rose cave
could someone describe what the KNEE, THRES, RATIO, ATT, and REL do in the multiband compressor? i always just used presets, but i want to be able to manually compress things to make my instruments sound stronger
the explanations are usually very unclear to me when i search them up
wicked hearth
Threshold: Tells the compressor at what volume the compressor should start reacting. The more left you turn it, the quieter the signal needs to be to trigger the compressor. The more right, the louder the signal needs to be. 100% is 0db
Ratio: How much the compressor is compressing based on a ratio of input. Tells the compressor how low to reduce the volume by when the compressor is triggered when the audio crosses the threshold. 0% means no compression is happening, the more you turn it left, the more the volume is reduced. 100% means the signal will never pass the threshold every
Attack: Determines how fast the compressor activates. Think about it like, if you were in a race and I count down "3, 2, 1, GO" depending on how fast you react to "GO" and start running, is the attack. Lower values are faster, higher values are slow and take a lot of time to start compressing
Release: Determines how long it takes for the volume to return back to normal after the threshold is no longer being triggered. Think about the race scenario again. If you're running really fast you may need some space in front of you to slowly stop, vs stopping immediately on a dime. Lower values will stop faster, higher values take longer to stop.
Knee: Determines the curve of the compression itself. Larger values are more curved and exponential, while lower is more linear. Set by ear
Gain: Since compressors reduce volume, if you want to recover this volume again, this output gain is to bring it back
I recommend trying extreme settings then dialing them back to see what they do. For now, just mess with the threshold and ratio. Turn the threshold down really low, and then the ration really high. You will see a red bar react next to the input meter to tell you how much it's compressing your signal by, do you hear a difference? You can then use the gain knob to bring up that lost volume