M Media Audio has released West Coaster and Howdy Compressor.
West Coaster
West Coaster is a dual-channel opto bus compressor built for glue rather than squash.
Its detector is slow and program-dependent, the same character a real optical cell has, with a gentle knee and musical time constants instead of a hard modern squeeze – Threshold, Attack (3-300 ms), Release (40-2000 ms, with an AUTO detent that derives its own timing from the previous sample’s gain reduction), and a gentle 4-position Ratio (1.5:1 / 2:1 / 4:1 / 5:1) per channel.
Each channel closes with a restrained 2nd-harmonic saturation stage. An external sidechain input is included, along with Stereo/Dual/Mid-Side channel routing, a Link toggle that fully mirrors one channel to the other, Auto-Level output compensation, and switchable Gain Reduction/Output VU metering.
West Coaster also ships with full technical disclosure – detector topology, oversampling decision, latency, and measured CPU load are all published rather than left for the customer to guess.
Howdy Compressor
Howdy Compressor is a fast, punchy VCA-style dual-channel bus compressor – hard knee, single envelope follower, classic glue character – also, potentially “the World’s First Luxury-Cat Dual-Channel Compressor on top of genuinely serious DSP”.
Threshold, a 4-position Ratio reaching a real 6:1, Attack down to 2 ms, and Release up to an AUTO detent round out each fully independent channel, alongside Stereo/Dual/Mid-Side routing, a Link toggle that mirrors one channel’s controls to the other in real time – including the on-screen knob movement, not just the audio result – and Auto Level output compensation.
The cat-head animation on the panel bobs exactly on the downbeat, tracked live from the host’s tempo and time signature rather than a fixed loop, and both VU needles shift size slightly with signal level in addition to their normal swing. Eleven factory presets are included.
Pricing & Availability
West Coaster ($49) and Howdy Compressor ($29) are bundled together for $9 through Monday, September 14. They are available for VST3 on Windows 10/11, macOS 11 Big Sur or later (Apple Silicon + Intel, signed and notarized, universal binary), and Linux Ubuntu 22.04+. AU also available on macOS.
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