COMPRESSION USES

There are 2 primary ways I use compression on an individual, track based level:

1. To control and shape transients (attacks)

1. Percussion shaping
2. Percussive/Plucky Instrument Sculpting

2. To control the volume of a sound over time

1. The vocalist who’s volume is all over the place
2. The guitar performance which is naturally very dynamic

Using Compression to Tame Transients

1. Set your ratio 2:1.
2. Set both a fast attack and release of 1ms or less.
3. Pull your threshold down until your transient begins to disappear.
4. Now slow down your attack so that as much of the transient as you desire is allowed to come through.
5. Set your release timing between 10-40ms so the tail of your transient is relatively unaffected.      
6. Adjust your Makeup Gain to return the sound to its original volume.
7. You can do a finishing pass by going back between your ratio, attack and release settings and tweaking them in conjunction with one another.

You can use this same process to amplify and further shape the presentation of a transient. The only difference would be to set a slower attack so the transient or ‘head’ is allowed to slip through unaffected before your automatic volume fader moves down to decrease the volume of the body sound.

Using Compression to Even the Volume of Vocals

I use vocals as an example because it’s very easy to notice the effect of compression on vocals. This is because as human beings our hearing is naturally sensitive to the various audio cues present in the human voice.

1. Set your ratio 2:1.
2. Set your attack and release to 1ms or less.
3. Pull your threshold down until you have 10 db of gain reduction.

1. With this amount of gain reduction a vocal will sound a little unnatural, wait until step 6 to fix that.

4. Now open your attack until the vocals consonants and plosives sound as pleasing and intelligible as you’d like.

1. Very fast attacks settings will squash consonant/plosive sounds in a vocal. However, in a musical setting you can get away with faster attacks since music is creative you really can do whatever you feel like.

5. For natural sounding vocals set the release between 15-40ms.
6. Pull the threshold up until you have about 6db of gain reduction.
7. Adjust your makeup gain to return the sound to its original perceived volume level.
8. You can do a finishing pass by going back to your ratio, attack and release settings and further tweaking them in conjunction with one another.