Rough Rider 3 by Audio Damage: Tame Dynamics with Character!
Are you looking for a compressor that doesn’t just level out peaks but also adds a vintage vibe and unique warmth to your tracks? Meet Rough Rider 3 by Audio Damage – a sidechain compressor that has already become a legend thanks to its unique sound and ease of use.
More Than Just a Compressor
Rough Rider 3 is designed with classic analog equipment in mind. Its interface is intuitive, replicating the logic of many vintage compressors. But don’t let its simplicity fool you – there’s a real beast under the hood, ready to give your drums punch, your bass density, and your overall mixes glue and character.
Key Features and Controls
Rough Rider 3 has no unnecessary knobs or complex menus. Each control has a clear purpose, encouraging you to rely on your own hearing:
- Ratio: This knob works logarithmically. The far left position is a soft 1:1, while the far right is extreme 1:1000. The 12 o’clock position gives 1:10. Experiment: to the left of center – for delicate compression, to the right – for “atomic squeezing”!
- Attack and Release: There are no digital millisecond values here, and that’s intentional! Turn the knobs and listen to how the compressor reacts to the signal. This takes you back to the times when sound engineers worked with their ears, not their eyes.
- Meter: The large dial in the center of the interface shows the gain reduction level. The more the signal is compressed, the further the needle moves, visualizing the compressor’s operation.
- Sensitivity: What is often called “Threshold” today. Turn right to increase the degree of compression. And if you turn it all the way to the right, the plugin turns into an interesting saturation or even distortion effect, the character of which can be formed with the Ratio, Attack, and Release knobs!
- Makeup: Up to 30 dB of gain to compensate for the volume loss caused by compression. Allows you to easily level the volume of the processed and unprocessed signal.
- Active: A simple On/Off switch on the panel. But if you try to automate it, the developers promise that “strange things” can happen… It seems that Rough Rider 3 has a few more secrets!
- MIDI Learn: Like all Audio Damage products, the VST version supports the MIDI Learn function, allowing you to assign parameters to your MIDI controller for convenient control.
- FULL BANDWIDTH: This button disables the built-in “warming” filter. Turn it on to get the most transparent sound, or turn it off for the signature warm character of Rough Rider.
- External sidechain input + HPF filter: The ability to use an external signal for sidechain compression, as well as a built-in high-pass filter for this signal, which allows you to avoid excessive compression from low frequencies in the sidechain signal.
Perfect For…
Rough Rider 3 is not a universal compressor for any task. It has its own distinct character, which manifests itself perfectly on:
- Drums: Especially the kick and snare drum. Adds punch, sustain, and fatness. A genre classic!
- Bass: Makes the bass guitar or synth bass denser, more even, and helps it sit in the mix.
- Parallel Compression: One of the best plugins for “New York” compression on a drum bus or the whole mix.
- Adding Character: Use it on any signal where you need not just dynamic control but also a noticeable sonic coloration.
Thanks to the sidechain input and HPF filter, Rough Rider 3 is also a great tool for creating the classic “ducking” effect, where the volume of one track (e.g., music) is reduced when another track (e.g., vocals or a kick) is playing.
Conclusions
Rough Rider 3 by Audio Damage is a powerful and charismatic compressor that offers a unique combination of ease of use and expressive sound. It doesn’t try to imitate hundreds of analog devices but has its own face – warm, “biting,” and musical. If you’re looking for a compressor that will add life and personality to your recordings, Rough Rider 3 deserves a place in your plugin collection. Try it, and maybe it will become your new secret ingredient!
