Audio Damage has introduced a three-band OTT-style compressor with independent upward and downward compression per band. Evil Otto features per-band threshold and level controls let you shape exactly where and how hard the compression hits.
OTT compression has become one of the most recognizable sounds in modern music production. If you’ve listened to anything in the EDM, pop, or hip-hop worlds in the last decade, you’ve heard it — that hyper-present, larger-than-life quality where every detail of a sound is pushed forward and nothing hides in the background.
The technique itself is straightforward: take a multiband compressor, apply downward compression to tame the peaks in each band, and simultaneously apply upward compression to boost the quiet parts. Do this across three frequency bands and you get a sound that is dense, detailed, and aggressively “right there.” The name says it all — Over The Top.
Evil Otto features
- Three-band upward + downward compression with adjustable depth and time.
- Per-band threshold and level controls.
- External sidechain input for ducking.
- Sidechain listen mode for dialing in the duck.
- Input and output gain with smooth bypass.
- Resizable UI with two color schemes.
The desktop version of Evil Otto if free to download in return for joining the Audio Damage mailing list. It comes in VST3, AU, AAX, LV2 and CLAP plugin formats for Windows, macOS and Linux. The iOS/AUv3 version is $2.99 USD at the App Store to cover additional costs for deploying on that platform.
More information: Audio Damage
