![]() ![]() There needs to be a reason, because you don’t always need to use a compressor. ![]() It sounds intuitive, but producers and mixing artists can’t stress it enough: “You don’t want to arbitrarily use compression. For example, it can reduce the low end of a vocal when it’s too boomy and leave it alone when it sounds fine.īefore you dive in, here are a few tips from the pros to help you get a good grasp on the basics of audio compression.Ĭompress with a purpose. When the kick drum sounds, the bass can be set to get more compressed so it can keep cutting through the mix, creating the pumping sound you hear in dance pop mixes.īest for: Vocals, acoustic guitar, drums.Ī multiband compressor allows you to split a track into different frequency ranges and compress them independently. In sidechain compression, the effect level of one instrument is controlled by the volume level of another instrument. ![]() This reduces the dynamic range by bringing up the softest sounds.īest for: Bass guitar and kick drums in dance pop music. Parallel compression is achieved by mixing an unprocessed or lightly compressed signal with a heavily compressed version of the same signal. “They usually have slower attack and release times, and they have a specific sound that people often think of as ‘old school’ or vintage,” says Rodocker.īest for: Aggressive material like drums, percussion, electric guitars, vocals.Īn FET, or “Field Effect Transistor,” emulates the tube sound with transistor circuits, making it a fast and reliable compressor that produces a clean sound.īest for: Percussion, electric bass, vocals, and live sound. The tube compressor is one of the oldest types of compression, used by the Beatles and Motown. In addition to what controls you set, the type of compressor you choose will determine the overall effect on the sound. “The way you do this is to play the material while bypassing and activating the compressor, adjusting the make-up gain to where they sound more or less the same level,” advises Rodocker. Make-up gain is used to turn the overall level of the signal back up. The level of the signal coming out of a compressor won’t be as high as it was when it went in because the compressor is actively turning down parts of the signal. “Bass guitar and vocals would sound better using a soft knee, but I would use a hard knee for any kind of percussive instrument, like the piano or kick drums,” says producer, engineer, and mixing artist Gus Berry. A soft knee will sound smoother because the compression doesn’t begin as quickly, while a hard knee will sound more dramatic. The knee is how quickly the compressor transitions from not compressing the signal to compressing it. However, extreme compression with a fast release time can result in a pumping effect - or a sudden increase in volume - that can make the track sound uneven in some genres of music. At low levels of gain reduction, fast release speeds sound the most natural. The release time is how long it takes the audio signal to revert from being affected to uncompressed. “So you can set a slower attack to create some punch from an instrument that’s softer, like a keyboard, or a fast attack to quickly compress the sound of a loud guitar pick.” “It’s going to affect the first part of the sound you hear,” says Rodocker. ![]() The attack time is how long it takes the audio signal to be fully compressed to the ratio set after it has crossed the threshold. Peter explains that “the volume of audio is measured in decibels (dB), so if you set a 3:1 compression ratio, every 3dB of input signal above the threshold will produce 1dB of output signal.” The ratio is the amount of attenuation - or downward compression - that will be applied once a signal reaches the threshold. You would want the compressor to be set where the threshold grabs only that loudest part of the track,” says Rodocker. “Imagine a guitarist that’s strumming at a constant volume, then hits a few notes super hard in the middle of the song. Once a threshold level is set, any audio below the threshold will be unaffected, but any audio above the threshold will be compressed by the ratio set. The threshold is the level at which compression begins. Understanding the technical aspects and terminology of audio compression will allow you to work more comfortably with a wide range of compressors. The fundamental controls of audio compressors. ![]()
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