Ableton Forum

Compression is one thing that has been hard for me to understand. Well, not really understand. I know what the point of it is and what it does. But, I'm having SO much trouble using compression in my tracks...I just cannot get it to sound right. It's very frustration.

So, what exactly do I use compression on? I tried using it on almost everything in my track, and it just made the track sound so muddy. I think I may have went a little overboard with the compression, or I just didn't use the compression right. How do I know when to use compression? Should I use it on everything? On the master bus? These are just a few questions that I really need answered lol.

Now, I was messing around with the ratio and knee and all of that, and it just made me so confused. And then I played around with the threshold and output, and I made it sound even worse. Haha

Does anyone have any advice that they would be willing to give me? I really need some help with this. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I just want to be able to use compression and understand what I"m doing.

Any advice would be VERY appreciated.

Thanks!

my only advice is don't use it just because you think you need to. use it for a specific application. it takes practice. this is also very helpful:

http://tarekith.com/assets/dynamics.html

Hi mate heres some tips whatever you call wanna it that MIGHT help you along the way...

Personally...

(1) Use the compressor to even out the sound. For example you create a pad or a drum loop etc, and you notice the dynamics of the performance, sample, synth patch (dynamics meaning the difference between the loud levels (peaks) and the quiter levels in this example).

The compressor can then be used to bring down the peaks while raising the quiet parts to change the dynamics of it so thus the quiter parts or now level with or alot louder then they where were and the peaks have been reduced so now the both are level and a better balance exists if it is in need of this in first place like the guy above posts!.

You set the threshold for where you want the compressor to start, then assign the ratio, then you can adjust knee which acts as a kinda smoother curve for the compression, so whatever amount you decide to set, that amount is the amount that the compressor will begin working at before the threshold is set, enabling a smoother compression, at least thats what i know of, unless someone wants to correct me ofc .

Hopefully that will help, theres countless tips on how to use compression and what parts and arguements against over compressing and dynamics to loudness, your best judge is your ears, if it sounds alright as it is and there is no crazy peaks and dynamics sounds fine, leave it alone imo, another thing to keep in mind is if your source sample is rubbish no compression will change that, it helps to have the sound as good as you can to start with making compression less needed to even out dynamics.

One last point like other guys will probably say, over compressing every channel or compressing for compression sakes on every track that dosent need it, will leave a dull lifeless mix at the end with no feeling or sense of movement, dynamics at all, trust me i learned that hard way when i started.

Hope any of that helps and sure all the better experienced guys on here will help alot more, just wanted to try and help what i know of and understand with it all.