master -0.1 dB CD.

Noise Gate

Turns the signal down by Reduction whenever it falls under Threshold, and back up when it rises above it.

Attack and Release: how long opening and closing take. The gain always glides, so the gate never clicks.
Hold: how long the gate stays open after the level falls.
Hysteresis: how far under the threshold the level must fall before the gate closes, so a signal hovering at the threshold doesn’t make it chatter.
Lookahead (up to 20 ms): the gate sees the signal coming and is already open when a hit arrives. It adds that much latency, which delay compensation makes up.
Side Chain Filter: High Cut and Low Cut filter what the detector hears (not the audio), to key off a kick and not the hi-hat. Monitor plays what the detector hears.
Meters: Input, Key (with the threshold marked) and Gain reduction, plus an Open / Closed light.
Factory presets: Tight Kick, Snare, Tom Rumble Killer, Vocal Breath, Guitar Amp Hiss and Gentle Cleanup.

De-Esser

Turns sibilance down when the band above Frequency gets louder than Threshold, by up to Range.

Mode: Split reduces only the band above Frequency; Wide turns the whole signal down, which keeps the voice’s tone but ducks it more audibly.
Smoothing: how fast the reduction lets go.
Listen to Detector plays the band the detector hears, to find the “s”.
The split is a Linkwitz-Riley crossover, so the de-esser is transparent while it isn’t reducing.
Meters: Sibilance (the detected level, with the threshold marked) and Reduction.
Factory presets: Female Vocal, Male Vocal, Gentle, Aggressive, Wide and Smooth, Hi-Hat Tamer and Acoustic Guitar Squeak.