Compressors during recording

[SouthSIDE Glen]

only by turning up the output gain of the compressor can you raise the level of a signal with a compressor...which is really just a perceived loudness... a limiter has more ability to make a sound louder than a compressor.

The first part is true only if you talk only about downward compression.

You can raise the percevied volume by applying upward compression without having to boost output gain, or you can apply parallel compression with unity output gain and still increase the perceived loudness of the track.

A limiter *is* a compressor. It's just a fast-atack, high-ratio version of a downward compressor.

G.

 

[pipelineaudio]

who makes upward compressors?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

who makes upward compressors?

The dynamics processor included with just about with every DAW package out there will do it. I'm sure Reaper has one also.

I use Elemental Audio's Neodynum for that all the time myself; now known as Roger Nichols' Dynamizer. There are a couple of others that'll do it also, but their names escape me offhand.

G.

 

[pipelineaudio]

It seems to me you could think of a compressor with autogain compensation turned on to be an upward compressor, but during the period between the crossing of the threshold and the completion of the attack phase, it wouldnt be quite the same thing

Damn you, I was going to clean up my workspace today but now I gotta go finding out more about this...can you think of a free vst that has it?

The ones I find with smaller than 1 ratios available are gates

 

[TerraMortim]

that's what I was thinking (auto gain compensation)

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It seems to me you could think of a compressor with autogain compensation turned on to be an upward compressor

Not the same thing. Upward compression is kind of like the mirror image of standard downward compression.

As we all know, if you set the threshold on a standard (digital) downward compressor to, say, -10dBFS, it will downward compress everything above that threshold down towards that threshold by the set ratio. Everything below the threshold is left uncompressed.

Upward compression, OTOH, means that of you set the threshold to -10dBFS, it will upward compress everything* below the threshold up towards the threshold by the set ratio. Everything above the threshold is left uncompressed.

In other words, with upward compression the peaks are left alone; it's the quiet parts that are dynamically compressed upwards. That is not the same thing as standard compression with gain control at all.

I'm not sure what free VSTs there may be that do this - though I seem to remember that they are out there. You might want to search KVRAudio for that. However, I do believe that RND still offers free demo versions of their stuff; I'd highly recommend checking out the Dynamizer. It doesn't have the color of a compressor emulator, but that can sometimes be a good thing. I use it often just for standard downward compression, but it will do a hell of a lot more than that. There is very little that it can't do when it comes to pure dynamics processing. But be warned, pipe; if you start plyaing with all the features of this thing and all the things you can get it to do, your workspace may remain dirty for a while .

*How low it will reach depends upon the design of the compressor. For example, the Dynamizer actually controls four different levels of volume (what it calls "zones") sinultaneously. In that case, each "zone" may only control from x dB to y dB. It's kind of like the bands on an MBC, but instead of the bands splttting up the frequency spectrum horizontally, the "zones" split up the volume range vertically.

G.

 

[TerraMortim]

hmm never seen that before. what plugins do that?

 

[xstatic]

First, compression was originally designed for controlling dynamics and volume. Consider though that often times these were albums recorded to anywhere between 1 and 8 tracks where things were bounced together at the tracking stage. If this is the case, then compression on the way in certainly seems prudent.

Second, there is also more to a compressor besides just volume leveling and overall dynamic control. You could use a compressor say on a snare with a slower attack time to allow the initial crack through un touched but then hold back the sustained part. This can also be done effectively with bass guitar, more attck less sustain, or with acoustics, vocals etc... Release times can also greatly affect how the envelope of a signal is recorded.

It seems to me that too many people think of compressors solely as some sort of volume control unit. There ar emany other features that are useful for them. Originally they may have been for volume control, but then the way things were recorded and the tools used back then were VERY different than the process that most people use now. With unlimited tracks, larger consoles, more affordable mediums etc... we don;t do things quite the way they were done years and years ago. Why then should we be limited to using the tools in only the same way? Commiting to things in the tracking phase is not a bad thing, when it is done with careful consideration and knowledge and experience. We make commitments that are much greater all the time when choosing amps, guitars, settings, mic placement, drum tuning etc....

For the person that does not like software compression because it does not do much, I would loike to know what hardware comp is going to be used in such a way that it has dramatic impact? I would not generally want to use a cheap hardware compressor in a severe manor, which my bet is the option involved here. There are of course those few times when some cheapy comp does something to a signal that may be pleasing in comparison to a nicer comp, but this is typically more of an "effect" choice rather than a quality choice.

A good example of an upward compression unit might be an Aphex Compellor.

 

[TerraMortim]

I use them more for sound shaping than anything else. Love getting creative with compressors.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

hmm never seen that before. what plugins do that?

As I described to pipeline, check out the Dynamizer from Roger Nichols Digital. An extremely powerful and flexible plug. It takes a little while to learn how to use effectively, especially for those not used to the concept of compression as anything more than a peak controller. But once you wrap your head around it, you'll find that it is to standard compression what a parametric EQ is to a tone control.

If I remember correctly, upward compression was actually the first stage of the original dbx tape noise reduction design. What it did was upward compress the signal before laying it on tape. Then on playback it downward expanded the signal back to it's original form. This downward expansion pushed the added tape hiss down to inaudible levels as it restored the original dynamics back to the rest of the signal. A pretty ingenious design, especially for it's time (back in the 70s), far better IMHO than the Dolby B NR that was commonplace at the time.

G.

 

[pipelineaudio]

I hope you know Glen, that there is now a magical team of elves working on different ideas of a upward compressor, hammering the day away instead of working on stuff we need to be working on right now

thanks a lot

Actually, it WILL be cool to have these included in reaper hopefully, but damn, what a sidetrack!

 

[MCI2424]

who makes upward compressors?

The Upward Compressor Company located in the Upward Compressor Mall on Upward Compressor street (near the Upward Compressor T Station).

Hope you can find it!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I hope you know Glen, that there is now a magical team of elves working on different ideas of a upward compressor, hammering the day away instead of working on stuff we need to be working on right now

thanks a lot

Actually, it WILL be cool to have these included in reaper hopefully, but damn, what a sidetrack!

Hey, I'm not Sanity Claus - hell, I'm not even Mr. Keebler; I'm not forcing those elves to do anything!

Do I get a finders fee of some type for that?

No? Not even if I point out that they probably have much of the algorithm code they need already included as part of the engine for Reaper's version of the graphic Dynamics Processor plug? (I assume Reaper has one of those; that's one of those plugs that has the X/Y graph where a 45° rubberband line equals 1:1 compression, and you can stick handles on the rubberband and bend/shape the compression profile any way you please. They could probably scavange core code from there and stick it in a far better GUI a la Dynamizer or something.)



G.