If your compressor has a knee, it’s offering you something of a compromise. Remember that at its core, a compressor only cares about two things. Threshold and ratio.
If you ever went to an amusement park as a kid, you probably remember a sign that looked like this. A compressor has a threshold and it doesn’t care anything about what happens below it. The compression zone lives above this line.
And the larger the ratio, the more it’s squashing this area. Right, so what does any of this have to do with the knee? As you get better at using a compressor, you’re going to start using it not just to attenuate sounds as they get loud.
You’re going to use it to shape sounds. Imagine we’re shaping a snare drum as it goes up and down over the threshold. That’s all well and good as long as every snare hit is perfectly situated up and down over this line.
But in reality, some of them are going to be low and some of them are going to be high. And the security guard at that amusement park who says, “You must be this tall to ride this ride,” sees something down here and says, “I don’t care.” That’s where the knee comes in. Imagine the knee as a thickening of the threshold.
It’s a widening of that line. The team at Beat Kitchen and I would love nothing more than to tell you about this live. If you found this post helpful, like it and follow us.
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