Attack : This is the time in milliseconds taken for the compression to kick in after the threshold has been passed. Too fast an attack could ruin the transient attack of a signal while an attack which is too slow may cause the compression to kick in too late and therefore not provide a quick enough response to the louder sections.
Decay : Decay is the time taken in milliseconds for the reduction in level to return after dropping below the threshold once more. A slow decay can be used to give a sense of additional sustain to a signal, while a quick delay can create punchy and fast hitting sounds. Compression does not really have any rules, there are of course good starting points for different instruments, but just like most other mixing techniques it comes down to the engineers taste, and more importantly what the mix requires.
Some mixes require a snappy kick drum for example while other styles may benefit from a slow sustained kick for the bass to sound more defined. Hopefully you now understand the basics and are ready to dive right in bringing a whole new sound to your mixes!
Use a low ratio, as well as slow attack and release times. A similar trick can be used on reverb and delay sends.
This effect is actually built-into iZotope DDLY, a dynamic delay effect that has the compressor and sidechain built-in and pre-routed. Some compressors use an alternative to sidechain compression to lift the bottom end out of the detection circuit.
Sidechain filtering is an almost essential component of mix-bus compression. In this example, the sidechain signal and the audio signal begin the same but a high-pass filter is applied to the sidechain signal. This way, the detection circuit no longer responds to low-frequency signals and only reduces the gain of the audio signal when the midrange and high frequencies trigger the detector. In effect, this reduces midrange and pushes the low end forward in the mix.
In some compressors, including the Dyn3, this is taken even further by including not just a high-pass filter but a low-pass, and sometimes additional EQ bands. A de-esser is essentially a compressor with a highly tuned sidechain filtered to respond only to the sibilant region of the audio. By sending a duplicate of the audio channel to the external sidechain, we can shape the audio in any way we choose.
This is a great trick for smoothing out a vocal performance while leaving transients uncompressed. This workshop session is built around a simple drum machine pattern, built-in Boom, with a bassline provided by Vacuum. This is going to be our compressor, which we will trigger from the kick drum. Add an additional mono send to the kick track. If it does, be sure to mute that channel or your sidechain will also go to your mix-bus. And put the channel into solo safe mode so the sidechain will still function later when we solo the bass track.
From treating tracks directly via an insert to controlling the dynamic of entire mixes, compression is truly one of the most useful mixing tools.
Serial compression, as the name suggests, means adding a compressor in-line with the flow of signal towards the fader.
This is the most common way to use a compressor. You can use it this with bass, vocals, drums, guitars and anything else that ever needs it. This kind of compression is set up by creating an auxiliary track and inserting a compressor onto it. Then, from a track or multiple tracks you create sends towards the auxiliary track and via the send fader you can control the mix between the dry signal and the compressed signal.
This kind of compression is common for drums, vocals or whole collections of instruments in the mix and is commonly used in conjunction with serial compression to add weight and character to instruments. This is a general compression which is applied on the whole mix by inserting a compressor on the master fader track.
This type of compression employs signals from two different tracks. Basically, when you apply this kind of compression to a track gain reduction is applied every time a signal from another track also called key signal exceeds a certain threshold. A common use is, for example, compressing a bass track using a key signal from the kick drum.
In this set up the engineer can use the compressor so that every time the kick strikes the bass gets a certain amount of dB gain reduction thus letting the kick cut better through the mix.
Check out our detailed tutorial on sidechain compression and also more details about compression , in general. Now that we have a better idea about what a compressor does and how we may use it lets take a look at some of the best compressor plugins for Pro Tools out there:. This one is an emulation of the master buss compressor on the amazing SSL G console. There is no surprise in the layout of the compressor — it has all the standard parameters.
The Rate-s parameter is just another name for knee. A cool feature is that you can set it to auto and let the compressor decide how fast the ratio increases and decreases. This is another great emulation of a vintage analog hardware compressor — the Teletronix LA-2A. It is a wonderful emulation of the real thing and the sound gets ridiculously close to the real thing considering how much cheaper buying the plug-in is compared to the hardware version. It has an embedded attack and release time, both quite slow, and as it only has two main parameters, gain and gain reduction, I am sure you will not get lost with this great sounding software.
This is one of my personal favorites for two reasons — the amazing sound and the crazy cheap price tag. It is not an emulation of a certain hardware compressor but more a collection of features that the developer liked in different hardware compressors. It has three different skins and it is basically three different compressors in one, each having a distinct coloration to it.
What is really special is that you get some really interesting parameters that let the user add coloration and character to the sound. Price tag? This unit has some excellent features and an amazing, amazing sound. It is not an emulation of a specific hardware device but it is clearly modeled after some of the classics.
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