How to choose Ratio on a compressor?

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

All audible frequencies travel at the same speed in a consistent medium.
[/quote]
Nope...higher note=higher freqs=higher velocity...inside the mix is unnatural highs to be slower than lows ...sorry if i don't have scientific explanation ,but it's the musical approach to place freqs right way in the mix,looking for dynamic or at least it is for me :)Kumbaya

[heavymetalmixer]

Btw people, I think you should read this article about compression myths:

https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... mpression/

https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... ression/2/

[Rumdrum]

First question is why use a compressor? What is it for? As the name indicates it "compresses" the signal. (An "Expander" works the opposite way). It is like taking a loaf of bread and squeeze it to small ball. The harder you sqeeze the smaller the ball and also, the harder the ball of bread will become and the distance between the different molecyles in the bread will become smaller. How small and how hard do you want the ball to be? That is the ratio!

Your uncompressed audio signal consists normally of higher and lower amplitudes. You can see them (the amplitudes) in the audio track of your DAW. The compressor pushes the tops down and the small ones up (by make up volume), drawing them closer to each other. How alike you want them to be, determines the ratio.

So first you need to have an opinion of the difference between the high and low amplitudes and how you want them to be after the compression and then set the ratio. The higher the ratio the more alike they will become and the less dynamic (difference between the high and low amplitudes) you will get.

Like the example of the squeezed bread, your track gets "harder" as the dynamic fades. EDM is a very hard compressed music. Almost no dynamic. Same goes for death metal. Very little dynamic in both genres. No piece of classical music or singer songwriter music is compressed that hard.

Your ears will also determine the ratio. If, say the vocals seem to drop out in some portions of the song it could be that the ratio is too low. (Can also be other problems though).

Rembemer that a compressor will lower the output in general on the track you are using it on, but most compressors have a volume compensation so what you really achieve then is to bring the lower signals up in volume.

If you want a general starting point for the "recommended" ratio for each instrument, I would suggest to use a compressor that has instrument named presets and look what kind of ratio it sets the compressor to. Presets are a good starting point most of the time. However there are no rules without exemptions. Pumped drums (often used in paralell or New York compression) is an example of a much higher ratio than "normal" drums.

It is a profession to get the best out of a compressor to make a good mix. Long time practice and using your ears is the best way to learn it. It has taken me 15 years so far and I am still under education. But then agian perhaps I am slow.

[Googly Smythe]

All audible frequencies travel at the same speed in a consistent medium.

Nope...higher note=higher freqs=higher velocity...inside the mix is unnatural highs to be slower than lows ...sorry if i don't have scientific explanation ,but it's the musical approach to place freqs right way in the mix,looking for dynamic or at least it is for me :)Kumbaya
[/quote]

Sorry, but all frequencies of sound travel at a constant speed in any given medium. Can you imagine the sound at a rock festival - you're saying the sound of the cymbals will reach you before the sound of the kick drum.

[Eauson]

Depends on weather the player is hot or cold

[jochicago]

Btw people, I think you should read this article about compression myths:
https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... mpression/
https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... ression/2/

Let me help address the myths perpetuated by those that write articles about dispelling myths:

Attack is the length of time it takes a compressor to apply roughly two-thirds of the targeted amount of gain reduction.

NO. Attack is whatever the compressor designer made it. Most compressors are all over the place with attack. Many (too many) compressors seem to have as much as a 10:1 ratio between what the knob says and when the attack actually applies 2/3 of the GR. Meaning for instance that if you use Tracktion compressor when it says 50ms, it is actually compressing at around 5ms for no apparent reason.

Same to a lesser extent with the release knob. NEVER take your compressor's word for it. Use your ears. Also "trust but verify"

[jochicago]

at least for me unlinked/dual mono compression isn't a good idea, it messes up the width and produces some weird modulation effects.

Yes, it's a double-edged sword. Sadly it keeps coming back to every situation is unique and it's on us to know when to use each tool.

Say you have a side bus you are using as parallel compressor in the style of CLA or Scheps. The idea is that you send multiple things to that bus, then you compress that very hard, then blend it in to taste to add weight to your song. If you use pans across your mix (most likely) then good chances that you are sending panned guitars, background tracks, etc to that mixed bus.

If you leave the compressor pump linked, anytime a guitar on the L makes a move, the compressor pushes down on both sides. This will also mess up your stereo image because it is pumping on the R when the R wasn't doing anything that needed compression, just because a guitar came in hard on the L side.

But decoupling all the time is not always ideal depending on what you are doing because now you have a system that is constantly trying to level up both sides separately which can also mess up your stereo image making things sound less 3d and more like they are pumping ping-pong style.

So I said: Bonus points for using a compressor that lets you decouple L/R on a bus.
For a bus, ideally you'd be using a compressor that has this option. A different question is when to decouple (and how much for the compressors that allow percentage-based decoupling).

[jochicago]

All audible frequencies travel at the same speed in a consistent medium.

Nope...higher note=higher freqs=higher velocity...inside the mix is unnatural highs to be slower than lows ...sorry if i don't have scientific explanation ,but it's the musical approach to place freqs right way in the mix,looking for dynamic or at least it is for me :)Kumbaya

I think you are thinking of the decay effect. Frequencies travel at the same speed, but the higher frequencies drop off sooner (or carry less distance) than the lower frequencies. Our brains understand those physics and use it to make sense of our surroundings, assuming that things with clearer high frequency content are closer to our head.

That helps vocals feel more "present" when we crank the higher frequencies, because our mind perceives that as someone standing close to us.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Maybe it's wrong terminology i use - It's not about when the sound arrive to your ears through the vibrating air with 1,234.8 km/h,but how it is placed inside the mix as freq structure inside the sonic picture,it's about the attack speed and release time of the instruments or the compressors,hope somebody with more experience to explain relation low-highs in the mix with more details,dynamic comes with i,we don't just press volume with compressors but change the curves and harmonics of signal and how they glue each other when mix them...it's very deep topic and i'm not enough qualified to explain mix theory ,you just can't expect good mix if everything has 2 milliseconds attack,that's my point

[cron]

Btw people, I think you should read this article about compression myths:
https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... mpression/
https://www.attackmagazine.com/features ... ression/2/

Let me help address the myths perpetuated by those that write articles about dispelling myths:

Attack is the length of time it takes a compressor to apply roughly two-thirds of the targeted amount of gain reduction.

NO. Attack is whatever the compressor designer made it. Most compressors are all over the place with attack. Many (too many) compressors seem to have as much as a 10:1 ratio between what the knob says and when the attack actually applies 2/3 of the GR. Meaning for instance that if you use Tracktion compressor when it says 50ms, it is actually compressing at around 5ms for no apparent reason.

Same to a lesser extent with the release knob. NEVER take your compressor's word for it. Use your ears. Also "trust but verify"

I find it quite helpful to view attack and release as 'rates of change' rather than absolute time values. I don't think you can intuitively think of them with seconds as the base unit, because the times displayed beneath the knobs is stretched and squashed all over the place depending on the amount of gain reduction you're applying. Same deal with the D and R in ADSR synth envelopes being heavily dependent on the target sustain value. I find thinking of them purely as rates of change demystifies their internal operation somewhat.

Maybe it's wrong terminology i use - It's not about when the sound arrive to your ears through the vibrating air with 1,234.8 km/h,but how it is placed inside the mix as freq structure inside the sonic picture,it's about the attack speed and release time of the instruments or the compressors,hope somebody with more experience to explain relation low-highs in the mix with more details,dynamic comes with i,we don't just press volume with compressors but change the curves and harmonics of signal and how they glue each other when mix them...it's very deep topic and i'm not enough qualified to explain mix theory ,you just can't expect good mix if everything has 2 milliseconds attack,that's my point

You're probably thinking of wavelength rather than speed. Let's take 100 and 1000Hz to make the maths easy. The oscillations you see in your wave editor broadly translate to the patterns they make in the air (very loosely - trying to keep this easy!) Once the speaker produces those patterns and they start moving through the the air, they all move at the same speed. It's just that the 1000Hz wave packs 10 times as many oscillations into the same space as the 100Hz wave. They're moving at the same speed, it's just that one produces more dense patterns in the air, with the oscillations packed more closely together.

So yeah, I think you're thinking of wavelength rather than speed. My last post on page 2 explains why longer wavelengths are more prone to distortion under compression.

[VELLTONE MUSIC]

Ok maybe is the length of wave or else i don't know what is right term,my theory sucks,but practice is simple,bass must be with longer attack for better musical results,maybe it's just my conclusion for my preferred sound i don't know,but ratio and threshold only will make things more obvious(better or worst)...even if you need tight bass must be little slower - it's only about mixing lows and highs,that's from my experience,may not be even a rule,hope somebody to share ideas or to correct me - ratio is last thing i touch,to glue the instrument among other by choosing how much to press it,like you put new stuff in already full sack

[ramseysounds]

To the OP. Why not just put a compressor on a track, play a loop and play with the controls as it plays? Experiment and see what sounds good. Who cares what the 'experts' say about ratios, thresholds etc. It's what you think that matters in the end.

[heavymetalmixer]

To the OP. Why not just put a compressor on a track, play a loop and play with the controls as it plays? Experiment and see what sounds good. Who cares what the 'experts' say about ratios, thresholds etc. It's what you think that matters in the end.

I've been doing that for a while, but just as many other people say: Two compressors don't work nor sound the same way, so I wanted to make sure if there was a way to choose the ratio common to every compressor.

[ramseysounds]

Simple answer is no. You can get close probably but each compressor is different.