Kilohearts has announced the addition of its latest plugin, Compactor, to the free Kilohearts Essentials range.
Compactor joins existing freebies like Clipper and Shaper in the Kilohearts Essentials catalogue.
If you aren’t familiar with Kilohearts Essentials, each addition is available as a regular (AU, VST2, VST3, AAX) plugin or as a Kilohearts Snapin, and completely free.
However, if you want to use Snapins, you’ll need one of Kilohearts’ paid Snapin hosts: Phase Plant, Multipass, or Snap Heap.
Compactor follows the Kilohearts tradition of packing sometimes complex processes into a small, simple, and intuitive interface.
The plugin offers an alternative to traditional compression and limiting when it comes to controlling the dynamic range of your mix. Compactor allows high-precision ducking that ensures you don’t waste an ounce of space or impact throughout your track.
Kilohearts Compactor uses one element of your mix to duck another on a sample-by-sample basis, which is why it’s able to ensure you always pull the maximum out of any source at every step of the way without going too far.
With the Sidechain function active, the input is silenced when the sidechain level reaches the threshold. If you have no sidechain, the input is limited to the threshold level.
The first controls, from just a handful, are Attack, Hold, and Release.
Attack determines how far ahead the plugin ducks the audio.
Hold determines how long the signal is ducked when the input drops below the threshold.
Release dictates how quickly the audio returns to full volume after the Hold stage is finished.
You can fine-tune the effect using the Range control to set the range of gain reduction with the option to exceed 100% for an exaggerated effect.
The Stereo knob determines whether the left and right channels are processed the same or independently (at 100%, Compactor processes the left and right channels separately).
The GUI offers three display modes:
RMS – Compactor measures the volume using the root mean square method.
Peak – Compactor follows audio waveform peaks on a per-sample basis.
ISP – Compactor follows all peaks (even those occurring between samples).
Compactor delivers what you’d expect from Kilohearts; it’s a clever little plugin that packs a big punch when necessary.
It’s a nice addition to an already lovely collection of freebies that can create space for core elements of your track, maximize impact without sacrificing quality, or be pushed into distorted controlled chaos.
Download: Compactor (FREE – Kilohearts account needed)
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Last Updated on August 20, 2025 by Tomislav Zlatic.