Compression

Your condenser microphone needs power.

Level isn’t the most important element in your mix.

Upward compression, downward compression, expansion.

This switch right here is something a lot of seasoned engineers understand instinctively, but don’t really articulate.

There are a few reasons that pro audio connections often run over balanced cables like this or this.

When you first started recording, you probably just stuck a microphone in front of your face and began to sing.

Stand by, this is going to be take three and rolling.

At its core, a compressor is not actually such a complicated device.

A really common misconception about mixing is that your job is to make everything even.

Stop doing this to your microphone.

Tuesday’s Music Theory Gym and its Stevie Wonder adds where we find a convergence of ascending and descending movement.

When the TV is on too loud and you turn it down, you are acting like a compressor.

This is a story about perfection.

It’s only a matter of time before you’re humbled by someone with far less resources than you creating at a very high level.

This might be the easiest complicated chord progression you’ll ever learn.

You can try, but you can’t really separate frequency from level.

There’s an order of operations I prefer when announcing a new take.

Let’s talk about why you’re having a hard time hearing compression.

Today in office hours I helped one of our students conform some of their free playing onto a tempo grid.

Meet the Amen chord, the plagal cadence.

Stop singing. There’s nothing in your vocal chain that will substitute for a good performance. I can fix your pitch, I can fix your timing, but if the vocal doesn’t…

Don’t look for a job in audio if you don’t understand this.

When musicians talk about the sustain of an instrument, The sustain, listen to it.

Raise your hand if you have trouble hearing compression.

Now you think you know what this video is about, but I don’t think you do.

You have what’s known as an echo threshold.

You can expect to have a hard time understanding what a multiband compressor is if you don’t know what a compressor is, but you should also be familiar with a crossover network.

Before we begin to discuss delay, echo, and reverb, let’s take a second to talk about the Haas effect.

Today at Beat Kitchen, we’re going to turn up the heat on our conversation of compression.

The act of transduction involves taking energy in one form and converting it into another.

Noise gates and expansion explained — threshold, attack, hold, release, range, upward vs downward expansion, and the sidechain concept that connects everything in dynamics processing.

A compressor can add dynamics, reduce them, reshape attack, or extend sustain. Those are different jobs. Use one with intention, not by default.

If you can't name the problem compression is solving, you won't recognize when it's working. Start with the symptom, not the plugin.

Audio compression explained: threshold, ratio, attack, release, knee, and makeup gain — why compression is the hardest effect to hear, and how to start hearing it.

Compression as a creative tool: hard vs soft knee, using attack to shape transients, release and groove, bus compression for glue, and when compressor pumping is a feature.

The mastering signal chain in practice: corrective EQ, master bus compression, limiting, LUFS metering, intersample peaks, and when to master yourself vs hire someone.

Compressor types compared: optical (LA-2A), FET (1176), VCA (SSL), and tube (Fairchild) — plus parallel compression, serial compression, and when the type actually matters.

Multiband compression, de-essing, dynamic EQ, and sidechain compression explained — frequency-specific dynamics tools for controlling sibilance, taming low end, and the classic kick-duck-bass technique.

When the TV is on too loud and you turn it down, you are acting like a compressor.

Well, the bad news is that our nuanced, thoughtful 90-second videos are no longer getting recommended on here.

Okay, let’s talk about compressor ratio and let’s imagine that instead of pitch, this is level.

Today was ear training gym.

The next time you reach for the attack or release on a compressor, instead of thinking of them as a time, think of it as the gas and the brakes.

We can’t teach you how to mix, nobody can.

Should I be concerned that the top part of this waveform is bigger than the bottom?

The goal of the upcoming musician basics elective is to get you to recognize that you can stack a bunch of notes together and create a chord.

Producer, professional, beatmaker.

When you first begin to learn about rhythm, you’re taught to think like a metronome.

Don’t be intimidated by a compressor, you deal with stuff like this all the time.

Ableton Live’s hidden options.txt file unlocks experimental features most users never find. How to locate the file, what each option does, and which hidden settings are worth enabling.

When dialing in an equalizer, it’s helpful to think of the workflow is happening in two stages a targeting step and an adjustment step.

If your compressor has a knee, it’s offering you something of a compromise.

Leveraging the polar pattern on a microphone isn’t always as straightforward as you might think.

Your ears will tell you whatever you want to hear. Until you learn to set loudness landmarks, you're mixing with luck.

How do you manage recall?

Does a compressor operate on level or frequency?

Everyone learns what a compressor does. The real question is why. A compressor isn't a one-trick pony — it's the same tool solving a whole variety of problems.

We see both experienced and beginner producers at Bee Kitchen.

Raise your hand if you have trouble hearing compression.

I’m going to play an F in every chord of the opening of "I Love Zupor" I’m playing an F and the droning pedal tone of the tonic note is going to ground the song What makes this feel so hopeful?

It’s all too easy to fall into a trap of thinking your favorite engineers hear everything in brilliant color while you hear everything in black and white.

A compressor reduces the level of a track, but one of the places people get confused is in understanding where it reduces that level.

We say that when you hear a sound you’re hearing vibrations, but what does that mean?

The practical application of a multiband compressor comes into focus when you consider not just how it differs from a regular compressor, but how it differs from a traditional equalizer.

Music always comes first, but music theory exists whether you believe in it or not.

You know how compressors make stuff quieter?

I actually reject this idea that anybody’s becoming a better producer because of posts that they’re reading, because everybody’s really teaching from the same pool of facts.

If you’re thinking about joining a Beat Kitchen class, or actually if you’re thinking about getting into music production at all, here are three things I don’t care about, and you shouldn’t do there.

The power of a compressor really comes into its own as we start to adjust the attack and release time.

You know that frequency response chart that came with your nice set of speakers?

If you’ve ever tried to explain a compressor to someone who’s new to music production, there comes a moment where they look at you with a really puzzled expression, and it’s probably because they’ve heard the word used in two ways.

Real piano. Sample piano. Oh boy. Gone are the days when piano in a can sounded like this. There are lots of great options these days and if you’re expecting…

Side chains are overrated.

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.

Were you considering following us on our other social media accounts?

The act of transduction just means taking energy in one form and converting it into another.

"How do I know how much compression to use?" Just use your ears.

(water splashing) - Teaching songwriting is a little like teaching someone how to ride a bike.

Did you notice I’ve posted every day for the last 150 days?

Under normal use, I tell my students they want to tickle the meter on the compressor.

A music production environment is a complex one.

There’s one thing we all have in common and that’s water.

Co-prime sequences are a backbone for evolving variations in pattern-based music.

Can you have your cake and eat it too?

The topics in this 10-minute video include the harmonic series and the physical nature of sound.

Hey, I want to apologize to the person who kind of ambushed me on Discord the other day and asked me to listen to their song.

There is a Japanese visual art in which the artist is forced to be spontaneous.

These two passages are indeed different and then stumped my ear training group in gym.

One of the important things they won’t teach you at recording school, it’s how to give and receive feedback.

This old relic, this is your grandma’s motorized fader.

A student recently told me that the "aha moment", the one where they finally understood what a compressor was doing, was when they recorded a compressed signal so they could see and feel the resulting waveform.

This clock is accurate twice a day.

In the beginning, you didn’t know what a DAW was.

This Friday, I’ll be kicking off Beat Kitchen’s Digital Marketplace Summit with a free workshop for members.

Understanding the mathematical foundations of audio compression: how logarithms relate to dynamic range and decibel measurements in audio engineering.

A lot of vocalists love performing with compression.

There is a myth that’s pervasive around here, which is that people can teach you how to mix.

I’m super excited to announce the launch of a new Beat Kitchen elective, Songwriting Incubator.

Welcome everybody. This is Mark Jaffe from Five Bridges. Mark is a wonderful attorney who really takes a focus on creative stuff and he’s agreed to come in and talk…

Creating a healthy collaborative space means setting up some best practices.

If my recent videos on things like compression have helped you crystallize those concepts, you should consider joining our class.

A harmonica is an instrument that plays two chords, which makes it a perfect illustration of the plagal and the perfect cadence that I demonstrated earlier.

I shared a toolkit with you yesterday.

Compressors aren’t actually super complicated, but they are a little complicated.

Hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with presets.

If you’re writing lyrics and melodies and having trouble setting them to chords, this video is for you.

There is no best microphone.