PA.1
Patch Compression  /  VST3  /  macOS

PA.1

PA(TRICK ALAVI)’s 1. PA(TCH) PLUGIN.

A compressor you wire yourself: five stages in any order, patched band by band. Over 4 billion ways to shape one sound.

BUY   TRY 14 DAYS FREE Apple Silicon + Intel  ·  macOS 10.13 or newer PAY WITH PAYPAL
PA.1 main page: a brushed silver plate with five faders punched into the shape of the Patrick Alavi logo, labelled COMP, RELEASE, ATTACK, SIDECHAIN and LOFI.

To me, compression has always been more of an instrument than an effect.

Why PA.1

PA(TCH).1

PATCH MATRIX COMPRESSION

One of my old self-built effect boxes: a tin case with two jacks, a blue patch cable and a black cable plugged in, a pencil drawing behind it.
One of my old effect boxes (2012), soldered into a tin.

Years ago I soldered my own small analog effect units and experimented with vintage transformers taken out of old mixing desks. What I mostly played with were new internal connections. What always fascinated me was which part of the frequency range had which influence on single dynamics chains inside a larger audio matrix.

I took that love of experimenting into the digital world. There, too, I worked with circuits that were sometimes complex, and it kept leading me towards frequency-based patching and playing with phase rotation in the sub and low range.

PA.1 is the starting point for more PATCH projects to come.

— Patrick Alavi

What makes PA.1 different

One compressor. Over 4 billion circuits.

Every other compressor decides for you in which order detector, attack, release and colour work. In PA.1 I take it apart into five stages, COMP, ATTACK, RELEASE, LOFI and SIDECHAIN, and you put it back together. Drag the rows into any order, then cable each stage into exactly the bands where you want it. The same five faders turn into a completely different compressor.

5
stages: COMP, ATTACK, RELEASE, LOFI, SIDECHAIN
120
orders to chain them
5
bands, each with its own selection of stages
4 026 531 840
circuits: 120 orders × every cable combination
Same faders, different sound

A few of the orders I use. Each one changes how the compressor hears, grabs and colours, before you touch a single value.

COMP › ATTACK › RELEASE
The classic. Punchy and transparent, the way a compressor usually works.
ATTACK › COMP
ATTACK smooths what the compressor hears. Transients slip through, the body gets glued. Softer and more open.
RELEASE › ATTACK › COMP
The detector holds on to the level. Long, breathing gain riding, like an optical compressor.
LOFI › COMP
The compressor reacts to the colour. Saturation pushes into the dynamics: dense, dusty, pumping.
COMP › LOFI
Clean dynamics, the colour sits on top. Warmth without losing the punch.
SIDECHAIN › COMP
The key drives the detector, the kick or one frequency of the track. Pumping that follows your groove.
COMP › SIDECHAIN
Normal compression plus ducking on top, only in the bands you cable. The kick pushes just SUB and LOW aside.

And it works per band: SUB without ATTACK so the low end stays round, MID through LOFI for grit, AIR untouched. Phase stays correct whatever you patch.

Listen

ON / OFF – SAME LOUDNESS.

My tracks, dry and through PA.1, matched to the same loudness, among them my released track DOMA, so you hear the sound and not the volume. Press play and switch between DRY and PA.1 while it runs.

POWER 270:00 / 0:37

PA.TCH RELEASE › COMP › ATTACK › LOFI › SIDECHAIN · RELEASE 17 ms · COMP 30 % · ATTACK 12 ms · SAMPLER 52 % · SIDECHAIN 20 % (SUB) · BANDS 50 / 150 / 2K / 8K HZ · DUAL · 4× · HARD KNEE · AUTOMATIC SUB · MASK · UPWARD 56 % · DYNAMIC adaptive 68 % · AUTO GAIN

PATCHBOY0:00 / 0:45

PA.TCH COMP › RELEASE › LOFI › ATTACK · COMP 40 % · RELEASE 55 ms · ATTACK 6 ms · SAMPLER 35 % · M/S · 4× · AUTOMATIC SUB · MASK · ANALOG PHASE 55 Hz 180° · DYNAMIC adaptive 41 % · DITHER 16 BIT · AUTO GAIN

PUSH IT BACK0:00 / 0:24

PA.TCH COMP › RELEASE › ATTACK › LOFI · COMP 51 % · RELEASE 24 ms · ATTACK 1 ms · SAMPLER 30 % · BANDS 50 / 200 / 2K / 8K HZ · 4× · HARD KNEE · AUTOMATIC SUB · UPWARD 44 % · ANALOG PHASE 46 Hz 180° · DYNAMIC adaptive 60 % · AUTO GAIN

DOMA0:00 / 0:43

PA.TCH COMP › LOFI › ATTACK › SIDECHAIN › RELEASE · COMP 45 % · SAMPLER 39 % · ATTACK 10 ms · SIDECHAIN 20 % (SUB) · RELEASE 41 ms · BANDS 60 / 150 / 2K / 8K HZ · DUAL · 4× · AUTOMATIC SUB · MASK · UPWARD 38 % · DYNAMIC adaptive 72 % · AUTO GAIN

The control surface

My logo is the instrument.

I punched five slots into the plate, exactly in the shape of my signal. Each slot is a fader. I drag the fader and see the value. A double-click sets it back.

COMP
Threshold and ratio in one move, gentle at the bottom, firm at the top
0 – 100 %
RELEASE
How slowly it lets go
10 ms – 2 s
ATTACK
How fast it grabs
0.1 – 100 ms
SIDECHAIN
Which frequency triggers the ducking
20 Hz – 20 kHz
LOFI
How much SAMPLER or TAPE colour
0 – 100 %
Signal path

You choose the order. No phase trouble.

Five Linkwitz-Riley bands always add back up flat, and I run the dry signal for MIX through the same filters. Inside the bands you set the order of the stages yourself, the audio stays in phase whatever you patch, even in the low end.

  1. IN2×, 4× or 16× oversampling
  2. 5 BANDSSUB · LOW · MID · HIGH · AIR
  3. PA.TCHCOMP · ATTACK · RELEASE · LOFI · SIDECHAIN, in your order
  4. PA.TRICKSautomatic sub, mask, upward
  5. MIXdry / wet in phase
  6. LOUD · ANALOGloudness, phase shift, low cut
  7. OUTdither
PA.1 main page with the five logo faders. PA.1 PA.TCH page: five coloured rows on the left in the order of the chain, cables running into five frequency bands, a small range fader in each band header. PA.1 PA.TRICKS page with lofi, oversampling, automatic sub, loudness and license controls.
Page 1  /  PA.1

Five faders, one gesture each.

I set the character on the front plate and close the window. Most of my mixes need nothing else.

Page 2  /  PA.TCH

I patch the compressor itself.

Each colour is one stage of the compressor. I drag the rows into the order I want, COMP before ATTACK or LOFI before COMP, and with a cable I decide in which band a stage works. A plug only fits a jack of its own colour, so I always see what goes where.

  • A small fader in each band sets its range, from 30 Hz to 14 kHz
  • No COMP cable means the band is not compressed
  • UNDO goes back 64 steps, CLEAR included
Page 3  /  PA.TRICKS

Colour, low end, loudness.

  • LOFI: SAMPLER or TAPE, each with its own impulse response
  • AUTOMATIC SUB: tames the sub in real time when it starts to boom
  • LOUD, MASK, UPWARD: louder feel, clearer bands, lifted details
  • OVERSAMPLE 2×, 4×, 16× · STEREO, DUAL, M/S · SOFT or HARD knee
  • ANALOG PHASE, LOW CUT, DITHER 12, 16 or 24 bit
Inside

Small plugin, deep circuit.

YOUR ORDER

ATTACK and RELEASE before COMP smooth what the compressor hears, after COMP they shape how it grabs and lets go. SIDECHAIN before COMP keys the detector, after COMP it ducks the band. LOFI before COMP colours what gets compressed.

ADAPTIVE DYNAMICS

I let each band remember the last seconds of the song. Loud passages stay loud. Only what sticks out of them gets caught.

SIDECHAIN BY FREQUENCY

I pick the frequency that does the pumping, from the external sidechain or from the track itself.

SAMPLER

Dense glue, soft saturation, a low-pass that closes with the amount and grain only at the top, through the impulse response of a 90s groove box path.

TAPE

Warm asymmetric saturation through the impulse response of a tape path. Minimum phase, so it adds no delay against the other bands.

AUTOMATIC SUB

When kick, bass and 808 pile up below 100 Hz and start to boom on a system with a subwoofer, the sub comes down in real time, and only then.

LOUD · MASK · UPWARD

More where the ear is most sensitive and harmonics of the sub for small speakers. A band that buries the one above steps back. Quiet details of each band are lifted.

ANALOG PHASE

Allpass stages turn the phase by 90°, 180° or 360° at the frequency I choose. The level stays the same.

Specifications

What you get.

FORMAT
VST3
SYSTEM
macOS 10.13 or newer
PROCESSORS
Apple Silicon + Intel
CHANNELS
Mono, stereo, stereo sidechain
BANDS
5, phase-compensated
OVERSAMPLING
2× · 4× · 16×
LICENSE
2 computers, works offline
TRIAL
14 days, full features
License
 
  • Your serial right here after paying, and by email
  • Instant download for macOS
  • Activate on 2 computers, move it anytime

Not sure yet? Download the trial. It runs with every feature for 14 days. After that it keeps working with a 2-second silence once a minute until you activate it.

PayPal

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Questions

Before you buy.

How does activation work?

Paste your serial in PA.TRICKS and click ACTIVATE once while online. PA.1 gets a signed license for that computer and from then on works offline.

I have a new computer.

Click DEACTIVATE on the old one to free the slot, then activate on the new one. If the old computer is gone, write to me at contact@patrickalavi.com.

macOS says the plugin cannot be opened.

I have not had PA.1 notarized by Apple yet, so macOS may block it after download. Open Terminal and run xattr -cr ~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST3/PA.1.vst3, then rescan plugins in your DAW.

Which DAWs work?

Any DAW on macOS that loads VST3 plugins, for example Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper and Bitwig. Logic Pro needs AU, which I do not support yet.

Is there a Windows version?

Not yet. I am planning it, and the license will work for it.