Sonnox Oxford Dynamics - Manual (Page 12)

4.5 Using
Level
Control
Functions 4 COMPRESSOR
4.5 Using
Level
Control
Functions
Since all level control functions in the Oxford Dynamics Compressor operate entirely
separately, a very high degree of control for a wide range of common use is possible, in
particular the plug-in does not impose any particular style constraint on the user. This
section explains some of the commonly used techniques, and how they may be achieved
using the Dynamics plug-in.
In the most general terms, the extremes of compression usage fall into two main
categories:
dynamic
level
control and audio
effect
generation. For simple level control,
such as controlling performance variation in vocals, instruments and final programme
material, we most often require the most transparent compression with minimum artefacts
caused by the dynamics’ control. However, to generate audio effects and distortion the
reverse is true and we need to make the audio character of the compression a dominant
part of the final result.
In order to understand how we achieve these two different styles of result, we must
remember that, in general, we are much more sensitive to the rate of change of level than
we are to relative gain. So in order to generate prominent audio effects using the
compressor, we need to generate a significant rate of change of gain action by using both
hard compression gain curves and the creative use of time constants. However, for
general unobtrusive level control we should be avoiding all of this, and opting for the
gentlest compression gain curves and least obtrusive time constant settings that integrate
well with the programme style.
4.6 General
Programme
Compression
There are two main basic philosophies that underlie approaches to unobtrusive
compression. The aim of the following pages is to explain these concepts, make
comparisons between them, and show how enhanced results can be achieved using the
Oxford Dynamics Compressor.
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