OK, I've got a song, and there's a compressor at the top (connected from the mixer to the sound output) that I'm using to get rid of clipping and make the track sound a bit smoother... anyway I'm having a problem with it, at bits in the song when the kick drum goes away, the other elements of the song get louder. For example there's a bit near the start of the song when there's just the kick and some percussion, and for 4 bars the kick goes silent, and after that it comes back along with the new bassline. In these 4 bars that there's no kick, the percussion gets louder, and I've noticed other little bits in the song where that happens.

Any idea why this is happening? I'm quite sure it's to do with the main compressor because when I bypass it, the problem doesn't happen, and I know that compressors work with sound levels.

Thanks...

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Compressors do that. The compressor's settings are probably giving it some gain and then compressing at a cutoff. When the kick goes away, the signal is no longer reaching this cutoff point so it is allowed to be boosted up without being compressed.

It's probably a matter of fixing the settings, but from recall, the reason compressor wasn't much use to me back in the day.

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quote:

Originally posted by hey cheggy Compressors do that. The compressor's settings are probably giving it some gain and then compressing at a cutoff. When the kick goes away, the signal is no longer reaching this cutoff point so it is allowed to be boosted up without being compressed. It's probably a matter of fixing the settings, but from recall, the reason compressor wasn't much use to me back in the day.

Yeah, that's right. I only really use Reason's compressor to very minor compression on bass drums and basslines, it's not very good for overall compression.

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Reason’s compressor is indeed as bad as everyone makes it out to be.

For ages I was getting really frustrated with this whole ‘compression lark’. I thought that I was being a complete moron because everyone seemed to get fantastic results with compression and I just couldn’t do anything with it. Fad a go with the built in compressor in Fruity Loops and all my woes disappeared! Instantly I got what I was after.

I really hope they overhaul the compressor in Reason version 3. Hard Knee/Soft Knee/Limiter settings, exact ratio, Attack/Release in ms etc.