What am i doing wrong with my compressor settings
- Thread starter Sdiddy78
- Start date
DaGSpotSoldier
11B US Army
Your attack time, ratio, and release time(also hold time depending on compressor) are used in conjunction to
shape the kick.
To bring back more thump, increase your attack time.
To experiment,so these are exaggerated settings, set your ratio to 8:1, dial in 10 to 15dB reduction, and play with your attack time and
listen to what it is doing.
The end setting that you use, is always relative to everything else in the mix of course.
shape the kick.
To bring back more thump, increase your attack time.
To experiment,so these are exaggerated settings, set your ratio to 8:1, dial in 10 to 15dB reduction, and play with your attack time and
listen to what it is doing.
The end setting that you use, is always relative to everything else in the mix of course.
Last edited:
moses
hardliner
Well, first of all: Taking the "thump away" i.e. controlling/softening the transients is one of the main task compressors are built for.
You can make the softening effect less "obvious" by increasing the threshold, attack or reducing the ratio. You can only reduce the damage to a point where the compressor does nothing, which brings us to a valuable idea: Don't use compression without a good reason.
A good reason may be the need to "even" out a performance or pushing the low level areas by a few dBs, etc. A compressor introduces particularly bad side-effects, it has a serious hit on the crispiness, "punch", musical integrity, noise floor and countless other things.
You can't increase the punch with a compressor, that's a misunderstanding! What you can do is totally squeeze the sh!t out of some music with unreasonable ratios, but keep the attack open is such a way that the small initial transients pass through the compressor with slightly less damage. But that doesn't create punch, and proper equal loudness bypassing will clearly show that this technique doesn't really work: The original material will sound crispier.
If you need more punch, select sound that has punch! or record them with punch! Or program a synth in such a way that it create punchy sounds. Then, you can start thinking about intentionally sharing a little bit of the punch for a little bit more cohesion and density (via compression). In this case, the result will be loud and fat, but still very crispy/punchy. That how great sounding records are made. Processing can only control/restrict the original material, but never truly enhance it! You can't polish a turd for beauty.
On a last note, have a look a transients designers, these are much a better choice for the task.
You can make the softening effect less "obvious" by increasing the threshold, attack or reducing the ratio. You can only reduce the damage to a point where the compressor does nothing, which brings us to a valuable idea: Don't use compression without a good reason.
A good reason may be the need to "even" out a performance or pushing the low level areas by a few dBs, etc. A compressor introduces particularly bad side-effects, it has a serious hit on the crispiness, "punch", musical integrity, noise floor and countless other things.
You can't increase the punch with a compressor, that's a misunderstanding! What you can do is totally squeeze the sh!t out of some music with unreasonable ratios, but keep the attack open is such a way that the small initial transients pass through the compressor with slightly less damage. But that doesn't create punch, and proper equal loudness bypassing will clearly show that this technique doesn't really work: The original material will sound crispier.
If you need more punch, select sound that has punch! or record them with punch! Or program a synth in such a way that it create punchy sounds. Then, you can start thinking about intentionally sharing a little bit of the punch for a little bit more cohesion and density (via compression). In this case, the result will be loud and fat, but still very crispy/punchy. That how great sounding records are made. Processing can only control/restrict the original material, but never truly enhance it! You can't polish a turd for beauty.
On a last note, have a look a transients designers, these are much a better choice for the task.
Last edited:
DaGSpotSoldier
11B US Army
Right, I was referring to the OP possibly using a fast attck time, which would be the main reason his "thump" was
dissapearing. Trying to add thump with compression is not the best route, for the reasons Moses said. Moses mentioned transient designers. Some good ones are made by SPL and Sonnox, Stillwell Audio, and Voxengo to name a few. There may even be some free ones out there by other developers.
dissapearing. Trying to add thump with compression is not the best route, for the reasons Moses said. Moses mentioned transient designers. Some good ones are made by SPL and Sonnox, Stillwell Audio, and Voxengo to name a few. There may even be some free ones out there by other developers.
UntamedProductions
New member
Aw cool, I never had a with problem my kicks but I always EQ and mix/subchain then compress with a Brickwall setting(Ratio=10.0, Threshold= less than 10db) ALL THE TIME.
@DaGSpotSoldier ima start messing with that attack time to see how it works from now on.
@DaGSpotSoldier ima start messing with that attack time to see how it works from now on.