Reason 3.0 Tutorial - Intro to the Compressor

Some basic understanding of how to use a compressor, what it does, and how to read the knobs/gain meters.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• Reason
• compressor
• tutorial

[sonofzion]

when recording vocals, should i use a compressor before or after?

[AcePincter]

Always, ALWAYS do your effects After recording.

Record clean, then dirty it up.

The reason? You can't UNDO if you record it dirty.

[GyuJazz]

Very good job, this tutorial is great!

Especially I liked the division of frequencies in the end, I never thought of that.

But I've got one question: talking about ratio -and if I understood it wrong please correct me- should the db's go above the threshold, the compressor divides the extra db's with X (X:1)... is this how you meant it?

The way I heard before, the compressor measures all the db's gone at least X(units) above the threshold, erases them and adds 1 db.

Complicated enough?

[AcePincter]

Nope - the division is the proper way to understand compression.

Some compressors have a make-up gain function which would add db to the end result, but it is a Division process.

However, if you set the compressor to (infinity):1, you would effectively be "erasing" all the gain above X db. They call this "Brickwalling"

[BenCheddar2]

doesn't a compressor also boost low sounds and reduce the dynamics of the song?

[AcePincter]

only "Make-up Gain" compressors automatically boost the quiet parts. Although, typically you would increase the volume on a mixer channel once compression is applied, because the output level will be graduated according to the comp. ratio. So, in this way you can boost the low sounds while not changing the loud ones too much. In this way, you lose dynamics.

A compressor doesn't reduce the dynamics as an effect, it's more a side-effect of trying to make everything loud.

[CodyRicheson]

Very informative, but I'm still pretty confused.

[theMISFITlife]

this was SO helpful man. thanks

[pitolove71]

Your vids are very informative...but did you pronounce your name (ace-sphincter?) It's the third time you've pronounced it that way in different vids...funny. Great vids, great vids...

[BlackAtticEnt]

You lost me when you pulled out the vocoder's (I am pretty new to Reason and music in general) but this video was still helpful. Thank you, great video!

[geared2cre8]

Cleared things up for me and I got a decent laugh out of it, education is fun!

[WillHerndon]

im confused about one thing. whats the point of compressing a synth line? if you want to even out the dynamics, why wouldnt you just change the note velocities in your sequencer? or if youre using the compressor to accentuate a synth's attack phase, why not just do that with the ADSR envelope of the synth you're using?

[nickvasko]

the librarian metaphor actually makes sense, that was the only explanation i understood on how the compressor works..... great vid

[iffydiff]

thank you man its all sooooooo clear now lol the compressor baffled me for years

[BionicSheep]

excellent video, man. :) for the first time i actually understand what a compressor does

[Rus3110]

Awsome. Love the librarian metaphore. If your not already, you'd make a great teacher in sure