How to use optical compression on your master?
Mastering has a lot of components, but one that not everyone may know about is optical compression.
Optical compressions have been around for decades and are known to add an interesting tone to the sound coming through it.
How do you use this type of compressor? Well first off, make sure your signal isn’t in danger by trying splitting parts up where there’s no risk or damage (for example: vocals).
The other thing that needs to be done before compressing anything with this technique is setting attack time as well as release times appropriately depending on what kind of music track we’re working with; those values will vary from song-to-song.
If they don’t fit right away then experiment! It might take some trial and error.
Optical compression is a great way to glue your tracks together.
It can also be used as an effect for drum-to-bass transitions, or on its own with slower material like vocals and acoustics – but we’ll get into that later!
Optical setting creates a naturally slow release time in conjunction with soft knee settings which results in smooth transition of the signal.
Trying out optical compression if you want to create some smoother sounding drums without relying too much on other effects such as reverb and delay.