Nou had ik toevallig op een ander forum een soort van uitleg over compressie gegeven. In het engels, maar goed:
At first you just don't really know what the hell you're supposed to hear, so it gets kinda hard to actually learn how to do it, let alone do it properly!
I'll try to give some info based on my own limited understanding and mastery of compression.
Compressing a final mix is different from compressing a single track in that you generally don't want it to be too audible. Well not exactly, you actually do want it to be audible, but not in that it gets pumping too audibly, something that usually happens when heavy sounds (like bass and kickdrums, or loud snares) trigger the comressor so the whole mix drops in volume whenever the kick sounds. In some cases this might be a desireable effect (listen to some Daft Punk tracks and you'll hear it), it usually doesn't sound well, unless you have a wonderful expensive analog tube comressor or something. The trick is multiband compression, this splits the incoming signal into multiple frequency bands and comresses them seperately, then mixes it back together. Again, I'd highly recommend the Endorphin free multiband compressor fom
www.digitalfishphones.com (the site seems to be working again now) to try this out. It's free and it's bloody good as well. Stick this as an insert on your master channel and scroll trough the presets (only a few, but enough for now) and you'll immediately hear the difference the compression makes on the mix. watch your VU metres! You'll notice even though the actual peak level doesn't change (presuming you set up both the input signal just below clipping, and adjust the output of the compressor to the just below clipping as well) the volume of the track seems to be raises a lot nonetheless, especially on the heavier settings. This happens because essentially all the quieter parts of the track get their volume turned up (actually, the reverse happens in a compressor, loud parts are turned down, and then you raise the overall level). What you're left with is less difference between quiet and loud parts, or a "reduction of dynamic range" to use fancy words, increasing the overall power and perceived loudness of a mix. You can see the results clearly in a wave editor too. Just compare the waveforms of the uncompressed and compressed signals and you'll see the difference. The compressed waveform seems more "dense", and probably the peaks seem to have turned to horizontal lines at the top (where they were "cut off" by the compressor). "More dense" is also pretty much what you should be hearing, as well as seeing.
Just try it out on extreme settings first because it will be easier to hear the effect. Ideally, using your VU metres, the peak level of the uncompressed and compressed signals should be the same (to avoid unintentionally just using the compressors gain control as an amplifier withouth any compressing actually happening. Most compressor have VU metres to show how much dB compression ("gain-reduction") is taking place.
PS. als iemand hier nog fouten in ziet, laat het me even weten. Ik het allemaal ook maar gelezen
