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Compression

My understanding of compression is

A sound that is not loud enough in the mix but is still going over 0.0 can be boosted by having a compressor reduce frequencies over a set threshold. the attack obviously sets how quickly this is done and the release how quickly the effect stops.

I have seen people talk about creative compression and using compressors to give a trance track that charicteristic pumping feel. I have also read that compression is the most difficult to understand because done right it can be hard to notice.

Could someone tell me how say you have a kick and an off beat bass its a bit muddy and lacks drive a compressor could be used to give it that clear crisp pumping feel.

Please dont just reply with a torrent of insults!

Re: Compression

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c Could someone tell me how say you have a kick and an off beat bass its a bit muddy and lacks drive a compressor could be used to give it that clear crisp pumping feel.

I think you need to do a search for 'sidechaining'...

check this mate:

http://www.pcmus.com/compressors.htm

The use of compression to get that pumping sound with the kick and bass is the use of sidechain compression.

http://sonictransfer.com/side-chain...-tutorial.shtml

What that won't do is clean up a muddy bass track though. For that, you probably want to look at eq'ing the bass, particularly the really low end, to clean it up a bit. The really low frequencies have a tendency to eat up headroom and potential to make it sound muddy.

quote:

Originally posted by Vortex_SA check this mate: http://www.pcmus.com/compressors.htm

Fantastic just what I was looking for

quote:

Originally posted by Ray_Chappell The use of compression to get that pumping sound with the kick and bass is the use of sidechain compression. http://sonictransfer.com/side-chain...-tutorial.shtml What that won't do is clean up a muddy bass track though. For that, you probably want to look at eq'ing the bass, particularly the really low end, to clean it up a bit. The really low frequencies have a tendency to eat up headroom and potential to make it sound muddy.

Again when I get home im going to finally learn this essential processing tool! thanks guys

quote:

Originally posted by Ray_Chappell The use of compression to get that pumping sound with the kick and bass is the use of sidechain compression.

you can also do this sort of effect with a much lower volume of a bass than the kick and a really low threshold of the compressor and a kinda fast release, it give a similar effect.. but youll also want a limiter on top of that as the start of the kick will probably go through pretty loud... oh and you need to send them both to the same channel and on that channel put a compressor...

Re: Compression

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c A sound that is not loud enough in the mix but is still going over 0.0 can be boosted by having a compressor reduce frequencies over a set threshold.

If you have this problem I think you should rather look to the rest of the mix than boost that sound. If you turn it up even louder, you will eventually clip the sound which can result in some unpleasent distortion.

Compression is an art, yes. I don't always look at the setting of a compressor, I ussually set the treshold at -30dB and de rest of the setting can differ. I use my ears to set a compressor, lately I really fell in love with the sonalksis compressors, they are really lovely.

My way of working is to put a kick on a channel with EQ and compression bypassed. First I will work with the EQ to get a rough nice kick sound and afterwards I turn on the compressor and tweak the settings. Even than, I probably adjust the EQ setting and compressor during the track to see how it fits best.

forget all about it man. were all tired of tracks sounding like radio

Is compression necessary for a track?
Or is it more treatable as a kind of effect for your track?

quote:

Originally posted by Barachem Is compression necessary for a track? Or is it more treatable as a kind of effect for your track?

A buddy of mine told me once (6 years ago...) that no compression = less dancing people... and he was quite right compression when done right gives a great effect on sounds and just makes you wanna move with the music... so i wouldn't recommend not using compression at all

Re: Compression

quote:

Originally posted by Sonic_c My understanding of compression is A sound that is not loud enough in the mix but is still going over 0.0 can be boosted by having a compressor reduce frequencies over a set threshold.

I would think of compression as a way of controlling the dynamics of your track in order to achieve a tighter, more professional mix rather than just allowing you to keep levels under 0.0.

I would also avoid thinking of compression as a way of boosting a sound, although it can be used for that. Instead i would think of it as a way of reducing the differences between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio track (the dynamics). By reducing the levels of the peaks in the audio signal, the overall volume of that audio track can be boosted, as the peaks wont take up so much of the available headroom of the mix. By trimming the peaks subtly across whichever tracks in your mix need a little taming, you can significantly improve the tightness of your mix, and the overall volume of the mix will be louder.

Learn to be subtle with your compression though or you will lose all the dynamics from your mix. You can also use compression across the entire mix, but this is a whole other area which i wouldnt worry about until you have mastered using compression within your mix itself.

As for sidechain compression, the method will vary depending on your software platform, but basically you would need to have some sort of trigger (either a kick drum audio track or a midi track programmed on every beat) which is then linked to the sidechain input of your compressor. So if you want to add sidechain compression to a bass part, simply place a compressor on the bass track and link the sidechain input to your trigger part, whatever channel that may be on. Make sure you experiment with the attack/release and the threshold/ratio settings to get the pumping effect your looking for, and remember subtlety is important here too, unless you want a deliberately overcompressed feel!

Hope that was of some use!

compression when done wrong gives headache.

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