The USB modular units can be grouped together and arranged as the user desires. I have always been struck by the distinct lack of design flare in Yamaha/Steinberg’s previous hardware releases, but these controllers are actually very pleasing to the eye.

The Blagger’s Guide series is intended to be accessible to those just beginning to explore music production and will begin with an easy to understand summary of the topic being discussed. We will then proceed to explore the topic in greater depth, looking at some classic hardware and ‘pro’ techniques. Going into increasing levels of complexity, the Guides will hopefully offer new insight, even to those with a solid grounding in music technology.

To begin, we will be exploring Compressors, EQs, Microphones, Microphone Preamps, and Effects – all the essential tools required to take a musician’s raw performance, capture it and turn it into part of a hit record.

In later installments we will also be taking a look at leading figures of the past and present, from legendary engineers like Eddie Kramer and Chris Lord-Alge, to the likes of Bob Moog, Les Paul and Bill Putnam, who changed the the face of music technology forever.

When this series is finished, even the most clueless producer will be able to hold his/her own in a room full of seasoned studio geeks…and maybe teach them a thing or two.

This may seem like we’re starting from the very ground up, but in preparing to write this guide I asked some friends who have been producing music for a number of years to describe in a few words what a compressor is. Surprisingly, very few were able to define it succinctly without a good measure of ‘umming’ and ‘urring’. So, just in case a friend wanders into your studio and points at a compressor in your rack and asks you what it does, this is what you should say to them:

‘In simple terms a compressor is an automatic level controller for audio. Depending on the design of the compressor and the settings dialed into it, it automatically adjusts the volume of an audio signal fed into it’.

What is compression used for?

We now know what a compressor is, but how is it utilised in music production? Compression is used in music production to achieve two main objectives:

Limiting the dynamic range of long passages of audio:

‘Dynamic Range’ is defined as the difference in volume between the quietest and loudest part of a passage of audio. Certain sound sources, by their nature, have a very wide dynamic range. The most obvious example is the human voice. An expressive vocal performance may switch dramatically from a hushed whisper one moment, to a bellowing cry the next. This kind of wide dynamic range performance may sound great when recorded and played back in isolation, but when the time comes to mix this performance with other elements in the context of a record, it will often be the case that you will be unable to find a perfect level to mix the vocal: at some points, the quiet parts of the vocal will be drowned out by the other instruments and at other times, the louder parts of the vocal will dominate over everything else. This is usually undesirable and In this situation we commonly employ a compressor. By setting a compressor to reduce the output volume when a performance hits the very loudest peaks, we narrow the dynamic range. It is then often easier to find a level to leave the fader at because in relation to each other, the quiet parts are not so quiet and the loud parts are not so loud. For example, before compression, if we raise the level of a vocal track in order to make the quietest parts audible in the overall mix, we are, obviously, making the already loud parts even louder. With compression, however, we are able to raise the overall level of the performance and make the quiet parts louder, while controlling the level of the very loudest parts so that they don’t also increase in volume.

The key is to tame the dynamic range of the performance in order to achieve a ‘static mix’ (a level that you can leave the channel fader at for most of the time) where the performance ‘sits’ within the mix without the quieter parts being drowned out and without the louder parts poking out of the mix too much. When using compression for this purpose, it is important to avoid compressing so much that the compressed sound begins to sound unnatural (unless that is the effect that you are aiming for). It is very easy to hear when a sound has been overcompressed, as it appears to get quieter or dip in volume, the louder the singer sings or the musician plays. As a rule of thumb, up to 3db of compression will usually be inaudible on most compressors and some models such as the Teletronix / Universal Audio LA-2A Levelling Amplifier (discussed below) can apply huge amounts of compression while still sounding ‘musical’ and reasonably natural.

I have used a vocal performance as an example in this discussion, but compressors may be used for this purpose on practically any element of a record and most sounds will benefit from some degree of ‘ironing out’.

Listen to the two vocal demonstrations below. The first is our vocal recorded dry, with no compression applied. You will notice that there is a great difference in level between the softly sung ‘this is’ and the louder ‘a live to produce demo’. In the second sample we have applied compression using the highly recommended Waves Renaissance Compressor Plugin. You will notice that the difference in volume between the softer and louder parts is now much smaller. We have used a judicious amount of compression, ensuring that the vocal is tamed, but that there is still a healthy amount of dynamic range.

Vocal Sample – No Compression by livetoproduce

Vocal Sample – Compression by livetoproduce

Shaping individual sounds such a kick drums, snares and individual guitar plucks:

Beyond the basic function of a compressor as an automatic level controller, compressors can also be used creatively as a sound shaping tool. Let’s say for example that we have a kick drum recording, either a live recording, or a synthetic sample of one. It has great low end and a nice round sound, but the attack is just a little too soft and even when you raise its level, it just doesnt cut through the mix. We can use compression to create an attack that isn’t there in the original sound. In this case we would set the compressor to compress the drum, but by adjusting the attack time (discussed below) of a suitably equipped compressor, we can delay how quickly the compressor responds and lowers the volume. By setting an attack time of around 20-30ms, a tiny amount of the original louder sound is allowed to creep past the compressor before it clamps down and lower the volume of the rest of the kick. This results in a kick drum with a far more pronounced attack in relation to the rest of the sound which has been dipped by the compressor and one that often cuts through far better in a mix. I have produced a tutorial video on achieving this effect here

This of course is the tip of the iceberg in terms of creative sound-shaping uses for compressors, but needless to say, they have many uses other than levelling out performances.

Anatomy of a compressor:

They say that rules are made to be broken and that is certainly the case in terms of compressor design. Nevertheless, there are certain key features that are commonly found on compressors and it is important to understand what they do and how they control the behaviour of your compressor…

Anatomy of a compressor: