d(-_-)b-Phones said:
Say I drop the lows of the kick in compression eq to 60hz then gain it up to "sounds decent level" and its dropping -0.2db in compression. at whatever ratio you like ( because i dont understand it ) then when i goto EQ will that same 60hz not effect my EQ like if i have already dropped 60 then i drop another 60 am i dropping 120 does it double? is the eq applied the same?
I have to be hones, 'Phones, and say that I don't quite understand that question. It appears to relate to how compression and EQ interrelate. It also appears to confuse frequency with decibels.
Let me instead try this, 'Phones. Let me toss our a few basic principles and you can react to what you understand and don't understand about them and maybe we can go from there?
First, regarding the above example:
In general (I know you want specifics, but I'm sorry, they just don't exist), you want to EQ before you compress to get rid of unwanted lower-volume stuff that muight otherwise become accentuated by the act of compression. Getting rid of a 60Hz ground hum would be a good example, like you used. Conversely you'd EQ after compression to sweeten the resulting sound to taste. But - again, in general - don't necessarily expect EQ that was used pre-compression to sweeten the sound to sound just as sweet after you compress, because the compression could accentuate frequencies that you didn't EQ.
So, with that in mind, EQ to get rid of "noise", then compress, then EQ to "sweeten". Then, after all the EQing and compression has settled,m you can then set your overall volume levels. to maximum pre-clipping.
As far as compression ratio, those are numbers. How they translate to the real world is not something easy to put a general "if A, then B" rule on. Which is why nobody does that here
. All I can start with is an explanation of what that ratio actually means. If you have a 4:1 compression ratio, it means that for every volume increase of 4dB in the wave form going into the compressor, there will be a volume gain of only 1dB coming out of it. 5:1 means every 5dB gain will come out as only a 1dB gain. and so on. The "threshold" settings just tells the compressor at what volume level to start the compression at (e.g. if your threshold is set at -10dB, that means that the compression will not be applied at any point in the waveform where the volume is less than -10dB.)
Input gain is nothing more than a volume control for the inputs on the compressor. It's kind of like the preamp volume for the compreessor, and has little effect on the actual compression process itself other than ensuring that the volume (voltage) going into the compressor circuitry is at a "comfortable" level for the electronics to work with.
Output gain is just like input gain, except in reverse; it's a volume control for the signal going out the compressor to the next item in the signal chain. This mostly comes in handy when you have fairly moderate-to-heavy compression applied; because the compression lowers the peak volume level and sometimes (but not always) the average volume level of the signal, the Output gain control is often used to boost the overall volume of the signal *after the compressor* to bring it back to a "normal" or desired volume/voltage level.
So, where in all this are hidden the "rules" for how to use a compressor? Nowhere. The "rules" are in the music you're trying to compress. What it takes is an understanding of the relationship between the "flavor" of a given recording and the particular "herbs and spices" that a compressor has domain over to know what to do best. The only way to start that (other than expirimenting) is to take the knowledge of what the "compression ratio" and "threshold" dials actually
do (as described above)
and apply that knowledge to the sounds and waveforms in front of you. In other words, it takes some
thought. It takes, for example, looking at the wave display in the DAW in front of you and seeing just how dynamic the "shape" of the sounds are, looking at the actual levels on the meters and the sides of the wav displays and figuring that if there's one peak at -6dB and another one at -3dB that there's a 3dB difference. Therefore if I set my threshold at -5dB and set the compression to 4:1, the results will be that the first peak will still be around -6dB because it falls under the compressor's current threshold setting (to the more learned readers, we're assumung a hard knee here) and the second will lowered to around -4.25dB.
As you get such a feel for the relationship between what you see on screen and your compressor settings, you'll also be *hearing* how these differences effect the overall sound. And that is what's eventually important. As the Master Men here have shown so well, one should not master with their eyes. However, using your eyes and ears together as part of the learning process for learning just how compression settings relate to what you see and hear will take you a long way to learning how to fly a compressor.
If you can find anything in all the above information that even hints at "rules" or presets or anything like that, I'd like to know what that is. Becaise the BIG variable in thae whole relationship is the waveform; i.e. the nature of the recording your working with. As that changes, the need and application for the compressor changes.
That's not what you want to hear, but that's pretty close to the way it is. Anybody who comes back to you and says "use 2:1 with a threshold of -8 when you are doing this, but 3:1 with a threshold of -10 when you are doing that" is just patronizing you by telling you what you want to hear instead of what you need to know.
Now, given the baseline of information above, what do you need to know?
G.