Somebody told you the attack and release time on a compressor is the amount of time it takes for the compressor to kick in, which impacts the transient or the sidechain or blah blah blah. And while that’s true, it only tells you half the story because instead of thinking of it as a duration, attack and release are like a speed limit. And while speed and duration are related, an important distinction is that this is not just the time it takes for the compressor to kick in.
Instead, what we’re talking about is how quickly the compressor responds, whether it’s engaged or not. In other words, this needle moves as a function of the ratio and how far above the threshold we are. And the one rule you can’t get around is if you want a lot of gain reduction, you’ve got to be way over the threshold.
In which case, it’s not always how long, but how fast. Which means even in sections with heavy gain reduction, there are still signals that can outpace the speed of the compressor. And if the recovery speed is a police cruiser, it still has to go faster than the car it’s pursuing.
It’s a nuance to take, but I’m guessing whether you’re new to this or not, you probably know someone who belongs in a big kitchen residency. Kindly share this post.
