Live has the following for compression or limiting: Compressor, Glue Compressor, Drum Buss, Limiter, and Multiband Dynamics. If you look at a stereo file that’s been limited, the outer edges of the waveform are blocked off. The compressed mix will look like it sounds – denser, and with less variation in the waveform. One way to appreciate compression is to look at ‘before and after’ waveforms – I do this all the time.Īpply compression to a mix, then export it to disk, and bring it back in on another track, to see both at once. It can be used to even out the notes in a clean guitar performance, so they sound more consistent it can constrain the dynamic extremes of a slap bass it can beef up a recorded beat, because when you even out the dynamics in a recording, you can increase the overall loudness without creating distortion or it can make a stereo mix sound louder and even blatantly pumped up to an extreme level if that’s what you want. In that sense, it’s more of a utility, like an EQ.
Unlike most audio effects, a compressor doesn’t have a characteristic sound. With the right settings, a compressor can also double as a limiter, but in Ableton Live we have compressors and a limiters as separate devices, which keeps things a bit more immediate. A limiter is the same, but anything that tries to pass the defined level is stopped dead. You set a level, above which you want the loud bits to be reduced in volume, and… end of tutorial! Almost.
The most basic explanation of a compressor is that it’s a device that reduces the distance between the quietest and loudest parts of sound. Here, we’re going to avoid technical explanations as much as possible, and instead give you some ideas about how to use it within your Live productions and performances. One of the most mysterious aspects of this process is compression – and this crosses over into limiting, expansion and, if you’re not careful, mastering.Įverybody knows that compression is important but, like EQ, not everybody knows how and when to use it, or even what it is. There are times when music production, especially when it comes to mixing, seems like some weird kind of medieval black art, left over from the days when men in lab coats toiled over warm valves in a place called a ‘recording studio’.
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