(instrumental music)
- [Lecturer] Let's compress this vocal.
So, I've got another part of the region soloed.
I'm going to zoom in here so you can see.
Usually you want to choose
the most dynamic section of your song,
and that typically is the chorus,
because you're singing louder,
or the vocalist is singing louder,
so there's more variations between loud and soft.
You can actually see the peaks and the valleys
in these files.
I went a little bit earlier,
you can see there's more evenness in the tone.
So, I have set the cycle region on this chorus section.
And then the next thing we need to do is
engage the Compressor.
So, similar to how we inserted the EQ, you can go here,
navigate to Dynamics, here's the Compressor.
Or, there's a little strip above the EQ here
and if you click on it,
the Compressor immediately pops up, gonna pull over here.
And so, I'm not going to adjust the settings for now,
and you can see,
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
This is actually an indication of gain reduction.
So, you can see the Compressor in action,
working as we go.
So, the first step here is to set the threshold.
You want to be compressing somewhere between five and ten dB.
That's usually a tasteful setting for a vocal.
So, as this is playing,
I'm going to lower the threshold
until I get that amount of compression.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that you can't see
♫ It's not an illusion
Okay, so you can see this meter here,
this is indicating -10 dB.
You can also switch over to the graph,
which a lot of people like to see this visually happening
in real time.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
And gain reduction is represented here
on the right-hand side,
and you can actually see this Compressor
working in real time.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
Okay, so I've got the threshold set
basically where it needs to be,
and then I'm going to set the ratio
to be four to one, five to one,
somewhere around here is usually pretty good.
I'm also going to turn Auto Gain off.
A lot of times it's easier to just have it set
so that it's automatically making up for the gain reduction,
but I tend to want to set this myself,
and I think it's a really good thing to do.
So, now that I've turned it off,
it's not going to make up for that gain,
and it's going to sound a lot softer.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
So I'm adjusting the threshold here,
because you can see it started jumping
when we raised the ratio,
we're getting almost 20 dB of gain reduction.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that you can't see
♫ It's not an illusion
All right.
And then I can make up for the gain reduction,
so I'm going to raise this up.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
And realistically,
you want the level to be kind of exactly the same as it was
when the Compressor wasn't on there,
because we're not using this tool to add volume.
We're using this tool to even out the dynamic range.
So, as I turn this on and off,
we'll be able to hear what's happening to the overall level.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that you can't see
So this is a good setting.
It's not changing the volume very much at all,
but it is evening things out.
As I turn this off,
I want you to hear it's those really (loud vocalizing)
really loud and are just punching and cutting through.
And then, as I turn it on,
you'll see they're kind of smoothed out.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that you can't see
So, the more you use compressors,
the more you adjust these parameters,
the easier it is to actually hear what's happening.
The other thing that is a good idea to do
is to flip through some of these
different types of compressors.
There are three main types of compressors.
There's VCA, a FET, and then an Optical Compressor.
So, these are just emulations of other hardware pieces,
and they have different sounds.
They add color, they add dimension.
So, I'm going to, as I'm playing this,
I'm going to flip through the different settings.
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that you can't see
♫ It's not an illusion
♫ Don't tell me it's not that easy
♫ Too much of a sacrifice
♫ Don't tell me that
So, just use your ears, use your better judgment.
If something is, one of these is sounding better to you,
then go with that.
And really,
it's just this process of setting the threshold,
the ratio, and the makeup gain.
This is the best place to start when
you're learning how to use a Compressor.
(instrumental music)