Long overdue for a review here. I've owned this green machine for over a year now. It goes from smooth to hairy, like your favorite opto compressor went out on a big night drinking then stumbled back to your DAW the next morning (in the best way possible). Goes real nice on guitars, drums, synths, your mother in law, and whatever else you throw at it. Definitely not a candidate for clean compression - but if you're all about vibe and mojo, this one is for you. I find myself using it more and more, the three flavours of response gives a nice flexibility.
The Opticom XLA-3
★★★★★
by Produce_in_the_box_fr
My swiss army knife to inflate my tracks !!!!
Opticom XLA-3
★★★★★
by Deon
Pure magic on a parallel drumbuss, from punchy to gritty.. This one delivers!
Acme!!!
★★★★★
by Music Recycler
Acme!!!!! Great compressor with some Green Color!! Thanks Plugin Alliance.
Crazy cool
★★★★★
by Rectifried
La2a with attitude Larger than life and a mix control
Opticom XLA-3
★★★★★
by Frank
I love this Plug In! Already have Used on Vocal's and Some Guitar Stuff, Very Nice to have in your Arsenal, Thank's Plugin Alliance!
How Do You Want It?
★★★★☆
by Headstack
A little off the top, or downright nasty, The Acme Opticom is not exactly what you'd call "Transparent" when you dig in. That's a good thing when you're looking for this sound! I have been using it on bass, room, overheads, snare.
Gorgeous-sounding plugin with a few issues.
★★★★☆
by In-Stereo
It takes a lot of make me buy yet another compressor, but I was sold the second I tried the XLA-3. It is positively gorgeous-sounding, can go from mellow and warm to hard-driving and gritty, all in an elusively "analog" way that simply means it gives you mojo and vibe galore. It's simple to use, and the ability to bypass the compressor and just get the great sound of the circuit itself is hugely useful for me. This is all over my sessions now. Ideally it wouldn't be totally input based and would also have a threshold or compression amount knob so you could get the wonderful compression without getting overdrive in some cases, but that's life. Now, some faults that need fixing: 1. You can't see the values for mix or output trim unless you move the "knob" to change them. It shouldn't be this way, but instead should be as intuitive and useful as many other PIA plugins are and what we're used to in the modern age of DAWs. 2. You also can't see any values/can't input any values, which is a major omission in some of these re-creation plugins. Many times it's imperative to see/enter exactly how many dB you are adjusting something, for various technical reasons. 3. No wet/dry. I don't mean to be rude, but come on guys, we're in the year 2018. We're using computers and DAWs to expand our abilities -- let's bring wet/dry to this great compressor.
Sweet & easy
★★★★★
by Willard
This is my favorite compressor, partly because of its simplicity and more because it has a great personality. Slow setting gives me a lazy, clean bit of level management and fast gets somewhat-to-very smashy and dirty. It's like an "Angry" setting for my drums, should I want a bit of angry (and my drums often do). Normal speed is a very happy medium and that alone is like having three very different LA-2 style compressors in this plug, but the other simple controls make this e-box even more useful. It's not perfect for every application but it is for lots of them. So it SOUNDS great, is as SIMPLE as I could want it to be, and I actually had more FUN with this than I've had with a new toy in a while. What more could you want from a thing? - W