compression question

C

cranberry71

New member
First, I must say congrats to Dragon for a very well designed and useful site/forum. Now, I really do not have a very good understanding of compression except I think I read where it is useful with noise reduction. I do not have a band, therefore my one man band will be with the help of midi controlled sound modules. How much should I be concerned with this, and if very, I have noticed Alesis has a rather inexpensive Nanocompressor, Any thoughts? Thanks to all
 
Maybe I can shed some light here...

Compressors affect the dynamic range of a signal - that is, the perceived level of the highest high and the lowest low. Signals coming in can sound louder or softer on the output side depending an what settings you use in the compressor. If you set the compression ratio to infinity, no output below your desired threshold occurs...you now have a noise gate. Useful for noise reduction in some circumstances.

Compressors are probably most useful for smoothing out signals that you want to be very consistant (kick drum beat, bass guitar) or signals that have extreme dynamics (screeching lead vocalist). Synth/MIDI signals tend to be very consistant, so I don't know how valuable compression would be for your situation (unless you want to make strange sound FX with it).

Caution: If you want your music to sound open and ambient, don't use alot of compression. These toys can severely limit dynamics, leaving you with a 'canned' sound.

Hope this helps. Maybe some of the MIDI gurus here can chime in on the advantages/disadvantages of compression with primarily synth music.

Dr.D
 
The statement above is very accurate.We try to avoid using compression because it does tend to take away from the dynamics. We have learned to record in a manner that we only have to use a very minimal amount of compression during the mixdown. But from time to time you're going to have that out of control vocal or bass etc. where you have to squash that signal.If possible,the final mix is where you should concentrate your compression.
 
UH OH!!! I think the there is a very major misunderstanding going on here about compression! FIRST, COMPRESSION WILL CAUSE THE EXACT OPPOSIT OF NOISE REDUCTION!!!. Let's see why.

A compressor is what is known as a VCA (voltage control amplifier). It's job is to take an input signal, and somehow control it's output from the unit. There are 3 controls on a VCA that will majorly concern you signal. The Threshold (this is at what volume the VCA will start to work at), the Ratio (this is the input to output difference, meaning if your input signal is 6, and your threshold is set to 4, and the ratio is set to 2:1, then at the output of the VCA you would have a signal that is 5 because the input signal is 2 abouve the threshold and the ratio is for every 2 above the threshold only one will come out), and the output (this is what is known as "make-up gain", a very needed thing in the case that you are compressing the signal heavily. Simply the output just turns up the signal that is coming out of the VCA.

The idea of a VCA is to allow you to get more volume out of softer signals while not getting overloaded with the stronger signals. Basically, it makes low volume higher and high volume lower.

Now, this whole compressor as a noise gate thing that the above is talking about. IT DOES NOT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL!!! If the VCA is going to allow you bring up the lowest volumes, then any background noise's (hiss, hum, crackle, etc...) is going to be turned up too! So actually a VCA will take away from the signal to noise ratio (the difference between noise that equiment makes and the loudest signal that is present is the signal). So, a VCA is not a noise gate, and actually acts exactly opposit of one.

Hope this clears everything up. E-mail me at ed_rei@echostarstudio.com if you need more help. :)
 
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