Modern Recording Techniques
Chapter 14 Tutorial: Compression
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A compressor can be thought of as an automatic fader. It is used to proportionately reduce the dynamics of a signal that rise above a user-definable level (known as the threshold) to a lesser volume range.
The use of compression (and most forms of dynamics processing) is often misunderstood, and compression can easily be abused. Generally, the idea behind these processing systems is to reduce the overall dynamic range of a track, music, or sound program or to raise its overall perceived level… without adversely affecting the sound of the track itself. It's a well-known fact that over-compression can actually squeeze the life out of a performance by limiting the dynamics and reducing the transient peaks that can give life to a performance. Here are various examples of how compression can be used and abused.
Do It Yourself Tutorial: Compression
Listen to the audio examples:
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Download the compression_tutorial_files.zip which contains the mp3 audio examples and the jpgs for this tutorial.
- Compressiontutorial1_vocal.mp3
- Compressiontutorial2_mix.mp3
- Compressiontutorial3_vocalneve33609.mp3
- Compressiontutorial4_mixneve33609.mp3
- Compressiontutorial5_uaprecisionbuss.jpg
- Compressiontutorial6_uaneve33609.jpg
"Cosmic Birthday Boy" example tracks (Colabs - David Miles Huber/Seren Wen) appear courtesy of 51bpm.com llc