Is compression more commonly a software thing or a stand alone thing?Af

[minofifa]

After reading several posts about compression, its obvious that many people use separate devices in their recording chain to add compression to their tracks, whereas some people use a compression too in their software to add compression. Which method is more commonly used and accepted among engineers? is one superior to the other or do they pretty much do the same task?
Thanks
Dar

 

[dafduc]

I've noticed that software models tend not to do sidechaining - that would be a big advantage to hardware compression.

I believe there ARE some s/w compressors that do sidechaining, but they're the exception...

 

[minofifa]

that's cool, thanks

I guess my second question is, what is sidechaining? is that where you patch the same waveform into different tracks and use different setting for each? or is that way off base....

 

[Daedalus]

Hi minofifa,

I use compression both when tracking and later during mixdown. During tracking, it helps me ensure that my input levels aren't going to clip.

Example of using a sidechain:

When you're using a noise gate to isolate the snare drum, sometimes the hi hat will also open the gate. The noise gate should have a side-chain which will listen to the hi hat and use this signal to control the gate. This means that you should get only the snare at the output of your noise gate.