noGearslut wrote on Fri, 09 December 2005 01:40 |
dont get me wrong.. I hear a clear diffrence between compressed and not compressed.. but I wanna understand it in detail.
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Mr Hall is right on.
However, I have always found it to be useful to explain that a compressor changes the dynamic RANGE of a signal.
The make-up gain just brings the top of the newly compressed RANGE back to where it was originally (or sometimes past that, or below that - depending, of course).
The ratio determines what a resulting output will be based on a given input. For example 2:1 compression (regardless of make-up gain setting) requires a 2dB input to give a 1 dB output. If the dynamic RANGE of the input is, say, 10 dB from its queitest sound to its loudest sound, a 2:1 ratio will compress that RANGE (sorry to keep emphasizing it, but it is the most important aspect, methinks) to merely 5 dB.
That being the case, the loudest sound may need to be turned up (via make-up gain) so that the overall output is the "same" as the uncompressed version of the same thing.
However, sometimes one will choose to compress and NOT adjust make-up gain, instead trying to "knock down" the peaks.
Does that help at all?
Warm analog regards,
Fig