MModernCompressor

[Starship Krupa]

I got that part, that I set the Detector settings first.

Then I have run through my song with the Analyze button pushed in, and wound up with a white histogram superimposed over a dark rectangle, both over a graph. The graph is calibrated in the Y axis, from -80 dB to 0dB. There is no scale on the X axis.

You say the next step is to move the red vertical line, which is the Dynamic Level control, which will show me "what dynamic range I have at a certain percentage."

I'm doing this with my transport stopped, and the size of the rectangle is changing, and the number for DYNAMIC RANGE is changing. It jumps really abruptly, from a realistic number of 9.5DB to 62DB.

I know this is going to sound stupid, but there is no "percentage" anywhere, and I don't understand the "certain percentage" I'm trying to match with a dynamic range. And when you say "set how much I actually want," is that with just the Dynamic Range control or with both of them?

Is what I'm doing using the Dynamic Level control to just check out what will happen with different Dynamic Range settings? The Dynamic Level control and the Dynamic Range controls both affect the final Threshold and Ratio settings when I hit Auto-Compression, so I know it can't be just that.

I just tried MModernCompressor on a vocal buss and couldn't get Auto-Compression to take much action; I think I had the Dynamic Level control set too far to the right, although I had the Dynamic Range control set to 6DB. This is where I am getting hung up.

I know that I'll get this once I understand what these unfamiliar controls do; I can get MCompressor to do everything I want it to using its manual settings. This program analysis histogram has me intrigued and I want to make the best possible use of it I can. I love the detector section; I got a ferocious booming kick drum sound by trial and error and using the EQ and controls manually.

You need to set Attak/Release and other detector settings and then perform the analysis and it will show the "level distribution". Then move the read vertical line in the graph it will show what the dynamic range you have at certain percentage. Then set how much you actually want and it will set the threshold and ratio to make that happen.

[jmg8]

Firstly I recommend that you forget about the auto feature.
It always sets the threshold at the bottom of the dynamic range, so really all it actually does is set the ratio to achieve the requested dynamic range.
Sometimes this might be useful. But I would never really know already what I would want the dynamic range to be, I find that a little strange.
From what I have read from your comments, it seams that you already have a great understanding of compression.
You already know how to use the threshold and ratio to achieve the sound you want. So forget about the auto compression it is not very useful.

So why bother with MModernCompressor then?

Well I mostly use MTurboCompressor, but often open MModernCompressor for its "Level Distribution Graph"
I find it the most useful way to analyse my audio when using compression. Specifically it shows me where to set my threshold.
So sometimes I need my threshold set quite high to only catch the very peaks, maybe with a relatively fast attack, this behaviour is closer to a limiter.
Or other times I want the threshold set quite low with a slower attack to gently massage the dynamics to get a more consistent level.
When you fully understand what the level distribution graph is showing you, it will become very insightful for setting the threshold in the perfect spot.

When I compress I (mostly) do the following:

1. Apply too much compression to more easily hear what the attack and release are going to do. With loads of compression you can hear the transient clearly.

2. Set the attack and release to taste. Attack is usually set depending on what I'm trying to achieve (catching peaks or gluing things together etc)
Release is often set to be rhythmical so it sounds quite musical.

3. Now set the ratio to 1:1 (no compression)

4. Use the level distribution graph to decide where to set my threshold.

5. Now the ratio simply becomes the amount of compression. Just try too much then too little and fine tune somewhere in the middle until it sounds good
(keep an eye on the gain reduction meter)

6. Finally output gain. Do you want to make up for the reduction in loudness? If so I personally use the AGC set button.


So how do we use the "Level Distribution Graph"?

Y axis on the graph is easy to understand, it is simply db.
X axis is measured in percentage (I know there are no values written along the bottom, but if you move the vertical bar, you will see the % value appear)

Imagine freezing the audio in time. What level is it right now? lets say -3db, now unfreeze the audio and then freeze again, what level is it now? lets say -6db.
Let the audio play and then freeze again, this time the level is -6db again.

How would this look on the graph?
So you would see that -6db would be at 100% (to the right) as it is the most commonly measured level.
-3db would be at 50% as half of the time the audio was measured at this level.
0db and -12db would obviously be at 0% as the audio was never measured at this level.

Now obviously in normal use it doesn't just take only 3 measurements, it takes thousands.

So the simplest way to put it is that the right part of the graph displays levels that are often happening.
The left part of the graph shows levels that rarely or never happen.

How can we use this info to set the threshold?

So if you want the compressor to be working where all the action is happening, you would set the threshold to where the signal has the most commonly measured level.
So basically where the graph is most on the right.
You will nicely be able to see the peaks too. The very highest peak might only happen just once, so it will be all the way over to the left of the graph.
Maybe you don't want to only catch just this one peak as your compressor would only actually work just one time.
The more you lower the threshold the more the compressor works and you can clearly see on the graph which levels the compressor will catch and how often it will catch them.

I find it very useful.

Finally just forget about the vertical red dynamic threshold line.
Basically it is only relevant to tell the compressor the current dynamic range so then it can set the new dynamic range.
This is for the auto compression (I don't use it. You will be much better at making the decisions than an algorithm trust me. How would it even know what you wish achieve?)
But if you wish to know, I will explain:
If the level at one point in time is measured at -80db or silence but this only happen just once.
Well the dynamic range would be huge! all the way from -80db up to say 0db, a dynamic range of 80db!
this is not useful as the quite part happened just once and is not really relevant or meaningful.
This is where the dynamic threshold comes in, it basically ignores the rare level measurement and only counts the common ones.
Everything to the left of the line is not counted as part of the dynamic range,
everything to the right is and also shaded dark to give you an easy to see overview of your dynamic range.

[DarkStar]

^^^^
good explanation

And here is an example:
>>> https://i.imgur.com/BIPZ8BV.png

I used the left-hand instance to Analyze the signal. You can see from the graph that the most common level is about -22 dB and the second most common is at about - 38dB. And there is little above -10dB or below -58dB.

I used a Dynamic Level of 72% and Auto-compression to set the Threshold to -46.7 dB (where the Dynamic level line crosses the lower edge of the graph) and the Ratio to 2.03:1 ( = Detected dynamic range at a Dynamic level of 72% / Requested dynamic range, that is 30.43 / 15 = 2.03).

I then turned off that Analyzer, played back the audio and fed the compressed output into the right-hand instance where I Analyzed it again. The Dynamic range is not exactly 15 dB as requested and the left-hand instance lets some transients through. And you can see that the relative occurrence of the various levels has changed and that the quietest sections have got a little louder (from -58 dB to -54 dB).

[vectorwarrior]

Thank you both. This is actually really interesting. I never fully understood how the level distribution panel worked, this really clarifies it. It's actually super useful to have a volume distribution histogram when setting compression parameters. As someone mentioned in another post, this would be useful in MDynamics.

[Starship Krupa]

Thank you jmg8, this is just brilliant! I so appreciate your taking the time and trouble to spell it out for me (and anyone else who may be lurking).

Thank you DarkStar as well. The screen captures are useful. I will download both of these messages and refer to them next time I dive in to this compressor.

If enough people see this, who knows, maybe MModernCompressor will start getting more love.

It does illustrate the thing that troubles me the most about Meldaproduction's amazing products (and Meldaproduction is hardly unique in this regard), and that is documentation and tutorials. The reason that it especially troubles me with Meldaproduction is that the plug-ins are so deep in features.

I get so much done with them by working on the main menus, and then later I hit a button out of curiosity and find out that there is this whole useful metering panel that I didn't know about. Or like with MModernCompressor, it has a section of 4 modulators. I've never seen a compressor with modulation and can't get my head around what I would use that for. A compressor with modulation? Rhythmic compression of the bass tied to the song's BPM for EDM maybe? But 4 of them?

Another case in point: my beloved MCompressor. The detector EQ in MModernCompressor is in the Sidechain window, and I have been messing about with it using MModern on my drum overheads. I was musing that this was a cool feature and one that would be useful in MCompressor. Then I went back to MCompressor and looked at the greyed-out Sidechain window, clicked on it, and lo and behold, there is an EQ in the detector, albeit more rudimentary than the one in MModernCompressor. All this time....

If there is not already, it would be great if there were a central repository for user-contributed tutorials and explanations of the features in these amazing plug-ins. If there is, please let me know where it is.

[Starship Krupa]

So I've had MModernCompressor for 3 weeks now, and I think it was $25 well spent.

Money is very tight for me, which is how I became such a fan of MeldaProduction; I get a lot of work done with Vojtech's free offerings, especially MCompressor, which I used to learn how compressors really work. Its meter is the best I have seen for showing me a visual representation of what is happening to the signal.

As soon as I can spare the $50, I plan on activating my free bundle, not that I need the extra features (I barely scratch the surface of the existing ones as it is), but to thank Vojtech for his work. The oversampling will be nice to have, I admit.

Anyway, I know that most of you on here are comparatively big spenders who use MTurbo or MDynamics, but I've found MModern to be a great sounding compressor in its own right. What really floats my boat are the detector modes, especially SuperSmooth and PsychoAcoustic. I've gone through my projects in progress and replaced whatever compressors I had been using (mostly MCompressor, but a few others that most emulated opticals) with MModern, and man, what a difference.

The thing is, I have never been so much into digital emulations of the "mojo" and idiosyncratic response found in old CA-2A's, 1176's, dbx's or whatever, because that is not what I learned on. I learned on MCompressor.

If I want the smoothness of an optical type, I switch it to SuperSmooth, set the RMS length to 100, the attack to 40, the release to 400, and the ratio to about 4:1, and then it's great as the top compressor on a vocal bus.

To make vocals or other instruments pop out or float, I use PsychoAcoustic or Default and faster settings all around. I am a happy consumer. I may even have a couple of presets to upload for exchange purposes soon, when I can figure out how all that works. I'm going to attempt MModern response versions of such things as LA-2A that I have been using in my projects. I need to ask around here so as to maximize the usefulness.

The only thing I miss about MCompressor is the meter. That thing is the best!

[jmg8]

In the meters there is a button to the left that looks like a bar chart graph. When clicked it changes from metres mode to time graph mode. If you right click in the graph you can change settings and select gain reduction. It is sort of like the meter you are looking for from MCompressor.

Also if you spent 50 last month and 50 this month. You should really consider subscribing. For 50 per month you get EVERYTHING!!!!

[MeldaProduction]

Yes!

You probably won't need everything anyways, but for that money having literally everything...

[Starship Krupa]

In the meters there is a button to the left that looks like a bar chart graph. When clicked it changes from metres mode to time graph mode. If you right click in the graph you can change settings and select gain reduction. It is sort of like the meter you are looking for from MCompressor.

Also if you spent 50 last month and 50 this month. You should really consider subscribing. For 50 per month you get EVERYTHING!!!!

Thank you for the meter tip! It is not like the MCompressor meter, but it is another useful way to monitor what is being done. I just really love the vertical line dancing back and forth, and the diagonal line that changes to represent the knee, and then the other vertical line for the threshold. Especially when I am trying to teach someone how to use a compressor, or it's in the wee hours of the morning, and my brain is starting to seize up, it's my favorite way of visualizing how it works.

No, I didn't spend $50 last month, I spent $25 on MModern Compressor during an Eternal Madness sale. Now I am working on the $50 to add upsampling to the free bundle.