[MUSIC] Once we have our EQ set, and we've gotten rid of all the frequencies that we don't like and enhance the ones that we do like, we want to add compression. Now EQ dealt with the frequency side of things. And with compression, we're dealing with loudness. A compressor will basically take the loud stuff and the quiet stuff, and make them close together. Which is actually going to create a more unified dynamic sound. I'm going to use Amy's vocal again, and we're going to target some of the quietest part of what she's sung and some of the louder parts. This is going to help determine how to set each of the parameters on the compressor, to get a more unified sound and be able to hear every part of her vocal and every work evenly in the mix. So let's listen to Amy's vocal with the mix going and here how each words stands out on it's own before compression. [MUSIC] So the word time is definitely more forward because a lot of the mix cuts, there's not that big fill there. But some of the other words tend to get a little lost behind the mix. You could go through and fix this with automation like we talked about in a previous segment. Compression will actually do that automation for us by making those quieter parts come more forward and controlling the loudness of the louder ones. So let's go ahead and open a compressor and I'll show you how it works. After the EQ go into the next insert slot, choose Dynamics, and choose Dym3 Compressor/Limiter. The most important parameters on a compressor are called the threshold, the ratio and gain or make-up gain. Sometimes gain or make-up gain are labelled slightly differently on different compressors, but they both do the same thing. In order to set these parameters, we have to listen to the vocal, and find out which parts of the word or full words are actually the quietest in this phrase. Luckily on this compressor, we have a little meter that will show how loud certain parts are, just in case you can't hear them just by listening alone. So using this same phrase, I'm going to solo the vocal and listen to what word or part of a word is the quietest. Again, you can look at the meter on the inside of this compressor to see how loud it is, just in case you can't hear it. Just to be safe, this little orange triangle is actually your threshold measurement. So turn that all the way up for now so you're not hearing anything change in terms of dynamics before you listen for the quietest word. So let's listen back and find the quietest part of this phrase. [MUSIC] Listening back to that, I think that it's is definitely one of the quietest parts. So using this little triangle, drag it down close to where the word it's is on the meter. [MUSIC] The threshold is basically setting a DB value that allows anything to go over that threshold in terms of loudness to be compressed and basically made quieter. So if we set it near one of the quieter words, it's going to make all the louder words quieter and essentially make them closer together in loudness. Next, we have the ratio which is going to determine how much something is going to be compressed or made quieter once it goes over the threshold. The higher a number you have for the ratio, the more it will be compressed or the closer it will become to the threshold. Another way that you can find one of the quietest parts if by looking at the wave form. If the waves are really tall up and down in your track that means the their loud and if their closer to the mid or center line that means that they’re a little bit quieter. For vocals a good ratio to start that is five to one or five depending on what compressor you have. [MUSIC] I would avoid setting your threshold to low or too close to the very quite parts and setting your ratio too high, causing a lot of compression because this is a vocal and you do want to preserve some of the dynamic range. The last parameter you want to set is the gain, and the gain is going to make up any of the loudness lost by compression and basically bring your loud parts back up to where they were, bringing the quiet stuff with it. And that essentially makes everything louder. How do we figure out how much to add? On the meter that's labeled GR, that stands for gain reduction. And whatever you see in terms of numbers coming down on this meter is how much you want to add in the gain. So let's test it out. [MUSIC] And you can see that that is coming down somewhere between three and six DB on the meter here. You kind of want to choose just an average. You don't want to do too much or too little. But remember you can always go back and change this on a track if it becomes to loud or too quiet. But as a rule, you always want to make up with whatever you lost in compression on the game. Because the meter we're showing somewhere between three and six, I'm going to just set this at five just as a general guess. [MUSIC] So just to review, you set your threshold near the quietest word. That means that anything getting louder than the threshold will be subject to compression and made quieter. Then you set your ratio, which determines how much compression you're going to have. Once the compressor has done the compression. Then you want to look at your gain reduction meter and see how much gain you've lost. Then add that number to the gain knob on the compressor, like we did here. So let's listen to the final product. [MUSIC] And if that doesn't sound too different to you yet, let's listen to it in the mix before and after. And you can hear where it's, our quietest word was in the mix before the compression and where it's is afterward. So here it is before compression. [MUSIC] And here we are after compression. [MUSIC] And you can hear how each one of those words has just popped out of the mix much better. It's a subtle, but really important difference. And you can use compression on any instrument.
