Today, I'm tackling a
topic that's troubled many of us is over processing, killing your audio.
And if so, how can we fix it?
Over processing, especially over compression, can really squeeze the life
out of your audio, making it sound really flat, lifeless and even distorted.
But you know, I am here with steps to compress your audio.
Well, common mistakes to avoid.
And of course, before and after samples in Adobe audition.
So let's dive in.
First of all, it's important to understand compression and what it is.
Essentially, it reduces the dynamic range of your audio.
So that means making the loud parts quieter
and the quiet parts louder to achieve a more consistent volume level.
But of course there's a fine line between too much and too little.
let's dive in and find out how we can set threshold and ratio correctly.
Threshold and ratio are really the key to good compression
and it really determine where the compression starts.
When you set your threshold.
So let's look at this example here.
You can see some audio on my screen right now
and you can see there are some peaks right now.
And a lot of the audio is sitting down here quite quiet.
So ideally, I want to take those loud parts,
squish them down and make them level with the quiet parts.
So threshold is where my compression starts to kick in and squash
down the loud parts.
You can see that these little peaky bits are sort of going
above -21 here on the volume meter.
So that is a great place to start.
If I go into effects and then I look for amplitude in compression
and I go for the dynamics effect.
Now here I can make sure everything is at default by selecting default
in the presets, and I'm just going to take compressor to get started.
Now you'll notice I said I think most of the peaks are going above
-21 on the scale, so I'll set my threshold right there
at -21 and that decides where the peaks of your audio
hit the compressor and start squishing down.
With that done nothing is going to happen to my audio.
If I switch on the before and after mode, you'll see it
remains exactly the same before and after.
Down here.
But this is where ratio comes in and setting
that up can decide how much the peaks get squished.
Okay, so if I select ratio usually a good place to start for vocals
is either two or 3 to 1 for a natural sound.
If I select two, you'll see these little peaks get squished down quite nicely,
and if I select three there you'll see the peaks get squished even more.
So that's how you can get threshold and ratio
correct to really compress and even out your volume.
But it doesn't stop there.
Attack and release times can be your friend,
but also your foe if you set them in correctly.
Okay.
Fast attack times can squash the life out of everything
in your audio while too slow can let too much through.
Let me give you an example of how that would work.
The attack is set to one millisecond.
That is very fast.
Now, if I go ahead and increase that to the maximum 10 milliseconds,
all those peaks are squishing through the compressor again, naughty peaks.
So I've set my attack time to slow.
So I need to dial this down now.
If I let down really fast, like 0.1,
it's going to really squish everything and maybe squish the life out of my audio.
I usually find for voiceover one millisecond
the default is actually pretty good and with release
too quick can cause pumping that woof, woof woof sound.
And we'll listen to some examples in a moment.
And to slow or just smother your sound.
So you need to get a good balance.
And again, I'd say the default here of 50 milliseconds is actually pretty good.
Now, if you're really enjoying this video so far, I would love it
if you would like this video, some more people can see it and learn
the mistakes to avoid with compression and how to get it right.
You could also subscribe to my channel because I'm always doing videos
just like this one.
So let's look at some common pitfalls.
Overdoing it is definitely a big one
with compression, it's easy to compress everything in isolation
without context, so you should always reference the full mix you've got.
If you've got a voiceover and you're setting it on top of music,
make sure as well as compressing separately, you go into multitrack
and you mix everything together so you can hear that the mix sits well
and watch out for using too much make up gain as well
to just think that things sound better.
So right now with what I've got here in front of me,
I'll actually play this audio that's been slightly compressed
with my threshold ratio attack and release settings.
Let's listen.
I learn what I learned.
Okay. That's like super quiet, isn't it?
I can hardly hear that right now because the audio is actually
it's a very low level and the make up gain is at zero.
So if I were to turn this now up
to make up a gain of 15, you'd see the waveform get a lot louder.
And then I.
And we could immediately think that that audio actually sounds better
because we've applied 15 DB of make up gain.
So just be careful louder isn't always better.
Try and listen at low volumes and determine that your mix is sounding
just right.
now that we've got the basics of compression and not over
compressing our audio, let's put it all into practice
and listen to some different clips that I've got here
and I'll show you the mistakes and how to avoid them.
So first of all, we'll listen to this clip without proper compression.
Have a lesson. I learned what I learned.
Michael Malone The g M.
Okay, so that sounds dynamic, but uneven, right?
So let's listen to some over compressed audio here all.
Alone with Michael, Marco.
DG, BGM.
So notice how flat and lifeless it feels.
And finally, let's listen to the clip and it's compressed correctly.
I don't want to learn. Marco Malone.
DG M Okay, that's much better, isn't it consistent yet still dynamic.
And when we compare that between
before and after, let's have a listen to the original.
Allen Wastler and Marco Milan.
And then with just right, Allen.
Wastler and Michael Malone.
Nice and even you can hear things too much.
Allen Wastler and Mark Hamill earn.
The g m So it's all about getting the right mix in your compression.
Remember, the goal of compression is to enhance your audio, not to overpower it.
So use the tips to find the sweet spots without falling into that trap
of over processing.
Just experiment,
listen as closely as you can and most importantly, trust your ears.
If I were to finally, as the final tip here, go into the multitrack
and put things into practice, let's call this session mix.
I'm going to drag in my just write compressed audio here and I'm
actually going to go ahead and drag in a little piece of music for track two.
Let's have a listen to how it sits in the mix.
And then with some good Michael Malone.
DG And now you'll hear that obviously the music is
way too loud, so the music is overpowering that compressed audio.
This is where you can fall
into a trap and say, Well, clearly I need to compress that audio further
and turn the volume up on the voiceover so it can be clearly heard
on top of the music.
But that is just going to pump out your vocal, make it sound a little bit
awful and essentially blast out the music.
So really what you want to do is maybe add a little bit of light
compression or limiting to your music, and it's very easy to do.
So here on track two, I might go ahead and add
in under amplitude and compression, a little hard limiter,
and I might say I do not want this audio to go above -60.
B That would be sensible.
Let's listen to that mix.
And then with sound.
So still quite loud.
So in that case, what I can do is I can take this little tag here, turn it down a.
Bit, and then with Michael Malone.
And already we're starting to get a decent mix.
But if you get frustrated
and you get tearing your hair out thinking,
I'm trying to adjust all these mixes and I'm limiting the music a bit
and I've compressed my vocal a bit, it still doesn't sound right.
An easy hack to get everything to sit well in the mix so that you can set
your levels correctly is to select all your audio files, all your waveforms
inside multitrack, right click, and then you want to look for this one
absolutely fantastic tool, which is match clip loudness.
And what that will do is get all of your clips to the same perceived loudness.
Usually I find setting this to the standard ITU,
which is default target loudness of -23, which is default.
That will then level your clips.
It's taken the voiceover down by five db, the music down by 6.1 DB
and then we can go
ahead and further adjust our music and even maybe turn up our voiceover.
So we get a nice mix.
And then what's on the Marksman Earn. BGM.
So there you go.
That is compression and setting things right without over processing.
Now if you found this guide helpful, I'd love it if you give me a thumbs up
and do not forget to subscribe to my channel for more audio tips and tricks.
If you got some questions about compression and
compression, definitely drop them in the comments down below.