BeatsBuY
New member
Hey everyone. Here are some tips on using a compressor on your mixes. Hope you find this useful. 
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Threshold, ratio, attack, and release.
Do you want your kick and mix to be up front and in your face?
To make your mixes punch, you may want to use compression. A compressor looks for the highest peak in a mix and brings it down to your desired threshold. While the lowest peaks are raised to the set threshold. This gives you are more clear, up front, and louder mix.
Ratio & Threshold
The Ratio is the amount of compression you desire. Pro producers usually use a ratio setting of 4.1 to 6.1 for most songs. When you use a 8.1 ratio and above, this is normally limiting your mix. For the threshold, look at setting to be at 10 db to 15 db. But this really depends on the type of mix and how you have mixed your song.
Look as ratio and threshold as a customizable room. The room is the area in which you control your space (mix). Say you stack boxes all the way to the ceiling. This represents the waveform while the floor and ceiling represent the threshold. You can have boxes stacked up 20 feet high, or you can make a smaller room and only stack it 6 feet high. So you could say that the size of the room "limits" the amount of boxes you can stack up. That's kind of what ratio and threshold do.
Attack
The attack setting tells the compressor how fast to trigger. Different instruments have different attack settings. For example, a kick drum has a fast attack. You want to tell the compressor to watch the kick line closely. Kick drums have a lot of changes and dynamics. It can be low and then have a high peak. So you want to set the compressor to compress the kick as soon as a peak goes past the threshold. You can look at the attack as setting how fast the trigger on the compressor is set. You may want to set the compressor's attack at about 2 for a fast attack on a kick.
Say you have a rising string instrument. This has a slow attack. You can set the compressor with a slower attack as the string doesn't have a fast attack.
Release times
The release setting sets how fast the compressor releases the compression on your audio signal. You can have a slow, mid and fast release. Again this all depends on the type of mix and instrument you have. On a kick you want to have a mid to fast release. Kick drums have a fast attack and change a lot. You want the compressor to constantly look for peaks and compress. You do not want the compressor to compress a peak and hold it for a period of time and then go to the next peak. The compressor should compress a peak and then quickly compress the next highest peak.
******************************
Threshold, ratio, attack, and release.
Do you want your kick and mix to be up front and in your face?
To make your mixes punch, you may want to use compression. A compressor looks for the highest peak in a mix and brings it down to your desired threshold. While the lowest peaks are raised to the set threshold. This gives you are more clear, up front, and louder mix.
Ratio & Threshold
The Ratio is the amount of compression you desire. Pro producers usually use a ratio setting of 4.1 to 6.1 for most songs. When you use a 8.1 ratio and above, this is normally limiting your mix. For the threshold, look at setting to be at 10 db to 15 db. But this really depends on the type of mix and how you have mixed your song.
Look as ratio and threshold as a customizable room. The room is the area in which you control your space (mix). Say you stack boxes all the way to the ceiling. This represents the waveform while the floor and ceiling represent the threshold. You can have boxes stacked up 20 feet high, or you can make a smaller room and only stack it 6 feet high. So you could say that the size of the room "limits" the amount of boxes you can stack up. That's kind of what ratio and threshold do.
Attack
The attack setting tells the compressor how fast to trigger. Different instruments have different attack settings. For example, a kick drum has a fast attack. You want to tell the compressor to watch the kick line closely. Kick drums have a lot of changes and dynamics. It can be low and then have a high peak. So you want to set the compressor to compress the kick as soon as a peak goes past the threshold. You can look at the attack as setting how fast the trigger on the compressor is set. You may want to set the compressor's attack at about 2 for a fast attack on a kick.
Say you have a rising string instrument. This has a slow attack. You can set the compressor with a slower attack as the string doesn't have a fast attack.
Release times
The release setting sets how fast the compressor releases the compression on your audio signal. You can have a slow, mid and fast release. Again this all depends on the type of mix and instrument you have. On a kick you want to have a mid to fast release. Kick drums have a fast attack and change a lot. You want the compressor to constantly look for peaks and compress. You do not want the compressor to compress a peak and hold it for a period of time and then go to the next peak. The compressor should compress a peak and then quickly compress the next highest peak.
