Compressors Explained – Sound Basics with Stella Episode 3

hi everyone I want to play two examples of a drum track I have and let's see if you can hear the difference between them [Music] could you hear what the difference was compression the first drawn example I played for you was natural and unprocessed like you would hear if you were standing in front of the drum kit the second example was the same drum but heavily compressed the two most important processors the sounds engineer use when mixing or EQ which we talked about in Episode two and compressors which I'm going to talk to you about in this episode of some basics with sara.a [Music] compressors main job is to even out the volume level of an audio track think of how a singer performs a song sometimes they can sing really loud and sometimes really soft but when you mix the singer with other instruments in the band it can be very difficult to hear the loud parts and soft parts equally now if you turn the volume up to hear the soft parts then the loud parts will be too loud and if you turn the volume down you won't hear the soft parts if you've ever been to a concert and had trouble hearing the singer this is where a good compressor can really save the day a compressor will take the loudest parts of the audio signal and lower them in a very pleasing way it doesn't lower the entire signal the way adjusting the volume would it only lowers the parts of the signal that is too loud and you decide what too loud is by setting the threshold anything below the threshold stays unprocessed anything above the threshold will be compressed and again you get to decide how much you want to compress this loud part by adjusting something called the ratio let me show you how this works I have a vocal tract here from song of mine called like a rope within the differences in volume as I play the vocals now it's freezing cold if you said it yourself love is like a rose and I miss you like hell now I'm going to open a compressor called the Renaissance compressor so we can even out the level of the vocal first we'll decide how much we want to lower the loud parts using the ratio now and then we'll adjust the threshold set the point at which the compressor is going to start working when the threshold is set to zero that means all the audio will pass through unprocessed the more you lower the threshold the sooner the compressor will kick in you can use their ears or look at the mirrors and the compressor which tells you by how many decibels you're lowering the sound but remember you're not lowering the entire signal only the parts that cross the threshold you set if you said it yourself love is like a rose and I'll miss you like hell if you keep on running well I'm busy here another thing that's important when adjusting your compression settings is the make up game or the amount of level you need to add to the entire track after compressing it because if we're compressing the loudest parts to be lower and more even with soft parts then our entire track is also going to be lower in volume after compressing it and this is where we apply make up game here is the original unprocessed waveform of our vocal tract you can see how there's a big difference between the loudest and softest parts now look at our vocal after we've applied compression there is less of a difference between the loudest and softest parts finally here is how it looks after we've applied some make up game now that you know how compressor works let's talk about why we use it the main reason we use compression is to even out the level of your trucks with compressing a track sounds very different from simply raising and lowering the volume a compressor brings out all the details of the sound give more life to it more energy or as we commonly say more punch a compressed sound punches through the mix better and cuts through the rest of the instrument let's listen to a few examples and you'll hear what I'm talking about [Music] finally let's listen to the difference between these two sounds in full mix because that's where the context matters most [Music] you [Music] [Applause] compression is a huge part of any great mix and knowing how to apply it properly will help your music tremendously there is also a lot more to learn such as attack release sine chaining and choosing different types of compressors so that's for another episode in the meantime if you want to learn more about compression and how to use it properly when mixing go to wave calm flash videos where you can watch a variety of tutorials and hear demos of compression and of course make sure to subscribe to the wave future channel for more sound basics and Stella

Channel: Waves Audio

Views: 525,216

Rating: 4.9596119 out of 5

Keywords: what are audio compressors, compressors eplained, what is compressor, what is compressor plugin, what is audio compressor, audio compressor explained, compressor basics, audio compression, what is audio compression, what is transient, what does a compressor do, what is a compressor, what is a limiter, how to use compressor

Id: IbIC7B4BU6g

Length: 5min 53sec (353 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 26 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/BernieTheWalrus]

Parallel compression + parallel distorsion on drums = pure love