When I use the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, these are where I like my settings to be for gain reduction. I have about 1dB on the optical (left meter) and 2dB on the discreet (right meter). I change the thresholds to get these and increase the gains as needed.
At around the 00:30 mark, I bypass it, and it is probably a bit difficult to tell because the effect is subtle, but this is what I want on my master, and it gives it just that little something special to finish off the track's sound.
This Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor is incredible for me. I use it sometimes instead of my Vertigo Sound VSC-3 if I want to get a little different color and character into the sound of a track.
This compressor is set up so there is an optical stage followed by a discreet stage (feed-forward VCA) and finished off with a transformer section with selectable cores. In this case, I have nickel selected, but each has its own characteristic sound.
The plug-in version I'm using here is from Brainworx, and it is the Class A type that is characterized by red lights and a somewhat more robust sound than the regular type (with green lights). But both are good, and I highly recommend them, along with the Vertigo Sound VSC-3, which is my other go-to compressor.
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