Audio Compression - What Is It and Why Do People Use It?

In this commodity we will aboriginal allocution about compression in what it is and how it's used. Afresh we attending at the 4 important things you charge to apperceive and accept to use compression in your audio recordings correctly.
When you add compression, you add noise. Why does a compressor add noise?
The purpose of a compressor is to abate the activating ambit of a clue or absolute mix. This agency it reduces the college levels and brings them down afterpiece to the lower levels. Basically you're crushing down the complete and afresh bringing it all aback up again.
Now the botheration is the arresting sounds quieter because the aiguille levels were brought down and will charge to be brought aback up.
Now the arresting is as loud as it was afore in the peaks, and the lower-level sections are aswell louder.
Unfortunately the compressor has no way of appropriate amid the low akin babble that you don't wish and the low akin arresting that you do want. Every arresting contains some noise. There is no such affair as a noise-free recording.
The job of a acceptable audio architect is getting able to administer all this babble effectively.
When a stereo mix is compressed,, it will be noisier. You can acquaint how abundant by searching at the accretion abridgement beat on your compressor; the best accretion abridgement that it shows is according in decibels to the bulk of babble you accept added.
Most recordings use compression. All pop music you apprehend on the radio uses a lot of compression. Why? Well, we've gotten to a point area it's a antagonism to see who can accomplish the loudest record!
A acceptable recording architect can use compression as a actual admired tool, although abounding musicians that are home recording flat enthusiasts don't absolutely accept audio compression and what to do with it.
OK, abundant babbling... this is what you charge to know:
The 1st affair to attending at if alive (or playing) with a compressor is the "threshold".
This is the point at which the compressor bliss in and starts to do it's thing. If you're application a plugin which came with your audio recording software affairs set it to the branch absence setting. This will be a average ambience so you can go to either acute and see how it operates. After it bliss in, it starts axis the all-embracing level, or aggregate down.
The 2nd affair to attending at is the "ratio".
The arrangement will actuate how abundant akin is angry down in the threshold. So if your arrangement akin says 4:1, that agency 4 db of arresting is traveling into the compressor and alone 1 db is accustomed to appear out. Typical settings as on the Bombfactory compressor will be 4:1, 8:1, 12:1, and 20:1. The college the amount the greater the compression.
The 3rd affair to attending at is the "attack".
The advance determines how anon the all-embracing akin of complete (refer to the "gain reduction" nob) will alpha to be altered.
The 4th affair to attending at is the "release".
The absolution time agency how continued until the assemblage stops altering the sound. A low advance ambience will acquiesce added of the antecedent arresting to get through after getting altered.
What about a "limiter"? It's a compressor as well. The aberration getting that we use it for authoritative casual peaks of audio rather than burden consistently for ascendancy purposes as done with a compressor. So the limiter will alpha at 10:1 and go up from there, So, say you accept a clue that over ailing in alone a brace places in the accomplished song, you could put a limiter on it and it would alone bang in at those peaks and be absolutely unaffecting the blow of the time.
*Tip for application compression.
A acceptable tip I abstruse from engineers is not to use compression on your stereo outputs of your bond board. So, if you see your all-overs pinning a bit into the red, instead of throwing a compressor on em, attending at which alone advance are amenable instead.
It's appetizing to put the compressor on the all-embracing mix because that's the simple way, but if you plan on absolute the alone advance you will get a added accustomed agreeable achievement aspect to your mix and added dynamics too.