Compression Uncompressed

[masteringhouse]

But I do remain curious, Tom, how you feel about my original question: what is the difference between "upward compression" and "downward compression with makup gain"? I might be missing something, or maybe it's some subtle coloration cause-and-effect difference, but on paper (for wtaht that's worth) it would seem to me that they are at the end of it all really performing the same function.

G.

Sorry for being late to respond. G. Just saw this.

Upward compression does (or shouldn't) be having a major affect on the transients while downward comp with gain makeup does. In general I think that you'll find downward comp more useful when the transients are all the place or need to be brought in line with the average. Upward comp is more useful when you want to "fatten" but the leave the transients intact.

Also usually downward comp with gain makeup will get you an overall louder volume since you are reducing the dynamics and peaks (if fast attack), where upward comp will make the average louder, but won't reduce the peaks.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Sorry for being late to respond. G. Just saw this.

No problem. Its the holiday weekend, relax and get your butt off this whacko forum .

I'm just running out the door to go DJ a private party (Man, the easiest $25/hr one can make has to be getting paid to spin MP3s of one's favorite music outside on an 80° evening while sipping beer, eating burgers and partying with friends )

BUT, keep an eye on this thread in a day or so Tom, if you will...I'm not through with you yet . I gotta think about this one, there may be a followup question coming if you don't mind.

In the meantime, later! I gotta go load the car...

G.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Actually now that I have had time to consider it more, never mind Tom. I get the difference now. I had it pictured slightly wrong in my head before; I got it down now. You're off the hook

G.

 

[masteringhouse]

No problem. Its the holiday weekend, relax and get your butt off this whacko forum .

Yep, time for beers!

Have a great holiday everyone ...

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Sorry to pull this thread back out of the circular file, but for those Firefox users who wrote saying that even after installing the notebook properly they had trouble displaying the images, here is the probable solution for you (as promised):

1.) In the Firefox address bar, type:
about:config and hit [Enter]

2.) Scroll down (or search/filter for):
security.checkloaduri

3.) Double click to change to FALSE.

This disables an obscure security setting in Mozilla-based browsers that prevents the browser from displaying local client-side images in web pages.

HTH,

G.

 

[Backmarker]

Thank you SouthSIDE for the work you put into this!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Thank you SouthSIDE for the work you put into this!

Backmarker, you are welcome.

My intentions weren't completly altruistic, though. I figured I and others were putting more work into answering the same questions over and over again on these boards than it would take to just "officially" write something up once and redistribute it .

But considering the fact that you registered on this board 2 1/2 years ago and your first post was this thank you, I really appreciate it!

G.

 

[random effect]

Upward compression is essentially the opposite of downward compression (what you are describing in the article). It takes audio below the threshold value and raises it instead of lowering it by the given ratio. Low passages are raised while leaving the transients unaltered. It's good for "beefing up" mixes especially drums.

is it a seperate effect or is it an effect achieved with a regular compressor? how do i achieve upwards compression

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

is it a seperate effect or is it an effect achieved with a regular compressor? how do i achieve upwards compression

Standard compressors - both regular full-band compressors and multi-band compressors - use "downward compression" where the compression acts upon all signals that rise above the threshold level and compress then "down" towars the threshold. These compressors are not capable of "upward compression."

There are a fairly rare breed of specialty compressors or "graphical compressors" such as Neodynium by Elemental Audio (now called Dynam-izer by Roger Nichols Digital) that have the capability to kind of act in reverse (in a way) in that while they can be used like regular downward compressors, they can also go the other way, they can take signals that fall below the threshold level and compress them "up" towards the threshold as well.

Without going through all the mechanics of how exactly this is set (it's actually pretty easy to manipulate on a graphical interface like Neodynium's), I have at least attached screenshots of it's graphical interface to illustrate A)regular downward compression, B) upward compression, and C) both simultaneously.

For each of these graphs, the left side indicates the dynamic range at input (before compression), and the right the dynamic range at output (after compression).

HTH,

G.