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BPB Dirty LA (FREE Vintage Limiting Amplifier)

By Tomislav ZlaticAugust 18, 202460 Comments3 Mins Read

Bedroom Producers Blog releases BPB Dirty LA, a freeware compressor effect in VST3 and AU plugin formats for digital audio workstations on Windows and macOS.

BPB Dirty LA is a free compressor effect inspired by vintage limiting amplifiers. We tried to create a plugin that will deliver the same musical-sounding compression while relying on a streamlined workflow. We also implemented one of our Dirt algorithms to help you saturate the signal if needed.

While this isn’t an exact emulation of any particular hardware compressor, it takes inspiration from several classic hardware designs. We tried to get as close as possible both in terms of internal algorithms and the control scheme.

By default, BPB Dirty LA offers a relatively fast attack time and moderate compression ratio that will work great on most types of audio. A limiting mode is also included, providing faster attack times and a higher compression ratio.

The Peak Reduction knob controls the threshold value and enables you to control the amount of compression that is applied to the signal. Once you’re happy with the compression, use the Output knob to match the gain to the dry signal for easy A/B comparison.

Our Dirt algorithm was fine-tuned to deliver smooth saturation that boosts and warms up the signal while gently taming the transients. It works well in tandem with the compressor, especially on drums and bass recordings that need to stand out in the mix.

The plugin uses 4X internal oversampling when the Dirt mode is enabled. The oversampling is bypassed when Dirt is switched off to reduce CPU usage.

BPB Dirty LA also works as a parallel compressor. The Mix knob lets you balance the dry and compressed signal, so it’s easy to achieve New York-style compression on drums.

The plugin is optimized for low CPU consumption, so you should be able to use multiple instances in your projects without any issues.

BPB Dirty LA is available in VST3 and AU plugin formats for 64-bit digital audio workstations on Windows and macOS.

If you like the concept, be sure to check out our free BPB Dirty Filter, BPB Dirty Spring, and BPB Saturator plugins.

BPB Dirty LA is completely free to download and use, with optional donations on Gumroad and Patreon.

Download: BPB Dirty LA (8.85 MB download size, ZIP archive, 64-bit VST3/AU plugin format for Windows & macOS)

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Tomislav Zlatic

Tomislav is a music producer and sound designer from Belgrade, Serbia. He is also the founder and editor-in-chief at Bedroom Producers Blog.

60 Comments

Anwar
on October 25, 2022 7:55 pm

I’ve been loving your plugins especially due to their clean but sleek designs. Thank you for the plugins and I hope you’re not tired of creating more! Maybe an SSL E channel and an 1174?

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 25, 2022 8:13 pm
  
  Thank you so much, especially for the GUI praise. Means a lot. Yes, more plugins are coming very soon. :)
  
  Reply
  - Paul
    on October 25, 2022 8:45 pm
    
    I know I’m a dinosaur, and maybe you get no requests, or the SDK no longer supports it, but I have liked your plugins for years and haven’t had anything new since 32 bit was deprecated. All the best,
    
    Paul
    
    Reply
Zak
on October 25, 2022 7:58 pm

This is brilliant. BPB’s own brand plugins are great. A true, genuine and generous gift to the community.

Greatly appreciated.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 25, 2022 8:13 pm
  
  Thank you so much, I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying the plugins.
  
  Reply
Numanoid
on October 25, 2022 8:16 pm

Thanks :-) But why do you call it dirty, when it delivers smooth saturation ?

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 25, 2022 10:39 pm
  
  It’s dirty in a smooth way. :) Seriously, though, I wanted to highlight the fact that Dirty LA can sound both clean and dirty (when you turn on the Dirt algorithm). But the saturation is intentionally more subtle compared to our other plugins.
  
  Reply
Attaman
on October 25, 2022 9:02 pm

Congrats guys for the nice work you done! Gotta be honest, them all are very nice plugins, got all of them!!! Keep it going wish the best reards from Brasil!!!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 25, 2022 10:40 pm
  
  Thank you! I’m happy to hear that you like BPB plugins, and thanks for the kind words! More plugins coming soon.
  
  Reply
frozenjaZz
on October 25, 2022 10:20 pm

Thanks BPB, you guys rock!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 25, 2022 10:41 pm
  
  Thank you FJ!
  
  Reply
Jamie M.
on October 25, 2022 10:46 pm

new bpb plug, pogpogpog
thanks for everything you’ve done for the music community, no clue where i’d be without you all

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:13 pm
  
  It’s a pleasure and an honor to be part of the community. Thanks for your support!
  
  Reply
Tomasz
on October 25, 2022 11:12 pm

1. Thank you so much for another great free plugin! Your effort is highly appreciated!

2. Can it be revealed who programmed the plugin or BPB plugins in general?

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:15 pm
  
  1) You’re welcome! :)
  2) All BPB plugins come from different programmers. I did the GUIs and the overall design, but I collaborated with different programmers to make the plugins possible.
  
  Reply
Steffen
on October 25, 2022 11:15 pm

Thanks. I’ll let you know how good it is, once Reason Studios supports VST3. Within the decade at least. ;)

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:16 pm
  
  Ah, wish I could help there. Fingers crossed that they implement VST3 support soon!
  
  Reply
ElDJabh
on October 25, 2022 11:23 pm

I find that BPB plugins have their own sound personality and I like that. I’ll try this one.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:16 pm
  
  Thank you! Looking forward to reading your thoughts on this one.
  
  Reply
MRG
on October 25, 2022 11:36 pm

Aaaah! A compressor. :D For a durrteh plugin, it’s rather behaving with low CPU, a clean GUI and plays nice with Win7. That’s the kind of dirt I love to bury myself in.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:18 pm
  
  Haha, I know. So many compressors! But I hope this one makes a difference.
  
  Reply
PureFire
on October 26, 2022 1:14 am

Thanks so much Tomislav, BPB for a much appreciated kind gift, and a great addition to the BPB collection, nice work 🙏😊💛
Dirty LA is working perfectly on my system and it sounds awesome using this on a single channel so far, and also for parallel compression 🔥
I will put this to good use in my projects, thank you so much 🙏❤️

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:33 pm
  
  Hey PureFire, thanks for your support as always!
  
  Reply
joshmelo
on October 26, 2022 3:00 am

Very excited to give this a shot, dirtyfilter is a staple for me. I use the filter all day, everyday. The spring verb didn’t quite tickle my fancy, but that’s ok. Thank you guys so much for all the work you put into the site and plugins. joh

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:33 pm
  
  Yeah, the spring is a bit different (I’m a big fan of spring reverbs, but they’re not very popular). Glad to hear that you like the rest. :)
  
  Reply
Kieran
on October 26, 2022 4:38 am

Thanks for this! :D

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:32 pm
  
  It’s a pleasure!
  
  Reply
LarsDF
on October 26, 2022 5:21 am

Well done again🙂. The LA sounds just fantastic!!. Keep it up, friends👍

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:32 pm
  
  Awesome, glad to hear that you like it. More coming soon! :)
  
  Reply
yzcoruhT
on October 26, 2022 9:13 am

Thank you so much.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:32 pm
  
  You’re welcome!
  
  Reply
Bartosz
on October 26, 2022 9:13 am

thank you! It support Apple M1 natively?

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 10:31 am
  
  Yes! :)
  
  Reply
  - Bartosz
    on October 26, 2022 9:39 pm
    
    wow! amazing!
    
    Reply
Cate
on October 26, 2022 1:51 pm

Love the way this sounds!! Thank you.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:31 pm
  
  Great to hear, thank you!
  
  Reply
Sideshw
on October 26, 2022 1:55 pm

Very nice. Thanks.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:31 pm
  
  You’re welcome!
  
  Reply
Mike
on October 26, 2022 2:09 pm

This little fellow is breathtaking.
Well I mean… breath giving!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 3:30 pm
  
  Thank you! :)
  
  Reply
Tokyo
on October 26, 2022 4:54 pm

Amazing, would love to use this in ProTools like your other BPB plugs! Any possibility of an AAX version?

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 26, 2022 7:02 pm
  
  Unfortunately, not likely at this moment. But I’m hoping I’ll be able to provide AAX later on.
  
  Reply
  - Ave2
    on October 27, 2022 1:55 am
    
    If you dld Waves Studio Rack, it now supports using 3rd Party VST3 plugins in it, so it could work in Pro Tools.
    
    Reply
Jon B
on October 26, 2022 8:15 pm

This sounds awesome on the drum bus! Tbh, I don’t get an LA2A vibe from it, it actually sounds very similar to an API 2500 in feedforward mode, or maybe an SSL G comp, but it seriously slaps hard eitherway! The saturation really brings out the room/reverb and adds tons of heft to the kick and snare.

If it had a longer dual-stage release it could be closer to an LA2A, but that would probably make it less versatile, so this is a good compromise while still retaining the simple control layout of the LA2A.

You really succeeded in making it super-lightweight on the CPU. Even with dirt enabled (hence 4x OS) it never goes above 0.1% CPU usage on my Intel NUC i7-8559u. That’s almost on-par with Reaper’s stock plug-ins!

It will easily replace many of my more expensive and CPU intensive compressor plug-ins. Easily your best so far!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:11 pm
  
  Thank you so much for the detailed review. I’m so glad to hear that BPB Dirty LA delivers exactly what I intended it to: a lightweight and convenient compressor that slaps! Thanks for the kind words.
  
  Reply
Ronald
on October 26, 2022 8:27 pm

Another awesome BPB plugin. Thank you!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:12 pm
  
  You’re welcome and thanks for the kind words!
  
  Reply
Klaus
on October 26, 2022 8:50 pm

Thank you! This is great. BPB rules!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:12 pm
  
  Thanks! :)
  
  Reply
samuel
on October 27, 2022 1:48 am

thanks!!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:12 pm
  
  Cheers!
  
  Reply
Hazy J
on October 27, 2022 8:03 am

Another dirty banger from BPB. Shout out to the peoples.

Appreciate y’all.

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on October 27, 2022 2:13 pm
  
  Good to hear, thank you!
  
  Reply
JJ Blondeau
on October 28, 2022 5:34 pm

Need AAX format, pleaaaaase !!

Reply
- MRG
  on October 28, 2022 7:11 pm
  
  No, you don’t. You need a wrapper and so all the VSTs are yours now. The only ones I can think of are :
  DDMF Metaplugin
  Blue Cat’s Patchwork
  Seriously, it’s a much better bet than waiting for each plugin to -eventually- get AAX (blame Avid).
  
  Reply
Trex
on October 31, 2022 2:53 pm

Big congratulations on this amazing plugin, Tom.
Always your plugins fan and thanks a lot for this.

Reply
- Hell'ektrix
  on November 1, 2022 7:43 pm
  
  Another a great plug-in from BPB !
  Thank you guyz, you’re the best ;)
  
  Reply
Raven
on November 14, 2022 11:58 am

SUPER EPIC

please add more modes and experimental hidden controls to your spring reverb!

Reply
- Tomislav Zlatic
  on November 14, 2022 6:46 pm
  
  Thank you! I’m hoping we can update BPB Dirty Spring with some of those features soon.
  
  Reply
ElmoDeFuka
on November 24, 2022 9:53 pm

Thank you so much. Great tool.

Reply

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BPB Dirty LA (FREE Vintage Limiting Amplifier)

60 Comments