Plugin Alliance have released Zip, a multimode creative compressor with effects like saturation, auto-filtering, and a comprehensive modulation system. Zip seeks to turn a standard task like compression into an opportunity to be more creative and to make sounds which stand out from the crowd.

While it will level vocals and smash drums, it excels at more creative processing like noise gates which chatter and glitch based on audio input, or rhythmic ducking that pulsates in-time with host BPM–all without the need for external sidechaining.

Brightness mode focuses on the high end of vocals to massage harshness in the breath, Noisiness mode compresses only the room tone of a live recording while letting the instrument pass through. It also applies extremely fast envelopes when needed, and the Color parameter can add saturation/distortion to bring sounds out in a mix, or auto-wah filtering can react to the input analysis.

The visualizer also makes it easy to dial in compression and expansion, showing you a combination of the analysis, gain reduction, and output.