PRESSURE Control
The PRESSURE knob is the heart of the plugin. It simultaneously maps threshold, ratio, attack, release, and knee width using per-engine quadratic curves - one knob does the work of five parameters.
How It Works
PRESSURE uses a p² (quadratic) curve to map the 0-100% knob position to compression parameters. The quadratic scaling means the knob feels linear to your ears: small movements at the bottom make subtle changes, while the top of the range gets progressively more aggressive.
Each engine defines its own curve, so the same PRESSURE position produces different behavior depending on the selected mode. The tables below show exact values at P=0.0 (minimum), P=0.5 (midpoint), and P=1.0 (maximum).
AUTO Mode
When AUTO is enabled, attack and release are selected from engine-specific curves driven by PRESSURE rather than the manual timing controls. TONE shapes engine-specific sidechain behavior. DRUMS additionally uses program-dependent release.
TONE Interaction
The TONE knob tilts the sidechain detection frequency. On VCA, Drums, and VariMu engines, it controls a sidechain high-pass filter using a tone² curve:
VCA (MIX Mode)
Clean bus glue character
Knee width scales inversely with ratio, which keeps low settings broad and high settings firmer.
FET (INST Mode)
Fast, assertive character
Ratio steps at P=60%→8:1, P=80%→12:1, P=92%→20:1, P=97%→extreme ratio mode (21:1). Release follows a V-shaped curve peaking at P=50%.
Opto (VOCALS Mode)
Smooth optical character
Ratio is continuously variable (not stepped) and increases with signal level. No sidechain HPF; TONE controls emphasis instead.
Dynamics (DRUMS Mode)
Direct, hard-knee character
Hard knee always enforced. Slightly slower attack than VCA preserves drum transients.
VariMu (MASTER Mode)
Wide-knee mastering character
Attack is clamped to 0.2-30 ms and release to 300-5000 ms for broad mastering-style control. Knee stays wide (10-24 dB). Tube warmth adds even-harmonic colour, shaped by the TONE knob, and is anti-aliased so the richest settings stay clean without raising the oversampling mode.
Preset-Specific Curves
When a factory preset is active, PRESSURE uses a signed-p² mapping centered at P=0.5 (the preset's home position). Each preset defines its own home parameters and scaling ranges, so the knob always feels musical relative to that preset's sweet spot.
See Presets for the 34 voiced factory presets and their home parameters. Pressure also includes five clean engine starters and four engine showcases, for 43 factory presets total.