Compressors: Long Attack + Long Release = Glorified Noise Gate?

[AlexLakis]

I was playing around with some compressor settings on a bottom snare track about an hour ago (I know, I know...kid kept me up all night, couldn't fall back asleep.) As I was tweaking, I found myself moving to a longer attack time and a looong release time. Then it hit me why I was doing it. I wanted to get the initial transient of the snare in there (while still preserving some dynamics,) and a little bit of trail, but I didn't want to grab the bass drum hit bleed. Then it really hit me. What is the difference between doing this and using a noise gate? God, it's too early.

Any thoughts?

[pan]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

What is the difference between doing this and using a noise gate? God, it's too early.

Any thoughts?

err... you could classify this as "pumping"? The bleed will become louder towards the next hit whereas a gate will just shut to silence before the next hit.

Depending on the timeconstants you can get a nice "groove" going on.

Try it also on an ambient or room mic or on a dedicated drum-subgroup...

[Rufuss Sewell]

Yeah, I've thought about that in the past. They're both just reducing the signal based on the input level. Just in opposite ways. And of course if you use one of them in a backwards way it kind of gets the effect of the other. Which is why a gate is also sometimes called an expander. It's kind of like on an EQ in that you would typically cut or boost. But sometimes to increase high end, you cut the lows and turn the whole track up.

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by pan

err... you could classify this as "pumping"? The bleed will become louder towards the next hit whereas a gate will just shut to silence before the next hit.

Depending on the timeconstants you can get a nice "groove" going on.

Try it also on an ambient or room mic or on a dedicated drum-subgroup...

Yeah, I usually do this to an extreme for FOK mics (results in more drums and less cymbals, which I usually have enough of all ready.)

A gate would be more exact, but with enough fiddling, you could get a nice groove going on like you say, and you can get that color you might be after at the same time! Of course, I suppose gates can have "color" too, I just never really though about them that way.

[stellar]

the "difference" is that the release on the compressor will be time based, whereas the gate will not "release" until the threshold is crossed again. Also, the compressor will clamp down with a ratio, whearas the gate will just take everything down to zero. There are more differences.

[Mike Caffrey]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

I was playing around with some compressor settings on a bottom snare track about an hour ago (I know, I know...kid kept me up all night, couldn't fall back asleep.) As I was tweaking, I found myself moving to a longer attack time and a looong release time. Then it hit me why I was doing it. I wanted to get the initial transient of the snare in there (while still preserving some dynamics,) and a little bit of trail, but I didn't want to grab the bass drum hit bleed. Then it really hit me. What is the difference between doing this and using a noise gate? God, it's too early.

Any thoughts?

What's the difference betwee that and a fader move? In a sense nothing. So in that sense, it's identical to a gate that's not set to close to a full mute.

If you wnat to get into the subtleties, the compressor may open fully and be open at the moment of the attack, where as the gat will be closed and the attack will open it.

The envolpe of the dynamic change will be different. Gates are usually much more of an on/off kind of thing, basically an infinitely hard knee. A compressor is usually softer with a smoother transition.

If you look at a plugin menu, you'll see they're all filed under dynamics processors.

[AlexLakis]

Thanks guys!

Yeah, I know the literal differences, I use both tools regularly, just trying to think outside the box early in the morning (key part of that sentence.) Ask, and you shall receive.

The difference between a compressor move and a fader move is the sound/harmonics/etc. that a piece of gear (compressor) will impart while performing it's duties. Of course, faders can have a sound too. Like those lovely VCAs on some SSLs. Their sound is...NOISY!

[Blast9]

Isn't tah called levelling where the comp is evening out long term dynamic changes in level, and keeping it pretty constant