Who Else Needs To Understand The Compressor?
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A compressor can sometimes be a misunderstood piece of equipment. If you want to use compression to its full potential and bring your recordings to a higher level then read on. Tweaking compression settings feels like a delicate process, but understanding settings and terminology found on a compressor will put you in complete control of your recordings.
Dynamic range when talking about compression is varying sound levels within a song or instrument. For instance a drum kit can be played quietly or loudly so a drum kit has a large dynamic range. Lets take that same drum kit that plays quietly through a soft song and add compression so that the dynamic range is decreased. Decreasing the dynamic range means making the loud and quiet parts of the drum less pronounced so that it can be boosted by the output gain so that the drums can still poke through the mix.
The most common controls you will find on a compressor include input gain, threshold, output gain, slope ratio, attack and release. Input gain adjusts the amount of signal that will be processed and moved to the input stage of the compressor. The second control is called threshold, which adjusts at what level the compressor will actually work. For example if you set threshold at -10db any signal below that will be unaffected and anything above will be attenuated. Output gain control sets the signal strength that will be moved to the output stage of the compressor, this is the area where you boost the reduced dynamic range. These controls are what adjusts the dynamic range but ratio, attack and release controls how smoothly you want your signal to be attenuated.
the ratio setting adjusts the ratio between input and output gain. For example a ratio of 4:1 means for every 4db increase in input would cause a 1db decrease at the output. This applies to any ratio you select a 10:1 ratio would mean a 10db increase in signal will result in a 1db decrease in dynamics at the output. Once a ratio setting has been selected playing with threshold and input/output gain to achieve the desired effect. Attack and release settings help in smoothing out the attenuation so that signal still sounds natural. Attack and release are calibrated in milliseconds so it is a smooth transition when going above or below your threshold. This is helpful for most any recording but is really helpful for instruments that have long sustains or short attack speeds so that signal attenuation happens smoothly.
Dynamic range and compression are found everywhere, from TV commercials to top 40 radio. Have you ever been watching TV and when commercials come on you have to turn the TV down? That's because the commercial has been heavily compressed because the logic is louder recordings will stand out more. this also applies to top 40 music where it is a competitive market to have there songs grab the attention of the listener for long enough to have the song stuck in there heads. Hopefully these two examples of compression in action will give you an idea of what compression does so have fun and experiment.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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