Describe it in 3 sentences: Compression

[NinjaEdit]

Actually compressor may also make the quiet sounds louder

Upward compression.

And where does the giant stand on?

It's giants all the way down.

[outbound]

Okay you're bouncing on a trampoline under a giant holding a hammer. If you jump high enough to tickle his foot, he hits you with the hammer at some ratio to the hardness that you hit his foot. Attack time is how quickly he swings the hammer, release is how quickly he eases up, threshold is the height of his foot, and makeup gain is the height of the trampoline.

And where does the giant stand on?

His other foot obvs.

Good, now please elaborate multi-band compression with the same analogy

You lay out flat on multiple trampolines under multiple giants with hammers. That way the giant by your feet can hammer down hard and the one by your head can go gentle on your delicate noggin. Each band's ratio controls how testy the corresponding giant is that particular day.

[mitchAUS]

Compression reduces bangin soundz over a cold-ass lil certain threshold while soundz on tha down-low remain unaffected. A compressor might provide a thugged-out degree of control over how tha fuck quickly it acts, n' you can put dat on yo' toast. Compression is often used up in da music thang ta make performances mo' consistent up in dynamic range so dat they "sit" up in tha mix of other instruments mo' betta n' maintain consistent attention from tha listener n' shit.

Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! This type'a shiznit happens all tha time.

[RmoniK]

Make. Shit. LOUDER!

No, it doesn't, not in essence. The makeup stage may bring this in, but what a compressor actually does is reduce peaks, so your signal sits at a more steady level that can be mixed/controlled.

Actually compressor may also make the quiet sounds louder, instead of making the loud sounds quieter. And that makes it louder without make up.

@thread:

Knife Party

Pretty sure that still involves an automatic make up gain. If you think the process of compression can result in things being louder, i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

[ChadDub]

Compression is something I don't use. Compression is something I don't need. Compression is something that I don't understand enough to use it creatively.

[azuk]

Make. Shit. LOUDER!

No, it doesn't, not in essence. The makeup stage may bring this in, but what a compressor actually does is reduce peaks, so your signal sits at a more steady level that can be mixed/controlled.

Actually compressor may also make the quiet sounds louder, instead of making the loud sounds quieter. And that makes it louder without make up.

@thread:

Knife Party

Pretty sure that still involves an automatic make up gain. If you think the process of compression can result in things being louder, i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

U[wards compression m8, makes the quiet stuff louder, loud stuff the same

[RmoniK]

No, that's still regular compression with make up gain.

Upwards compressors (also known as expanders) make the loud stuff LOUDER. They work the same as any compressor, except the ratio is smaller than 1 (so the peaks that go above the treshold get amplified).

[titchbit]

And expansion still employs makeup gain, it is just in the negative direction (at least in my compression plugin). in what cases would you want to use expansion? I don't really understand its purpose.

[Undrig]

1. Makes louder shit more quiet sometimes.
2. Makes quiet shit louder sometiimes.
3. Don't be a tnuc with it.

[azuk]

No, that's still regular compression with make up gain.

Upwards compressors (also known as expanders) make the loud stuff LOUDER. They work the same as any compressor, except the ratio is smaller than 1 (so the peaks that go above the treshold get amplified).

From wikipedia:"Upward compression increases the loudness of sounds below a threshold while leaving louder passages unchanged. Both downward and upward compression reduce the dynamic range of an audio signal."

[RmoniK]

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders. I've looked them up, they do indeed lower the dynamic range. Interesting too, since they preserve the loud dynamics. I should look into that.

[Theo Void]

automated volume

[mitchAUS]

And expansion still employs makeup gain, it is just in the negative direction (at least in my compression plugin). in what cases would you want to use expansion? I don't really understand its purpose.

I've used an expander to clean up recordings. The best example is when I was doing ADR and couldn't get a free recording room for one of the sessions, so we had to record half the dialogue in the control room. The desk is a 32 channel TL Audio VTC valve console and there is a bunch of noisy rack gear plus a macpro. When it came to mixing, the noise floor was high enough that it sat above the room tone, but was quiet enough not to be noticeable when the actor was speaking. one solution would be to manually cut every bit of noise out and draw in all the fades....
Unlike electronic music production, sound for film is a shitload longer then 3 minutes and would have taken a complete 8 hour mixing session to tidy up.

To avoid this I used an expander to push the noise below the room tone. A room tone is a form of natural low level noise, recorded on location or in a space that replicates the location on screen. This is usually the quietest part of the recording. So I set the threshold just above the noise, and adjusted the ratio until the transition from vocal to room tone sounded natural with no noisy artifacts.

[outbound]

Just to clear up any confusion in the thread about expansion/upwards compression etc.

Downwards Compression = Signal over a threshold gets brought down (decreases dynamic range)
Upwards Compression = Signal under a threshold gets brought up (decreases dynamic range)
Upwards Expansion = Signal over a threshold gets brought up (increases dynamic range)
Downwards Expansion = Signal under a threshold gets brought down (increases dynamic range)

[mromgwtf]

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders.

i'm

confusing

upward compressors and expanders

compressors

and

expanders

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders.

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders.

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders.

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

Well then i'm confusing upward compressors and expanders.

i'm

confusing

upward

compressors

and

expanders

i'm

confusing

upward

compressors

and

expanders

compressors

and

expanders

compressors

and

expanders

compressors

and

expanders

[+] Spoiler

[NinjaEdit]

I was being ironic, anyway. I was satirising the use of compression for the purpose of loudness, destroying audio quality.

[RmoniK]

Seriously, is you being a twat about me making a mistake really worth reviving a 4 month old thread, not to mention sacrificing your time? I hope it made you feel very good. Besides, i doubt the person i was replying to was talking about upward compression.

[mromgwtf]

Seriously, is you being a twat about me making a mistake really worth reviving a 4 month old thread, not to mention sacrificing your time? I hope it made you feel very good. Besides, i doubt the person i was replying to was talking about upward compression.

Look who says that. A twat. You were a twat in the first place. In case you don't remember:

Make. Shit. LOUDER!

No, it doesn't, not in essence. The makeup stage may bring this in, but what a compressor actually does is reduce peaks, so your signal sits at a more steady level that can be mixed/controlled.

Actually compressor may also make the quiet sounds louder, instead of making the loud sounds quieter. And that makes it louder without make up.

@thread:

Knife Party

Pretty sure that still involves an automatic make up gain. If you think the process of compression can result in things being louder, i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

I just love the fact you were trying to act like a smart ass, pointing out on others that may have made a mistake by saying:

i'm not sure you're qualified to teach others what compression is

but it turns out you are the one being not qualified to teach others what compression is.

[RmoniK]

Right, and i acknowledged my mistake. So what? Everyone makes 'em. I'm sorry if i came across as arrogant, but I was convinced that the person i was replying to was making a mistake. And I was wrong.

But I'm sure you can convince yourself that me wrongfully judging a person on his music production knowledge is more cringeworthy than you making a long ass post basically saying "HUE HUE WHAT A DAFT tnuc THAT GUY WAS YEAAHH JUSTICE PORN".

[mromgwtf]

I was convinced that the person i was replying to was making a mistake.

No you weren't.