Compressor/Limiters and Noise Gates

Question 1

How does a compressor work to give you less hiss or better bit depth?

Answer 1

By turning down peaks, can record hotter without distortion. (only works when creating aux track and setting input to interface, bus ouput to audio track. Record on audio track. Compressor must be on before going to the audio track. Always record with compressor) Allows turning up the whole thing, so softer parts are louder

Question 2

Name the 3 functions of a compressor/limiter as described in class?

Answer 2

Make sound more present (stabilize sound)
Allows recording hotter (increase quality)
Get rid of resonance (peaks in instrument volume)

Question 3

What does ratio do on a compressor/limiter?

Answer 3

Percentage volume is turned down above threshold

Question 4

Where is the normal setting for ratio as described in class? Why?

Answer 4

4:1; set it more - sounds squashed, less doesn’t compress enough

Question 5

What is the difference between a compressor and a limiter?

Answer 5

Ratio is more than 10:1 for limiter (hard stop at threshold); less than 10:1 for compressor (still allows getting a bit louder after threshold). Limiters are used for concerts so engineer can’t blow up speakers by accident

Question 6

What does the threshold on a compressor/limiter do?

Answer 6

Volume at which compression kicks in

Question 7

Where is the normal setting for threshold as described in class?

Answer 7

6-10dB gain reduction at loudest part
6db most instruments
10db for busy or dynamic instruments, really low/background or really loud in mix

Question 8

Give 2 general uses of a noise gate?

Answer 8

Get rid of bleed (snare - remove kick and hihat from snare mic; kick - so don’t hear anything else in kick mic; bg singers - headphones come through mic) and noise (distorted guitar)

Question 9

How do you set the threshold on a noise gate?

Answer 9

Get rid of noise/bleed but not sound

Question 10

List all the equipment in studios under one of the categories:
- Volume
- Freq.
- Time
- Vol/Freq
- Freq/Time
- Vol/Time

Answer 10

See p 9 in reader (need to fix below)
VOLUME
Faders & Pots
Amplifiers
Compressor/Limiters Aural Exciters
Noise Gates
Panpots / Auto Panners

FREQUENCY
Pitch Shifters/Harmonizers
Pitch Correctors (Auto Tune)
Aural Exciters

TIME
Delays
Reverbs

VOL/FREQ
Graphic EQ’s
Parametric EQ’s
Rolloffs
Wah-Wah
De-esser

FREQ/TIME
Flangers
Choruses
Phase Shifters
Vibrato

VOL/TIME
Tremolo