Woodstock Audio just released a completely free plugin called Waveform Compressor, and I genuinely think it’s one of the best ways to learn compression because it shows you what your settings are doing in real time. In this video I walk through the main compressor controls you’d expect—threshold, ratio, knee, attack, release, and makeup gain—and then I focus on what makes this one different: the visual display. You can literally see where your threshold sits against the incoming waveform, watch gain reduction happen, and even pause/zoom the display to study exactly what the compressor is doing to the signal. I also dig into sidechain features (internal and external), plus the sidechain high-pass filter—which doesn’t change the guitar tone, but changes how much compression happens by stopping low end from triggering the detector so hard. Then I show the optical mode, where attack/release become program-dependent like classic optical compressors (LA-2A/CL1B vibes), which can be super useful on vocals, acoustic guitar, and bass. The killer feature, though, is Delta mode. It lets you hear the difference between compressed and uncompressed audio, which makes attack, release, and knee settings finally click—especially when you exaggerate the settings and hear the “why is this sounding weird?” stuff immediately.