Quote:
Originally Posted by dylansmale  the only reference for a compressor I have is a plug-in.
Threshold is same thing as Attack (I think. please correct me if wrong) and it sort of has to do with how fast the compressor hits the signal?
Release is how fast it lets go?
and the 1:4, 1:8 measurements seem to smash to signal the higher it goes, but its also a bit hard to tell with the plug-in I am using as its kind of transparent. |
Someone tried to teach me compression with this example. Hope it helps, and if it's off please correct me:
Lets say you are looking for stations on an FM radio. You turn the knob thru different stations, some are extremly loud (pop, hip hop LOL) and some are very quiet (classical, spoken word). So you have to "ride" the volume control as not to blast your speakers when approaching a station that is very loud. We've all done that.
The delay before you react when you turn the volume down is ATTACK. If you're fast, you will only allow a tiny bit of loud audio thru. If you're slow you risk the danger of blowing your speakers. If you are a computer, you have "look ahead" and you can forsee which stations are loud, so you react instantly (most of the time)
KNEE is related to ATTACK in that you may rotate the knob slowly or quickly.
When you change to a quieter station, you bring the volume back to it's previous state. The time it takes for you to do this might be considered RELEASE.
(This is the hard part of the anology)
THRESHOLD indicates that there is a certain amount of level that has to be achieved before you'll touch the knob. -11db is listenable, but if the volume ever approaches -6 you turn it down. Everytime the volume reaches -6, you react. Otherwise, you do nothing.
RATIO would be how much you turn the knob down for a given volume. If you are on a percussion station, you might turn the volume down 50% counter clockwise to keep the transients in check. If you like transients, you might turn it down 25%. RATIO is static, so you would be following this percentage... everytime the audio level crosses the THRESHOLD.
While not a direct analogy, it's enough to get your head around. Applying this concept helped me to nail compression.