Cracking Compressors, how to get them to work.

    Today I would like to share some knowledge I picked up about compressors.
A while ago a friend told me about a great book on the subject of mixing & recording audio
called "Mixing with your mind" by Michael Paul Stavrou. If your serious about recording music then
I well recommend reading this book.
    So compressors, that effect that sounds like its hardly doing anything at all and some case that's exactly what you them to sound like. A compressor does what the name says, it compressors the audio so you don't get those loud peaks that jump out and poke you in the ear. But be warned if you compress too much your audio will lose all its dynamics and your track will sound small & fatiguing to the ear.
     The thing I always found hard about compressors was the controls, what they stood for and how to use them. This was until I read cracking compressors by Mr Stavrou. Now I cant share with you that section of the book due to copyright, but I really recommend getting your hands on a copy. Nonetheless here are my thoughts on compressors.
    Essentially they squash the signal so the soft & loud become the same volume, now to do that you only really need one knob that gives you more or less squashing. And some compressors operate like this while others give you more control. Now if your going to squash something say like an orange then you want to know how flat you want to make it and the knob titled "ratio" does this. The higher the ratio the flatter the orange. Now you may have a few oranges & you may want some of the big oranges to be the same height as the smaller oranges. So you set the "threshold" so the smaller oranges pass through without being squashed while the tubby ones get squashed down to the same size. Now the "Attack" is how fast your squashing those big fat oranges. If your oranges are traveling along a conveyer belt & the attack is fast then every orange is going to get hit immediately while if the compressor is slow then the front of the orange will stay a little rounded. Now if you want the orange to stretched smeared across the conveyer belt then make sure your "release"is slow so it hangs onto the orange for as long as possible & if you want your orange to stay intact then make the "release" fast.

Well I hope this helps!

cheese
Mat