dights
Mix Engineer
I've never used the Ableton Compressor, but a little digging and as I thought the Makeup button is actually an "Auto Makeup" button.
Put simply, when you compress something you are reducing the peaks, and therefore reducing the overall level of the signal. This allows you to add some gain to return the signal to it's original overall level. That's called makeup gain.
Some compressors work with Auto Makeup Gain, where the compressor automatically adds an appropriate amount of gain depending on how much gain reduction is going on. A classic example of this would be an SSL desk channel compressor. On a good auto makeup compressor this gives it a different vibe, feel and sound to other compressors.
The trouble is that in my experience some compressors do Auto Makeup gain very badly, and in general on plugins I tend to stay well clear.
In short, turn off the Makeup button so that the compressor is in manual makeup mode. You'll then hear what the compressor is actually doing, and then you can use the slider on the output (the makeup gain) to replace the lost level... Probably not very much is required, you'll be able to hear the difference when bypassing the plugin.
Admittedly you have your ratio at 20:1, attack at 1s and release at 1ms... That's a very aggressive setting for this purpose, and whilst not necessarily wrong (depending on what it sounds like and your desired result), I wouldn't have chosen those settings for this purpose.
Read my blog article, it gives a good run through a starting point set up of a drum parallel compressor
Good luck.
Put simply, when you compress something you are reducing the peaks, and therefore reducing the overall level of the signal. This allows you to add some gain to return the signal to it's original overall level. That's called makeup gain.
Some compressors work with Auto Makeup Gain, where the compressor automatically adds an appropriate amount of gain depending on how much gain reduction is going on. A classic example of this would be an SSL desk channel compressor. On a good auto makeup compressor this gives it a different vibe, feel and sound to other compressors.
The trouble is that in my experience some compressors do Auto Makeup gain very badly, and in general on plugins I tend to stay well clear.
In short, turn off the Makeup button so that the compressor is in manual makeup mode. You'll then hear what the compressor is actually doing, and then you can use the slider on the output (the makeup gain) to replace the lost level... Probably not very much is required, you'll be able to hear the difference when bypassing the plugin.
Admittedly you have your ratio at 20:1, attack at 1s and release at 1ms... That's a very aggressive setting for this purpose, and whilst not necessarily wrong (depending on what it sounds like and your desired result), I wouldn't have chosen those settings for this purpose.
Read my blog article, it gives a good run through a starting point set up of a drum parallel compressor
Good luck.
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