Compressor questions

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skim

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I'm using a compressor plug-in on my ProTools setup, and I have some fundamental compressor questions - I appreciate the help.

1. What does the knee setting do?

2. How does the compression ratio work (mathematically) for reducing loud sounds? For increasing quiet sounds? E.g. for 5:1

3. What are some general guideline settings for vocals? (ratio, attack, release, knee, threshold)

Thanks very much -

Steve
 
A follow-up question -

Why would you ever want a slow attack? Doesn't that cause the noticeably thumping down of the sound (like the air pressure in your ear just changed abruptly)?

I've been setting the attack for vocals very low, around 1 ms.

And same questions on the release - if you set it slow wouldn't the compression be noticeable and unfavorable?

Thanks

Steve
 
skim said:
...Why would you ever want a slow attack? Doesn't that cause the noticeably thumping down of the sound (like the air pressure in your ear just changed abruptly)?
Click to expand...

Look at it this way. Most of the life and edge is often in the first few ms. Life without some edge life is dull and boring.
Look at it another way. Sometimes the leading transient is much higher than the rest of the note, so biting this off with a fast attack means the compressor is hitting very hard right off. A good way to get that thumping down of the sound.:D

"...And same questions on the release - if you set it slow wouldn't the compression be noticeable and unfavorable?"

Not if it spreads things out so the gain isn't jumping up and down unnecessarily.

A nice starter lesson would be to take something with some dynamics -drums, vocals, clean guitar, set a fairly tame ratio (like 5/1), and a moderate attack (say 20 ms), with a few db of reduction. (5/1: it takes 5 db more input to get one more db out -after attack time has passed. Knee spreads out ratio, but based on level instead of time.)
With out changing anything elas, run the attack down to 1 ms.
In that 20 ms window lives more effect on the sound quality and amount of compression than any doubling of the ratio.

"Back to you, Bob."
:p
 
Steve,

> What does the knee setting do? ... How does the compression ratio work <

See the Compression tutorial, sixth in the list on my Articles page:

www.ethanwiner.com/articles.html

It's a very short article, clear and right to the point.

--Ethan
 
In addition to what TR said usually you use a slow attack with more bass heavy material because bass notes take longer to develop. Obviously it's a balancing act and it can take years of experience to really be able to quickly dial in the exact type of sound you want. If you want to really squash something then a fast attack and decay are usually used.
 
To give an analogy soft knee compression is to hard knee compression as punching a mattress is to punching a brick wall.
 
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