Two kinds of compression?

  • Thread starter Thread starter natmj
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natmj

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"Compression" means two things, right? On the one hand, "compressors" like the Nanocompressor or RNC are what you use to work with the volume and all that.

On the other hand, "compression" from a minidisc or VCR or DCC tape has nothing to do with volume . . . that kind of compression just chops out a lot of high and low frequencies to save space. Right?

I ask because I sub-mastered my songs onto a minidisc after using the RNC on them in mixdown. That doesn't mean the sound gets compressed twice, does it? That would be bad for me, since I obviously don't want that to happen.

My understanding is that the two definitions of compression are pretty unrelated and I'm okay. The sound of my music isn't doubly squashed. Is that right?

Thanks.
 
You are right.....the two terms mean different things in different fields.
Compression in the minidisc application concerns the compression of data
(somewhat like a ZIP file). Compression of audio is a compression of audio signal
or signal levels. Who woulda thunk computers and audio would have become so
closely related that the issue of "compression" would ever come up?

Now, not to confuse you..... Both types of compression, data and audio, CAN be
bad for your final audio. Certainly the data compression since it's robbing bits
and pieces of your origional audio data. Audio compression can also rob you
of dynamics. It can kinda steal the life right out of your music if you get carried
away with it. Hope this helps.....
 
I agree with Peter here.

compression on your final mix should never exceed a ratio of 2:1. Period!

In most cases, if you are using something like a nanocompressor, you should think about only using about a 1.5:1 ratio, as the nanocompressor does not really do all that great of a job at compression in the first place. Think about getting a Behringer Composer as a affordable finale mix compressor. You can also use it to compress to tape (or hard drive) tracks that can benefit from that.

Good luck.

Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
 
Thanks for the info. I use an RNC, which is quite nice (Really Nice, rather), and never push it past 2:1 on the mixdown.

Later.
 
I think what he ment was TWO kinds of compression as in Audio compression in recording terms and FILE compression as in zip/mp3. Yes, they are not the same thing. Mp3 is a compression algorythm that is applied to a song (much like zip) that takes away duplicated material (this is in its most basic form) to save space. This saved space is useful for shorter dnloads on the net etc... Compression in a recording term is better explained by sonusman.

Ray
 
damn. I re-read the other posts. I feel dumb. You guys answered him. Humm Must be the Coronas. Sorry

DBHO
 
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