UnitedPlugins is offering Royal Compressor 2nd Hand, a hidden freeware edition of the Royal Compressor plugin for PC and Mac digital audio workstations.
Royal Compressor (€59 on sale, €129 standard price) is a premium vari-mu compressor plugin based on the EMI RS124 hardware unit. The original RS124 compressor was famously used in Abbey Road studios when recording the Beatles. The software emulation developed by UnitedPlugins aims to deliver the same compression characteristics and the unique tone of the original in plugin format.
See also: Best FREE Compressor VST PluginsAnyway, this may be old news for some of our readers, but I just discovered that UnitedPlugins are offering a “hidden” free version of the Royal Compressor plugin. It features the same algorithms and UI design as the full product but some of the features are disabled. What’s cool, though, is that there’s no time limit and or other usage limitations like noise bursts or volume dropouts.
Compared to the full version of the plugin, the free Royal Compressor 2nd Hand lacks the auto makeup gain feature and the choice between multiple RS124 models. Also, the recovery time parameter is fixed to the default value. Other than that, the plugin is fully functional and free to use.
So, how do you get the free Royal Compressor 2nd Hand plugin? It’s pretty simple. Download the demo version from the United Plugins website, install it and allow fifteen days for the free trial to expire. After that time period, the Pro functions will be disabled and the plugin will continue working in the free “2nd Hand” mode. The GUI will be slightly changed to show that you are now using the free version of the Royal Compressor.
We normally don’t feature free demo software on Bedroom Producers Blog, but there are some exceptions. In this case, the expired demo version is still pretty useful and the whole idea of a “second hand” plugin with some knobs missing is rather creative. Check this one out if you’re looking for a free character compressor for your music production software collection.
More info: Royal Compressor (17.8 MB download size, EXE installer, 32-bit & 64-bit VST/VST3/AU/AAX plugin format for Windows & macOS)
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