1
Q
What is compression?
A
- a smart volume fader
- a tool to control the dynamic range of an instrument
- most commonly used to make loud sound quieter and quiet sounds louder to squid the overall dynamics and volume of a particular instrument
2
Q
What are the 4 goals of compression?
A
- to balance
- to enhance
- to glue
- to fix
3
Q
what is the balance goal of compression?
A
- in order to get a balanced mix, 30% of your job is going to be compressing your instruments well
- in the aspect of balancing compression you want to make the loud sounds quieter and the quiet sounds louder
- you’re trying to balance the dynamics of an instruments performance
- balancing your tracks is important because tracks with large dynamic ranges just pop in and out of your static mix at random
4
Q
what is the enhance goal of compression?
A
- to enhance the tone of a particular instrument
- if the sound of your instruments are boring, the balance aspect of your mix may not matter than much
- tonal compression changes the sounds tone in some way such as making it punchier, thicker, flatter or change the groove of an instrument
- accomplishing enhancement is going to give you more exciting instruments and therefore a better mix along with it
5
Q
what is the glue goal of compression?
A
- what takes a mix from sounding like a bunch of random tracks into sounding like a completed mix is glue compression
- glue compression brings out all of the instruments together to make them feel more cohesive
- a lot more vaguer than the other goals of compression alongside it being more of a feel thing than it is so much that is extremely tangible
- glue compression creates a sense of togetherness
- the way you carry out glue compression is by bussing several instruments together to a single track and then compressing that track making all of these instruments compressed at the same time creating a sense of unity
6
Q
with is the fix goal of compression?
A
- a type of compression that can take away annoying sounds that focuses the listener on the song and not these problematic sounds
- some of these sounds fixed by compression cannot be fixed by automation / EQ
7
Q
what is dynamic range?
A
- volume difference between the loudest part of the performance and the quietest part of the performance
8
Q
what are the different dynamic ranges in mixing?
A
- musical dynamics
- macro dynamics
- micro dynamics
9
Q
what are musical dynamics?
A
- the range of volume between the loudest part of the song and the quietest part of the song
10
Q
what are macro dynamics?
A
- macro dynamics are the entire track of a performance to the quietest note to the loudest note
- macro dynamics is where you are going to start getting into compression as compression doesn’t really affect musical dynamics as that’s an artistic choice of whatever the song is
- but macro dynamics is where you begin to control stuff as you can bring down the loud notes and bring up the quiet notes
11
Q
what are micro dynamics?
A
- the range of volume between the loudest moment and the quietest moment in every single note an instrument creates
12
Q
how would you compress the micro dynamics of an instrument?
A
- we want to control its volume envelope
- the volume envelope is the unique pattern of loudness that’s made by each instrument
- every single instrument has a standard volume envelope
- all sounds in nature follow the same pattern of loudness though the shape of that pattern isn unique to every single instrument or sound source that produces these sound waves
- e.g. every single snowflake is a snowflake yet they are all unique
- this is the exact same with micro dynamics and the volume envelope
13
Q
how is sound represented through peaks and valleys like a mountain?
A
- the peak of a sound (known as the transient) is the loudest moment of the sound which comes at the very beginning of a sound
- e.g. the initial pluck of a guitar string would be the peak as its the loudest part of the sound
- the peak is what gives a sound its punch/impact
- the valley (also known as the sustain), is the second half of the sound, it is the rest of the note
- there is an initial loud moment with the peak and then the rest of the note is the valley (the sustain)
- the valley continues until another transient occurs, or until the instrument runs out of energy
14
Q
why can’t you hear compression?
A
- good compression comes in layers
- each of these layers are accomplishing a different goal and doing it subtly
- whilst a certain layer may not be that audible on its own, it does huge service to the mix as a whole
15
Q
what is the threshold on a compressor?
A
- the volume level that turns on the compressor once the audio goes above it
- starts to reduce the gain once the volume has breached the threshold
- can be used to choose the part of the volume envelope / the part of the micro dynamics that you want to target
- you can use the threshold to target the peaks and then valleys of a note
- when you combine this with the different parameters of a compressor you’ll be able to achieve different styles of compression
- the threshold is fixed and does not move
- the ratio is fluid
16
Q
what is the ratio on a compressor?
A
- how hard the compressor works after the threshold has been breached
- how aggressively the compressor turns down the volume
- as you turn the ratio up, the peaks and the valleys within the micro dynamics gets smushed closer to the threshold line
- the harder the ratio, the harder the compressor turns down the volume
- e.g. a ratio of 1:1 = for every 1dB that goes above the threshold, 1dB is outputted by the compressor (nothing happens)
- a ratio of 2:1 = for every 2dB that goes above the threshold 1dB is outputted
17
Q
How would you turn your ration into a % for understanding of the gain reduction?
A
e.g. a ratio of 4:1
- create a fraction with the ratio making 1/4
- 1 - 1/4 = 75%
- so 75% of the gain that goes above the threshold is getting turned down by the compressor
18
Q
what is the attack on a compressor?
A
- the amount of time it takes for the compressor to apply the full dose of compression, after a sound has gone above the threshold
19
Q
what is the release on a compressor?
A
- the amount of time it takes the compressor to fully recover from the gain reduction
20
Q
what does a fast attack do?
A
- grabs your peaks really hard
21
Q
what does a slow attack do?
A
- lets you peaks pass through relatively uncompressed
22
Q
what does a fast release do?
A
- makes your compressor alot more dramatic
23
Q
what does a slow release do?
A
- makes the compressor more transparent
24
Q
what is a fast attack time?
A
- 1-1000us
25
what is a medium attack time?
- 1-10 ms
26
what is a slow attack time?
- 10-100 ms
27
what is a fast release time?
- 0-100 ms
28
what is a medium release time?
- 100-500 ms
29
what is a slow release time?
- 500 ms- 20s
30
why are release times slower than attack times?
- because the valley of the audio lasts for a lot longer than the initial peak
31
what is makeup gain?
- simply turns up the volume of the output of a compressor
- a compressor has a function of making loud sounds quieter
- the make up gain is what makes the quiet sounds louder
- makeup gain is what is used for gain staging as without it, you're going to lose volume from the initial track from the compression
- creates a thicker and dense sound with a loud and balanced break and valley
32
what is a side chain on a compressor?
- the side chain is the ears of a compressor
- the mechanism inside a compressor that actually listens to the sound going through it
- without the side chains there is no compression
- even though there is one side chain, there are actually two different sources for the side chain
33
what is the internal source of the side chain?
- the compressor listening to the channel that the plugin is on
- if the compressor is on a drum set, the internal source is the drum set
34
what is the external source of the side chain?
- when the compressor listens to a different instrument and acts as if it was compressing that instrument instead
- e.g. you may have a bass guitar and a kick drum, you may have a compressor on a bass guitar but you may tell your compressor to listen to the kick drum so that the bass turns down every single time the kick comes in
35
what is a side chain filter?
- tells the side chain (the ears of the compressor) to ignore a certain part of the frequency spectrum
- this doesn't change the tone at all, it only changes how the compressor is working
- e.g. ignoring the low end on a kick drum
36
what are the lesser used parameters on a compressor?
- knee
- range
- hold
- threshold
37
what is the knee?
- turns the threshold from a single number into a range of numbers
- this of course makes the compressor generally less accurate but can also help your compressor to generally feel bit more natural
38
what is the range?
- affects the amount of compression that is being applied
- the range is just setting your maximum amount of gain reduction
- it basically sets the upper limit and keeps you from having insane amounts of compression
39
what is the hold?
- prolongs the peaks in gain reduction
- if a particularly loud spike goes through, it is going to compress that audio for a longer amount of time before allowing the release to do its job
40
what is the lookahead?
- a unique parameter in digital compression and something that can't exist in the analog world
- the computer delays the playback of the whole session by a few milliseconds causing some latency in the entire session in order to pre-process the track
- in doing so, its able to see where every single spike in loudness actually is, it knows ahead of time when to turn itself open as it anticipates the peaks - causes gain reduction just before the loudness goes above the threshold
41
how do you set up your compressor?
1- set your threshold to 0dB
2 - set your ratio to its highest point
3 - make your attack and release as fast as they will go
4 - set the knee control to 0.0
5 - turn auto gain off / auto release off
6 - lower the threshold until you are getting short spikes of gain reduction at the beginning of each note. if the compression doesn't return to zero quickly, you've gone too far
7 - adjust your attack and release times to match your compression style
8 - adjust your knee to make the compression feel more natural
9 - turn your ratio to 1:1, then slowly turn it up. Stop once you have the amount of gain reduction you want
10 - adjust your makeup gain to match your compression style
42
what is consistency style compression?
- meant to rebalance the macro dynamics
- the part of compression where you turn the loud stuff down and the quiet stuff up
- you're not trying to change any micro dynamics or tone when carrying out compression for a consistent sound
- if done right, its subtle and something the listener can't hear
43
how do you create consistency style compression?
- has a high threshold
- slow release - set in time with your song, bpm + notation
- fast attack to grab the peak in its entirety
44
how do you use make up gain on consistency style compression?
- the peak level is the dB unit you can see on your digital scale meter (dBFS meter
- a loudness meter can be used for makeup gain to match the valleys
- the loudness usually comes from how loud the valleys are
- for a consistent sound you are aiming to match the make up gain to the valleys
45
what is thickness style compression?
- when considering 'thickness' compression, its all about changing the tone
- thickness style compression focuses on enhancing a sound
- this is achieved by targeting the peaks and not the valleys
- by compressing the peaks, whenever we turn a track up using make up gain, our valleys are going to be much much louder which concludes to a much greater overall loudness
- our ears tend to hear averages of sound, we tend to gauge whether a sound is loud or not more based on how loud the valley is rather than the peak
- using thickness style compression will get you alot of loudness
46
how do you achieve thickness style compression?
- set the threshold initially to be catching the peaks since those are the only things we want to turn down
- ensure you have a fast attack to grab the peaks as quickly as you can
- ensure you have a fast release (you want a fast attack and release so none of the valleys are becoming compressed)
- by doing this process you will have levelled out the waveform as well as using makeup gain to get a huge sound
- try and match your make up gain to your initial peaks
47
what is punchy style compression?
- to get a 'punchy' sound, you are increasing the volume of the peaks
- similarly to thickness compression, this will be changing the tone of the sound
- this means we will be changing the micro dynamics
48
how do you achieve punchy style compression?
- a slow attack means you will be leaving the peaks unharmed
- a slow release enables you to capture everything after the peaks with the gain reduction
- set a low threshold (slow return to 0 rather than a spike)
- set the ratio so its not too aggressive
- this configuration will change the wave sound to be alot more punchier
49
why should you be cautious with punchy compression?
- punchy compression makes your instrument feel more alive but it eats up more headroom
- therefore be cautious of adding it to too many instruments
50
what is groove style compression?
- accentuates the accents of an instrument
- makes it feel like its moving more with the song
51
how do you achieve groove style compression?
- slow attack
- fast release
- low threshold
(the exact opposite of consistency compression)
- for groove compression it is crucial to have the compressor acting within the tempo of the song (use a delay time calculator)
52
what is depth style compression?
- if you want to push something back into the mix, we want there to be a smaller dynamic range
- if we want to bring something forward in a mix we want there to be a larger dynamic range
- louder the peaks, the more forward in the mix it will sound, the smaller the peaks, the further back into the mix it will sound
53
how do you create headroom with compression?
- when you have too many peaks that take up the headroom in your mix, this may limit what can be achieve during mastering as there will be less headroom to work with
- this is with specific concerns to a limiter
- in order to create head room you want to turn down the peaks of certain sounds
- however, we want to turn this down in such a way where we are not going to change the tone; we are not trying to get a thick sound even though we are going to do thickness style compression - we are simply trying to tame a few of the peaks
54
how do you turn down 'room sound'?
- one of the most problematic parts of home recording is the fact that your recording in a room that's imperfect
- room tone lives in the valleys of a sound
- to reduce the room tone we want to turn the sustain of the valleys down
- this form of compression will not be easy to do without changing the tone
- this style of compression follows from the punchy style with a slow attack / release and a low threshold
55
what styles of compression are used to balance?
- consistency compression
- depth (farther)
- depth (closer)
56
what styles of compression are used to enhance?
- punchy compression
- thickness compression
- groove compression
57
what styles of compression are used to glue?
- consistent compression
- depth (farther)
- groove compression
58
what styles of compression are used to fix?
- create headroom
- turn down room sound
59
what is the pumping over-compression style?
- you have a really fast release on your compressor
- creates a noticeable dip in gain
- caused by a groove style compression from a heavy ratio
- when not used in a subtle way, you get pumping
- pumping may be intentionally used in EDM or electronic music
60
what is the breathing/splat over-compression style?
- breathing is whenever you have a sustaining instrument, where the compressor is clamping down too hard then it has a very slow release
- with breathing, its almost as if the compressor is exhaling
- this also causes splat which is the beginning of each note are becoming very unfocused because they're getting so squished down
- its as if the peak is holding itself with the valley
- this style of compression may be caused by consistency compression
61
what is the brickwall / lifelessness style of compression?
- brick wall is very similar to thickness style but it has a low threshold instead of a high threshold
- through brick walling, you will have turned the peaks down too much even in level with the valleys and you get an extremely unnatural sound
- when adding this style of compression to a sound that has a much larger dynamic range, then it might not become quite as overly thick as other sounds, but, using this style will suck all the life out of it especially if you're doing it in a mix
62
what is the inconsistency over-compression style?
- inconsistency pops up alot when you're using an especially dynamic track and then compressing it
- this style can be derived from punchy style compression
- by using an aggressive ratio it turns down the sound very harshly with the low threshold
63
how can you fix over compression?
- back off your attack and release times
- set your threshold to achieve the thing that you want to do
- back off your ratio
64
how can you compress any instrument?
- step 1: figure out your goal: to balance, enhance, glue, fix
- step 2: decide on a compression style
- step 3: find your styles settings
- step 4: find your peaks and valleys
- step 5: set up your compressor
65
how fast are percussion instrument peaks?
- 1-10ms
66
how fast are rhythmic instrument peaks? (guitars, bass, piano)?
- 10-40ms
67
how fast are sustained instrument peaks?
15-60ms
68
what is serial compression?
- stacking multiple compressors in a row to get a compressed sound that's not too aggressive
- this can be effective on particularly dynamic instruments that may need significant gain reduction
69
what is outboard gear?
- gear that the mixer can route the audio to, to change it in some way
70
what is parallel compression?
- instead of compressing a track directly, its putting a compressor on a 'send'
- this is a copy of the original track and then mixing that track subtly
- because you have the original file still in place, it makes the compression sound natural rather than fake
71
how do you create parallel compression?
- create a send and set it to pre-fader
- put a compressor on the parallel track
- assign a group to your drum set and your parallel track (helps with volume automation simultaneously rather than having separate compressed and uncompressed signals)
72
how can you use parallel compression without a send?
- utilising the mix knob on the compressor plugin
- they mix in the wet signal with the dry signal
- the only downside is you no longer have your initial dry sound as you would with a send
73
what are the stages of compressing an entire mix?
- Pre-mix
- Mix-bus
- balancing
- glueing
- enhancing
- fixing
74
what are the 3 tasks of the pre mix?
- routing
- gain automation
- volume balance
75
what is routing?
- organising all your instrument audio tracks to buses and then sending those buses to your stereo output
- a bus is an auxiliary track that several different tracks are flowing into
- like a school bus picking up different kids from different places and taking them all to one place being the school
76
what is gain automation?
- all about creating consistency in the volume before applying compression so compression is active throughout a song
- gain automation is like doing compression before putting on a. compressor
- you can do this by adding a gain plugin and automation the gain levels to be equal and consistent throughout the track
- or you can split he track up into different regions and manually increase/decrease the gain in that section to make it equal with the rest of the piece
- also use a cross fader between each section you have cut to prevent any clipping or popping
77
what is volume balance?
- the volume balance is the most important thing in a mix
- begin by taking all of your channels down to no volume on their faders
- a good thing to do is listen to reference track to have a good gauge on what levels to set these tracks too
78
why do we use mix bus compressors?
- mix bus compressor glues the entire mix together
- you want to add the mix bus compressor at the the start of your compressing processing of your entire mix
- you're suppose to mix through it and not add it to the very end
- you want to mix with the mix bus in mind
79
what styles of compression would you use on the mix bus?
- the goal is to glue so you want to achieve:
- consistency style: give you a layer of protection to make sure nothing is peaking out too much
- depth style is going to lower the dynamic range of the material
- groove style will keep the peaks intact and will give the entire mix a little bit of balance
80
what must you be cautious off when using a mix bus compressor?
- theyre very easy to overdo, aim for only 1 or 2 dB's of compression at the most
81
how can you use serial compression on the mix bus?
- you can add 2 different styles of glue compression
- make sure the same amount of decibels you compress together are equal to how much you would compress on a singular compressor
82
how can you add colour created on the mix bus?
- use parallel compression and mix in the dry and wet signal
83
how can you deal with low end on the mix bus compressor?
- use the side chain filter on your compressor to alter the high pass frequency
- since bass and kick are extremely loud frequencies in the low end for the compressor, it may not focus on the entire mix as well
- therefore you use a high pass filter and filter out the low frequencies, then the mic, bass and snare will be compressed at the same level rather than interfering low end dominance
- a good way to achieve this is by turning up your high pass filter gradually until your kick and snare are getting the same amount of gain reduction
84
why do you use balancing when compressing a mix?
- the most important goal of compression
- not looking to change the tone but rather create consistency
- vocals especially need this kind of attention since they are so dynamic
85
where do you apply balancing when compressing a mix?
- you will apply this method of compression on individual tracks rather than bus tracks as bus tracks are used more for glue and enhancing
- you may use. serial compression to get greater consistency with the instrument
86
how do you balance low end in the mix?
- if you're doing consistency compression on low end instruments be cautious of not doing a fast attack time since bass frequencies are a lot slower than other frequencies
87
how would you use depth style compression to balance a mix?
- it can be particularly useful with pushing harmony vocals behind the main vocals
88
when do you use glueing when compressing a mix?
- aiming to make a bunch of random tracks sound together
- the changes you make with this will be very subtle but will add up with other compression goals in place
89
where would you use glue compression in a mix?
- once everything is routed, its ideal to do glue compression on all of your buses to make them feel more connected
90
when doing you use enhancement when compressing a mix?
- you can use parallel compression if you want to get more aggression from the compressor
- you can also mix in the enhancement subtly so you don't over do it on the bus of those instruments
91
when should you carry out enhancement compression?
- you want to listen out for anything that needs more life or room sound
92
when should you fix something with compression?
- if you see something that needs fixing with compression, then do it there and then and when the problem arises
- e.g. creating headroom on a snare drum to make other compression easier
93
what is a limiter?
- used in mastering
- a limiter is the most aggressive compressor you can possibly have, its going to be extremely fast and grab your peaks extremely accurate
- has a ratio of infinity
- any peaks that go above the threshold are being turned down to infinity
- limiting is fantastic for gaining loudness as we are decreasing the dynamic range and increasing the average level, decreasing the peaks and increasing he valleys
- limiting is dangerous for someone to do if they don't know what they're doing
94
what is saturation?
- saturation adds new frequencies to an instruments tone
- occurs in analog recordings and not digital recordings
95
what are the 6 stages of studio saturation?
- analog preamp - turns up the gain that's being added to the microphone
- analog tracking board
- tracking tape machine
- analog mixing board
- analog summing channel
- master tape machine
96
where should you place your compressor?
- audio flows linearly
- it goes through each plugin and gets processed individually rather than all at once
- the ideal plugin order is: cleaning EQ, compression, tonal EQ effects
97
what are the three main issues low end frequencies and compressors don't go well?
1. humans hear low frequencies more quietly than the rest of the frequency range
2. most of the micro dynamics of a low end instrument don't live in the lows
3. bass frequencies are slower than your standard fast attack times
98
Why can compression make home recordings sound worse?
- the reverb of a sound and added room sound live in the valleys of an audio track
- if you use a style of compression that turns the valleys up, you will be turning that general reverb up tightening areas of room sound
99
what are the solutions to reduce room reverb?
- pick a better room
- sound waves hate parallel walls
- avoid a lot of windows, mirrors, highly reflective surfaces
- invest in good acoustic treatment
- use acoustic panels and not foam to soak up sound
- use midi
100
how do you compress pop music?
- very concerned about perfection and consistency rather than musicality
- everything in the right place
- pop is concerned with controlling the dynamics not the tone
- use of consistency style compression
101
how do you compress rock music?
- rock is the opposite of pop as its more concerned with shaping tone than controlling dynamics
- rock is all about the colour you get from compression
- focus on the enhance goals and the glue goals
- a lot more use of slow attack times, due to more aggression
102
how do you compress hip hop music?
- old style hip hop is linked closely to rock style compression (tone)
- newer style hip hop is mixed closely to pop (control)
103
how do you compress acoustic style genres?
- meant to sound natural
- very little compression added
104
how do you compress electronic music?
- a lot of processing similar to pop with the vocals
- doesnt generally need too much compression as most instruments in this style all hit at around the same dynamic level
105
what's the best way to figure out how to compress your style of music?
- use reference tracks
Music production
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