hello and welcome back to the channel
today another ear training video how to
hear compression I have made a detailed
compression tutorial in the past showing
all the dials and parameters and meters
but this video here is going to be much
more focused on tuning and training your
ear to hear all the differences that
compression can make to your audio as
always in my tutorials there are
timestamps and chapter markers at the
bottom of the screen I’m starting with a
solo voice example to make it very
obvious and I’ll increase the complexity
to a guitar in the context of a mix so
if what I’m saying is extremely boring
just skip ahead to the more complicated
stuff if you can listen on studio
monitors preferably or headphones if you
have them this is an uncompressed audio
recording into a condenser microphone
projecting and moving around a little
bit as you do in the real world in a
recording situation and you can see and
hear that some words are much louder
than others let’s take a listen let’s
hear how adding compression affects the
sound of this audio recording let’s and
compression sound very confident and
forward whereas audio recording at the
end is just quiet and it drifts away
sounds a little bit timid a little bit
shy let’s take one more listen let’s
hear how adding compression effects the
sound of this audio recording let’s no
load up our compressor which in this
case is going to be the free TDR
kotelnyk of compressor because I know
that anyone can download and follow
along with this and it’s quite a simple
and visual compressor one more time my
aim is to try and level this out so that
the whole performance sounds confident
and forward and projected so that none
of it sounds shy and timid I’m going to
start by increasing the ratio to about 4
to 1 because I want to have quite
dramatic compression so you can really
hear the differences and I’m going to
adjust the threshold until I start to
hear a little bit of compression let’s
press play let’s hear how adding
compression affects the sound of this
audio recording when I can hear and see
some gain reduction happening on the
meter over here I’m just gonna adjust
the release just so that the words are
released by the compressor a little bit
more quickly and then finally I’m going
to add a little bit of makeup gain just
to keep everything at the same volume
initially with these settings
I’m hoping is that the loudest words are
going to get a lot of gain reduction so
maybe even somewhere between five and
ten DB I want this to be very obvious
whereas the words at the end are not
really getting much gain reduction at
all but they are having the make up gain
applied so overall everything should
feel leveled out but I will show this in
a visual example as well let’s take
another listen to hear if it sounds
levelled out let’s hear how adding
compression affects the sound of this
audio recording let’s hear how adding
compression affects the sound of this
audio recording I’m going to increase
the attack a little bit to make the
effect even more obvious this will pick
up on the transience of the sound and
really make sure that everything is held
in check let’s hear how adding
compression affects the sound of this
audio recording
I’ll close the plug-in and then I’m
going to quickly render this track out
to show you the difference visually I’ve
turned off all the effects and I’m just
going to quickly change my View mode so
that there’s nothing behind the clips
and it should be very obvious now that
while the top audio sample the
uncompressed one has large changes in
the dynamic range overall this one at
the bottom is a lot more even and
consistent might not necessarily sound
better but it is definitely more
consistent a good way to visually
represent this is to superimpose the two
files so if I drag this bottom file up
you’ll see that it’s underneath the
green file now but all the areas with
red our areas that gain has been added
so all those phrases at the end have a
lot more game I’ve turned off all the
effects and let’s just take one more
listen to before and after and see if
you can really hear how all of it sounds
like a consistent level performance
first without compression let’s hear how
adding compression effects the sound of
this audio recording let’s hear how
adding compression effects the sound of
this audio recording let’s hear how
adding compression let’s hear how adding
compression hopefully you could hear
quite a large difference between those
two examples especially the volume at
the end of the clip it really was so
much louder in the compressed one
however if you can’t hear the
differences don’t worry sometimes these
things take time to really tune your
ears into before
I move on to the next example I’m just
gonna quickly talk about the attack and
release the attack I will leave alone in
this example but the release is very
important in making sure that the words
still have quite a lot of distinction
and clarity
I want the compressor to be releasing
each word I don’t want it to be
compressed by a loud word and then stay
compressed and take a while to recover
so I’m trying to set the release so that
it recovers as much as it can in between
words if I set the release much longer
what you hear is that it gets triggered
by a loud part of a word and then
everything after that just stays really
quiet as the compressors trying to
recover because it’s still reducing the
gain so with a longer release this will
just sound really mushy but it will also
still have loud and quiet bits it really
doesn’t sound good let’s hear how adding
compression effects the sound of this
audio let’s hear how adding compression
effects the sound it actually almost has
the opposite effect that we want so I
want to just make sure that the release
is letting go of those words in quite a
musical way but this will make more
sense with the next example on guitar
this second example is a compression in
the context of a mix I was working on
this chill lo-fi beat and I’ve recorded
a guitar line on top that I’m going to
try to fit in properly using compression
so just started with some piano and
drums
and then I put some guitar in and when I
was recording I just played what felt
right but I really wasn’t paying much
attention to the actual recording so you
can hear that my velocities were just
all over the place cuz I was recording
through tons of reverb and delay and I
couldn’t really hear it at the time and
I thought actually this makes a really
good example to show you how like a bad
recording can still be salvaged using
compression what you heard was all the
effects on in that example so I had the
compression and whatnots but if I turn
the compression off you can hear that
there’s a massive difference in the
volume of each of these notes so let’s
take a listen in solo and then in the
context of the mix especially here is
just all over the place and what it
meant was getting this to sit or fit in
the mix was actually quite difficult
because once the piano is playing in the
drums wherever I set it some of the
notes are way too quiet other notes
stick out like a sore thumb and it’s
just kind of uncomfortable it takes away
from the whole chill environment I was
trying to make let’s listen without
effects it’s not going to sound spacious
but you’ll be able to hear it.
I’m one more time some of the notes just
stick out and others are far too quiet
so it’s really difficult to actually set
the right volume here and of course I
could simply create an automation clip
and manually adjust all of the volumes
the issue there is that’s okay when
you’ve only got you know eight or
sixteen bars to deal with but if you’ve
got like eight guitar tracks the last 64
bars you’re going to be doing that
automation for hours let’s just start by
loading up the compressor I’m gonna
listen to it in solo because I think it
will help you hear the differences so
I’ve got the settings the way I want
them right now I suppose but I’ve set
the thresholds so that the loudest notes
are getting a lot of compression but
that the quietest notes are not getting
much compression at all let’s take a
look and take a listen more importantly
let’s start by simply listening to the
first four notes in solo with and
without compression you really use your
ears but you can also use this gain
reduction meter to see that some notes
are getting a lot of gain reduction and
others not so much I’ll zoom in so you
can see this as well one more time
now I’m gonna bypass the plug-in and
we’ll take a listen without
and you’re really listening for how that
last note just jumps out now we’re gonna
listen in the context of the whole mix
but the guitar is still not gonna have
any reverb or delay yeah I don’t want to
confuse things I’m gonna start without
the compression and I want you to really
try and focus on how the guitar seems to
just fall underneath the instruments and
then jump out again it might help by
closing your eyes I do find that when
trying to train my ears just forgetting
about what the eyes are doing can really
help because you lose that vision that
sort of stimulus and you really have to
focus in on what you’re hearing more so
try that if you’re struggling but this
is without compression and then with
compression one more time without with
we have still preserved a little bit of
the dynamics which is good you can still
tell that I’m digging into certain notes
more or less but overall it actually
sounds like I was playing it with a
little bit more skill a little bit more
thought to the velocities as opposed to
just playing whatever felt right I’m
just quickly exporting this through the
compression so that you can visually see
the difference it makes just like last
time I have the uncompressed signal in
green and the compressed signal in red
now ignore these transient spikes at the
start I’ll address those later with the
attack but overall the average amplitude
of each note is much more consistent on
this bottom one while still retaining a
bit of dynamics than this one at the top
this one at the top they’re jumping from
tiny to huge whereas here you’ve got a
lot more consistency and that is the
difference that you’re hearing this one
just sits right where you want it to be
in the mix all the time whereas this one
here is constantly just jumping above
and below the level where you really
want it to sit leveling all your tracks
completely flat is not the purpose of
mixing it’s not always the aim in fact
it’s very rarely always the aim you want
to have but there are cases especially
with guitar lines like this where you
just want things to sound consistent and
level and it’s why guitarists love
recording with like their compression
pedals and whatnots because it just gets
you sitting in the groove exactly where
you want to be at the right volume I’ve
gone a little bit off-topic but you can
see if i zoom in i’ve still got these
large transient spikes at the star and
that is because of the attack time to
help you hone in on what we’re listening
to this little spike here is quite a
good example so if I just select this
this little punch at the start that’s
something that I want to retain if I
were to open the compressor and set the
attack very very short you’re going to
lose quite a lot of that punch
let’s listen in the context of the mix
and I’ll adjust the attack time as I
pull it down each note should feel less
defined and feel a little bit mushier
what I want you to specifically listen
for is that on the ones where there’s
almost no attack it sounds like the note
doesn’t really start when it’s supposed
to it sounds like it kind of hits and
then just sort of gets up to the right
volume that’s the way I would describe
it so we’re gonna take one more listen
again first with that pluck at the start
then taking it away with the attack
really trying to listen closely if you
have a very dense mix it can be a good
idea to let a little bit of that attack
through by having a longer attack time
because it lets you follow the melody a
bit closer but if you have a very sparse
mix and you want the guitar to sit much
further back you might want to dial the
attack down because you don’t want it to
poke through the layers however now it’s
time to add some other effects such as
reverb and delay let’s just take a
listen to those
with these effects added I’m gonna blend
this guitar into the mix just so that
it’s really sitting in the background
but so that I can still hear every note
really clearly let’s take a listen so at
that level because it’s heavily
compressed I can actually follow the
melody the guitar doesn’t really need to
be that much louder unless I want it to
be you know doing some beautiful lead
line to get all the attention however as
a final example if I turn the
compression off but leave all the other
levels the same you’ll hear now that the
guitar even with all those effects some
notes are too loud some notes are too
quiet
especially on this phrase here the
guitar is just asking for way too much
attention in the mix because the volume
keeps jumping up and down even with all
those effects whereas with the
compression just sounds so leveled off
and so smooth one last playthrough so
this video was a little bit longer than
usual but hopefully it was helpful in
sort of training and tuning your ears in
to the different effects of compression
both in solo and in the context of a mix
and let me know what you want to hear
next in this ear training series bye for
now.
