Compressors/limiters/gates -- What??

P

Professa Plum

New member
Right now I'm workin on a project, teaching myself the ins and outs of digital recording at home with a lot of help from this site...but one thing I still don't really understand is the whole deal about compressors. Is that something I NEED to have? What will it do for the sound? I sort of understand about how it makes everything within a certain volume range or whatnot...but i must not be fully understanding that because It seems to me like i could just play within that volume range...anyway Any help that you could send dealing with compressors and how they work and what they do would be greatly appreciated. And also all that crap about limiters and gates ?? Thanks a lot.
 
Well.... limiters.. are just a bit beyond helpful. I don't know my compressor or gate settings to well so I can't help you there but a limiter completly kicks ars. All a limiter does is make sure the signal doesn't go beyond what U set it for... so basically you set it so the signal will never clip which makes all our lives so much easier =)
 
A gate is a bit like a bouncer at a niteclub - if he doesn't like you shoes, your not getting in :)

Basically, it stops any signal passing through if that signal is not a certain level ie. it would stop the hum coming from a dodgy guitar, cos it's only quiet, but let the actual signal, which is a lot louder.

Ie under a given threshold, doens't go through, over that threshold, goes through.

Kind of like a gate, really...

- gaffa
 
Professa,

I'm pretty new also, My best advice to you about compression is: practice/undo, practice/undo, practice/undo. I'm beginning to get the hang of it and it's really cool when you begin to hear what it is you are actually doing and how it can sometimes bring your sound together.

Rusty K
 
You've really bitten off a number questions here that are hard to answer... Compression, I think is a good thing... You need to use it judiciously - Over doing it will squash your music like a bug on a cargrill... Like a previous poster stated, Experiment, experiment...

Technically in the scheme of things, you don't really "need" compression anymore... The dynamic range of playback devices like radios and CD players are starting to be able to handle anything you can throw at them...

Although, adding just a small bit of Compression on projects can help "lock things in" so-to-speak... Compression can also help control vocals and instrumentation that have problems with staying in a certain "volume range"... I work with one client where her vocals are so up and down that compression is a must...

If you want to just get started though... A good product to work with would be an Alesis NanoCompressor... It's only 89.00 bucks, but has all the tools to help you learn just what compression is and just what it does before you sink bigtime cash into something you're not sure about...

I purchased one to use as a "control tool" to help with small problems in dynamics - It sure did pay for itself...

Compression really does help "lock things down"... Before I used one it was hard to get things to "sit properly" in the mix... But, using even just the Nano Compressor has made me believe that small amounts, in the right place really will make your music come alive...

You can check out a review of the NanoCompressor at my site: www.members.home.com/bkriverdog
Select the "periperals" page and you'll be good to go...

Good luck...
And let me know what you think!

bry
Riverdog Productions www.members.home.com/bkriverdog
bkriverdog@home.com
 
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