Blog Archive

Tutorials, articles and freebies

Compression

What is compression ?

Compression is an amplification process used to decrease a signals dynamic range, as soon as the signal goes over the threshold you have set its peaks are pushed down, basically the peak levels of the signal you process through compression are diminished while your RMS levels which is the medium amplitude of your signal is increased, the signal will be perceived to be louder even though in reality it isn't.

What are the parameters ?

There are four basic parameters in a compressor, the first one being your threshold, it determines at which amplitude the compressor will start to work, if you process a signal through it that is below the threshold you've set it won't be compressed, the 2nd parameter is your ratio, the ratio basically describes how much the signal will be compressed once it passes the threshold, most compressors have a range of 1:1 to either 1:20 or 1:100, 1:1 being the lowest ratio.
The next parameter is the attack, the attack controls how quickly the compressor will react when a loud signal that is above the threshold is passed through it.
The last parameter is the release time, it controls how quickly the compressor stops working after the signals level drops below the threshold.

What is the difference between a limiter and a compressor ?

The main difference is that the ratio in a limiter is always 1:100 by default and can't be changed, that means that the signal is compressed much more when passed through a limiter making the limiter less versatile.

Which instruments should I compress ?

It depends on the track, usually I only compress my drum bus and the vocals but compression can also be an interesting effect when applied to plucks or stab sounds, generally compression is always a great tool if you want to make a sound stand out in your track.



Freebies

Here is a playlist of all the free kits and preset packs I've given out over the years, the download links are in the descriptions of the videos.



Mixing and Mastering

This video is an in depth tutorial on how I mix and master my beats in FL studio