LOLCOMP is the second plug-in to be released by Mixing Night Audio, a company co-founded by producers and mix engineers Ken Lewis and Dom Rivinius. It offers a combination of compression and tone-shaping tools housed within a rather eccentric GUI, and aims to provide users with a fast and intuitive way to find the sound they’re looking for.
Mixing Night started as a livestream during the lockdowns in 2020, where Ken — whose extensive credit list includes 114 Gold- and Platinum-certified records and 19 Grammy wins — would host Q&A sessions and hold production and mixing discussions with like-minded viewers. As the community grew, the decision was made to create plug-ins that would help aspiring producers and engineers to develop their creative skills.
LOLCOMP hosts five different modes (with a light-hearted naming convention!) that each contain a range of compression processing chains with pre-defined settings. They are all equipped with input and output level controls, along with a parameter that sets the amount of processing applied, and there are a total of 100 custom presets that have been created based on Ken and Dom’s mix sessions.
The Smiley Chain is described as the perfect solution for vocal compression, whilst the Panda Chain has been optimised for low-frequency kick and bass sounds, and the Punch Chain then offers a slower attack time that is well-suited to sources that contain a lot of transients. Peacock Chain is described as a “pure beautifier” intended to add ‘sparkle’ to sources, and finally, the Dragon Chain provides everything from subtle saturation through to aggressive distortion sounds.
A set of parameters along the bottom of the GUI offer some tone-shaping control, with Levitate providing a tilt EQ function that favours low- or high-frequency content, and Mash serving as a final limiter stage. Some further EQ functionality is provided by Awaken, which can be used to exaggerate the signal’s mid-range or high-frequency content, and finally, Oxidate offers a choice of five different reverb sounds. Low- and high-pass filters allow the effect to be applied to a specific frequency range, and built-in parallel processing is offered by a Mix parameter.
“I built LOLCOMP to mimic many of my multi-plug-in processes and simplify my mixing life. However, with all of this power under one hood, I use it in ways I never dreamed of with my old techniques. It’s replaced 80% of my other compression and tone-shapers, and it’s so easy to dial in it feels like cheating. Amateurs can easily achieve great results and pros will find more power than they expect from any plug-in. Mix engineers should design more plug-ins!” - Ken Lewis - Producer, Engineer & co-founder of Mixing Night Audio
Compatibility
LOLCOMP is supported on PCs running Windows 10, and Macs running macOS 10.12 and above. It is available in VST3, AU, AAX Native and AAX AudioSuite formats.
Pricing & Availability
LOLCOMP is available now, priced at $149.
