W.A. Production offers the Puncher 2 as a FREE download in their web store until January 21st, 2023.
Puncher 2 is a multi-effect intended for adding punch and power to your material. This is accomplished through the combination of three effects, all of which impact the dynamics.
The three effects are unified in an easy-to-read interface with minimal controls. At the right of the interface is a gain control, which is handy since there doesn’t appear to be any means of automatic gain compensation.
The first effect is a transient designer. It functions as you’d expect for a utility of this sort. The single-knob control seems to dial up the attack of the transient while dialing back the release, but you can switch to the more advanced view to get more granular control. This exposes the attack and release parameters for dialing in your sound.
Multiband compression is present and consists of a four-band dynamics processor with linear crossover filters. This sounds good in practice and doesn’t introduce any sort of phase issues to overheads or stereo buses.
The parallel compressor rounds out the collection and is a flexible processor. RMS time, knee, and the requisite attack and release controls allow for more granular tweaking on drum tracks. This is a personal favorite of the included processors, and the one-knob control was more than adequate for applying some smack and density to kicks and snares.
Puncher 2 excels more on instrument groups, like your drum bus, than it does as a general-purpose mix or mastering bus utility. While it would be nice to see some form of automatic gain compensation or an integrated clipper, you can’t argue against its feature set for the price.
Puncher 2 is available for Windows in VST2, VST3, and AAX plugin formats. Mac users have the option of VST2, VST3, AU, and AAX. Currently, only Rosetta is supported for Silicon users. There is no intended release date for a fully native M1 version.
If you like downloading limited-time freebies, check out the free download offer on Excite Audio’s Lifeline Console Lite, available exclusively at Plugin Boutique.
Download: Puncher 2 (FREE until January 21st)
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