Digital Adapters & Miscellaneous CablesДЄ compressor is one of the most useful tools an engineer can have on hand during a session.But because compressors treat input signals differently and don't have a high enough ratio, they cannot be used as limiters. You'll often find producers and engineers gently compressing a vocal with a LA-2A-style limiter or treating drums with an 1176 limiter. What can sometimes further confuse the differences is that any limiter can be used as a compressor, but compressors can't be used as limiters. Something to remember here, particularly, is that the quick attack and release times (what makes a limiter more transparent than a compressor) can be what leads to an audio signal that sounds blunt, flat, and dull if the limiter is pushed too hard. While a compressor's slower attack times means that the punch isn't cut from percussive sounds and the slower release times make the overall adjustments more fluid and gentle, a limiter's quicker times allow it to deal with brief transients faster without affecting the rest of the audio signal. Limiters also have faster attack and release times than compressors, which is another reason that they're more transparent. Limiters are often used in the final mastering stages of record production to ensure that levels are consistent throughout the mix. This raises the overall level in the most transparent way, without clipping or adding any sort of distortion or noise. By establishing a maximum gain setting, the limiter actually prevents the audio signal from going over it (rather than smoothing out and reducing the gain when it does, like a compressor would). Technically, a limiter's ratio is 10:1 or greater and is usually set to be as close to infinity:1 as possible, so that no matter how much the input signal changes, the output level remains the same. The bump of hip-hop drums or thick bass sounds in dance music are often created with heavy amounts of compression.

While small amounts of compression are often used on all manner of instruments and groups of instruments, large amounts of compression-via low thresholds and high ratios-can be used in creative ways. Applying compression to a track can also affect its punch by changing the envelope of the sound, and compression can also be used to control where that instrument sits in the mix. Compression can also help prevent clipping during the mixing and mastering process. During the initial recording process, for example, compression can be applied to a signal to keep its transients-the sharp volume peaks from things like snare hits, vocal consonants, and the sound of a pick hitting your guitar strings-from clipping. Also, a compressor's make-up gain function will allow you to add back gain to compensate for lost volume.Д®ngineers use compression in the studio in a variety of ways. Other important parameters like attack and release times-how quickly to compress and for how long, respectively-also play important parts in how your compressor ultimately performs. If your compressor's ratio is set at 2:1, for example, that would mean that for every two decibels the input signal is increased, the output can only increase to one decibel, which halves the dynamic range. The amount of gain reduced is determined by the compressor's ratio. A compressor does this, mainly, by reducing the gain of an audio signal every time it crosses over its set threshold.

What does a bass compressor do