Affiliate disclosure: the "Get this deal" button is an affiliate link to the store. If you buy through it we earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Full policy
The BlueAsh sc-5 Black Friday deal is 34% off at $19 until Nov 22, 2026, on Black Rooster Audio's compressor plugin modeled after a 70s blue-faced VCA compressor.
The BlueAsh SC-5 is a compressor plugin that Black Rooster Audio built from the original 70s blue-faced version of a sought-after VCA compressor.
The maker pitches it as a versatile unit. It can sweeten the signal on a master buss with very gentle compression, smash a drum buss into a distorted sound, or tame lively, dynamic material.
The full set of parameters lets you dial in the setting for each job. The maker says the plugin keeps its own pleasant, characteristic tone whatever you set.
The SC-5 is a fixed threshold compressor. You get more compression by raising the input gain, which also makes the signal louder.
Auto Gain Compensation handles that loudness jump. Hold the right mouse button as you turn the input gain knob and the output gain moves with it, keeping the perceived loudness about the same.
Black Rooster Audio uses a real-time, SPICE-type, component-based circuit simulation. The maker says it captures the sound and feel of the analog original in every nuance.
The plugin emulates several elements of the hardware: its bespoke voltage-controlled amplifier, a detector that works with two separate time constants, the compressor's looped feedback topology, and the signal path itself. To keep aliasing artifacts down, it relies on a Dolph-Chebyshev poly-phase oversampler that is linear-phase and adds very little latency. The oversampling adjusts itself to your session's sample rate, which saves CPU while keeping the sound as transparent as possible, according to the maker.
The DSP code is pipelined with the SSE2 instruction set to keep performance high despite the complex computations. The interface supports high pixel density displays on Mac OSX and Windows. On Windows, your DAW's manual says whether it is HighDPI capable.
On Mac you need:
On PC you need:
Yes. The BlueAsh SC-5 compressor plugin from Black Rooster Audio is 34% off at $19 until Nov 22, 2026. It is a VCA compressor modeled after a 70s blue-faced original and is sold as a plugin for VST, VST3, AU and AAX hosts.
On Mac it works in VST, VST3, AU or AAX compatible 64-bit hosts, including Apple Silicon M1 and M2 machines. On Windows it runs in VST, VST3 or AAX hosts. Windows 7 or newer is required, and Mac needs OSX 10.9 or newer.
The SC-5 has a fixed threshold, so raising the input gain gives more compression and a louder signal. Right-click and drag the input gain knob on the BlueAsh SC-5, and the output gain follows along, so the perceived loudness stays about where it was.
It is a VCA compressor plugin modeled after a 70s blue-faced original. The maker says it handles gentle master buss compression, distorted drum buss smashing and taming lively, dynamic material, with a full parameter set to dial in each application.
Prices and end dates are checked at publishing time and can change, so confirm them at the store before you buy.