What is compression?

[cracktactics]

I understand from looking through the forum and producing myself that compression is important and i think i understand what effects it can have, but what exactly is compression and what am i doing when i compress sounds etc?

I've looked on the internet and havent found anything thats been any real use so i'd apreciate some retard-friendly explanation!

Cheers

[elbe]

there is loads of articles out there, guaranteed at least one music mag has a tutorial. basically it does what it says, it compresses the sound, result is that all the frequencies become closer together in volume.

[silentk]

It's all about dynamics.
in a sound wave you have peaks and valleys in the wave, what compression does, is take the peaks, and bring them down, at the same time as bringing the valleys up, your are lowering the range of volumes within the peice of audio. bringing the highest and lowest volumes together,

[beerz]

wt they said ^ so that it can make a quiter part louder without making the louder bit louder

[martello]

Wiki explanation is also a good place to start - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression. Some good text and graphs there as to the compression, limiting, side chaining etc.

In principle a compressor is an automatic volume control. Compressor is like a tiny manikin controlling the volume button, but he can do it reaally fast

[gh02]

Compressor is like a tiny manikin controlling the volume button, but he can do it reaally fast

[Disco Nutter]

Take a looooong cymbal, add compression to it, and you'll see exactly what that does

[macc]

I wrote this a couple of years ago... Just dug it out, might help

Ok, now I could reel off some numbers that mean nothing to you and you go and use them and learn nothing, and they're not even right for the sounds you have anyway :hahaha: So I'm not going to do that Rather, I suggest you read a little about compression, what it is, why you use it, and what the terms mean. Once you've done that, set up a compressor and play with it doing OBVIOUS compression, but only play with one knob at a time so you get an idea of what each does to the sound. This is ear training too, so you get to hear when you're overdoing it, and you'll get better and better, as will your ears.

Idiot's description of compression:

Compressor listens, hears a 'loud bit' (threshold), turns it down a certain amount (ratio) as quickly as it is told to (attack). Loud bit finishes, compressor starts turning it back to normal level (release).

Think of watching TV - the adverts start and blow your head off cos they're so fucking loud. You could say it exceeded your 'threshold'. So you fumble for the remote control and turn it down by hammering the volume down button (attack). Eventually after you turn it down by a certain amount (ratio) it sounds alright. Then the adverts finish and you can't hear the fucking programme you were watching, and you have to find the remote again to turn it back up to where it was in the first place (release).

That's an idiot description but it is actually quite good :hahaha:




This explains it rather well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_ra ... 28audio%29