For example, in a compressor, attack determines how quickly full-ratio compression is reached once the sidechain signal exceeds the threshold, while the release setting tells the compressor over how long to reduce the ratio back to 1:1 after the signal falls below the threshold. The envelope-style controls found in dynamics processors will be familiar to those with synthesiser experience but it’s important to understand that they’re controlling the strength of processing and not directly sculpting the amplitude of the sound being processed. Using a high-expansion ratio also allows an expander to do the same job as a gate but with subtler results than the binary open or closed state of a gate.
In expanders, this is reversed, and in most expanders (with the exception of rare specialised upward expanders) the process is applied when the incoming signal falls below the threshold – this creates a greater variation in volume between the quietest and loudest parts of a sound while allowing the maximum loudness to remain unchanged. This describes the ratio between the input and output signal levels when processing is occurring.įor example, in a compressor set to a ratio of 2:1, for every 2dBs that the input signal rises above the threshold, the output signal will rise by only 1dB. With the exception of gates, which simply open or close depending on the amplitude of the sidechain signal, the amount of processing applied is normally determined by a ratio parameter, such as 2:1 or 1:3. This is monitored to determine its amplitude, and if the amplitude exceeds or falls below the threshold, the process is engaged. This is measured from something called the sidechain or ‘key’ signal, which is typically a copy of the signal that’s arriving at the input. First and foremost is the threshold, which determines when the process should be applied and when it should not. No matter their intended function, dynamics processors tend to share a common set of parameters (although, of course, the impact of these varies depending on the type of processor).
Of these, the two we’re going to focus on here are compressors and expanders – in many respects, most dynamics processors are just specialised versions of one of these.
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Cubase dynamicsĬubase Pro comes with a full arsenal of dynamics processors: gates, expanders, compressors, limiters, de-essers and enhancers. Once you’ve a good grasp on what the controls actually do, how they interact, and what the resulting readouts mean, things become much easier to judge. One of the reasons people have trouble when it comes to effective use of dynamics processing is that the results can be difficult to detect, and if they were any more obvious, it would likely indicate that you’re using too much of it. To put this into context, pretty much all dynamics processing is akin to riding a fader on a mixing console in order to enhance or reduce the volume changes inherent in the audio. The best catch-all description is that they act like automatic volume controls – they modify the dynamic (ie volume level changes over time) make-up of a sound source, generally in response to the nature of that source. There are many types of dynamics processor, each capable of slightly different things.
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