Lobsided Waveforms?

[allegroloop]

Does anyone know why when audio is run through a compressor before AD, the wave form becomes lobsided, with the bigger transients on the bottom. I have seen it on HD systems running the best equipment down to cheap converters hooked up to Wavelab on a PC. Its always heavy on the bottom...hmmmm...Please Help.

[Farview]

If you change the attack and release times, that will get better.

[colinmiller]

Could be DC offset.

[Farview]

It's only DC offset when the centerline (the silence) is not at zero. If the silence is where it should be and the waveform is still lobsided, it's your compression settings.

[joeq]

what does it SOUND like?

asymmetrical waveforms in and of themselves are not "bad" and can exist even with no DC offset or other problems.

They usually indicate a lot of harmonics which some people like

Brass instruments often look lopsided, even with no compression.

If you were to measure the wave above and below the '0' line you will quite often find that the area is the same. One side may be 'taller' but the other side will be 'wider' - the waveform is still symmetrical in terms of power

do a search on GS for 'asymmetrical' and 'waves' or 'waveforms'

[sleepwalker]

Don't worry about it. Look at the output of really nice sounding analog synths sometime. You'll see that the waveforms are rarely symmetrical, especially basses and brasses.

Originally Posted by joeq

what does it SOUND like?

asymmetrical waveforms in and of themselves are not "bad" and can exist even with no DC offset or other problems.

They usually indicate a lot of harmonics which some people like

Brass instruments often look lopsided, even with no compression.

If you were to measure the wave above and below the '0' line you will quite often find that the area is the same. One side may be 'taller' but the other side will be 'wider' - the waveform is still symmetrical in terms of power

do a search on GS for 'asymmetrical' and 'waves' or 'waveforms'

[Francis Vaughan]

A waveform that is half wave symmetric (that is if you invert it and phase shift it - it gets you the same waveform back again) has the characteristic that it only contains odd order harmonics. If the waveform is not half wave symmetric; well it will appear lopsided, and will contain, in addition to odd order components, even order harmonics.

Using a compressor, especially one with a single ended - asymmetric - overdriven element - will warm the sound up - possibly a lot. And is likely to be something you want. Warming the sound up is usually a result of getting some low order even harmonics in. So it should be no surprise that waveform is lopsided.