ProSoundWeb: This time out, we’re conquering a trio of common confusions about compression. Even the term can be troublesome. In the context of live sound, compression refers to a type of dynamics processing that acts to reduce the dynamic range of the signal; basically, reduce the difference between the loud parts and the soft parts.
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For one of the most pervasive and simplest tools that a mixer uses, compressors are so often misunderstood. I’ve often heard people say both that compressors make a signal louder (due to a misunderstanding of makeup gain) and that they make a sound quieter (due to a misunderstanding of what parts of a sound a compressor acts upon). Both of these statements are partially correct, but they are over simplifications of how a compressor works, and they can easily lead to misuse. I’ve heard so many things that are so squished flat by over applied compressors that for a long time I stayed away from them even when I probably should have been using them. This article does a good job of explaining exactly how they work and why they aren’t a fool proof fix-all tool. While, as the author says, a skillfully applied compressor can bring hidden parts of the mix to life, an unskillfulky applied one simply crushes the dynamic range, arguable one of the most important factors of emotional impact.
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