It works by ‘blurring’ the threshold. you can kind of emulate 1. That's hard to say in all cases. This can give your acoustic guitar a chance to poke through the mix and sound like it has a lot of life. You don’t need a hard knee for dynamic control here. Let's say you set a knee with a value of 10dB (which is considered soft), and your ratio is set to 4:1. Many times the Attack and Release determines the Compression curve (Timing and onset/offset) so it's not really a general scenario. As louder parts become louder, the signal will be louder after the expander than before, which can eventually lead to distortion of your gain-staging is off. In order to pull this off, it has to begin slowly applying the compression before the threshold is hit. Once you do that and follow the steps provided here, bass compression is as easy as one, two, three. The makeup gain can be used to attenuate the signal, returning the louder parts to their previous level. The 1176 Peak Limiter is a dynamic range compressor designed by Bill Putnam and introduced by UREI in 1967. It allows you to determine how curved the transition from uncompressed- to compressed sound will be. 1) by delaying the sidechain. ._3bX7W3J0lU78fp7cayvNxx{max-width:208px;text-align:center} The threshold goes down to -60dB in 0.1dB increments, and the attack and release knobs can be set to lightning fast or invisibly slow. note that very fast attack times (& release ) can create distortion of your signal. attack is NOT linear and is logarithmic in nature and there is a difference between FET / OPTO / VCA in their behavior with respect to attack & release curves. Use a fast attack time for thick, heavy vocals and a slow attack time for punchy, aggressive vocals. The Knee on a compressor represents how fast the compression is applied to the signal once it surpasses the threshold. It’s going to do that based on where the compression action begins. .ehsOqYO6dxn_Pf9Dzwu37{margin-top:0;overflow:visible}._2pFdCpgBihIaYh9DSMWBIu{height:24px}._2pFdCpgBihIaYh9DSMWBIu.uMPgOFYlCc5uvpa2Lbteu{border-radius:2px}._2pFdCpgBihIaYh9DSMWBIu.uMPgOFYlCc5uvpa2Lbteu:focus,._2pFdCpgBihIaYh9DSMWBIu.uMPgOFYlCc5uvpa2Lbteu:hover{background-color:var(--newRedditTheme-navIconFaded10);outline:none}._38GxRFSqSC-Z2VLi5Xzkjy{color:var(--newCommunityTheme-actionIcon)}._2DO72U0b_6CUw3msKGrnnT{border-top:none;color:var(--newCommunityTheme-metaText);cursor:pointer;padding:8px 16px 8px 8px;text-transform:none}._2DO72U0b_6CUw3msKGrnnT:hover{background-color:#0079d3;border:none;color:var(--newCommunityTheme-body);fill:var(--newCommunityTheme-body)} New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, More posts from the audioengineering community. Attack time is how fast the compressor kicks in once it hears a loud sound, i.e. Instead of engaging at a very specific point, the ratio creeps up from 1:1 (no compression) to the actually defined ratio over a set amount of dB. Description. Many engineers use the 1176 for parallel processing because of the aggression and vibe it adds. So you may now be asking yourself what these circuit types are. Soft knee compression. If #2 from each are correct, that means that the knee starts working BEFORE the signal gets to the threshold right? The higher the setting, the more the Kotelnikov reacts to RMS level, the lower the setting, the more it reacts to the peak level. The attack time, as the name says, has to do with the time required for the compression to reach its value. You will see the “linear” transition from +9dB until it reaches the +6dB output level. This means most of the acoustic’s initial strums will pass through without any compression, but the ringing will be compressed a bit still keeping the track in check. Think of it more like a synthesiser envelope where longer attack times produce a slower build up to maximum volume, or compression in this case, and faster times have a much quicker build up. so slower attack times can work with lower frequencies, while you'll need faster attack times to handle higher frequencies. You might not notice it as much on slower attack times, but with faster times it can make the transition into the compression appear more softly, so it doesn't sound as audibly snappy. .s5ap8yh1b4ZfwxvHizW3f{color:var(--newCommunityTheme-metaText);padding-top:5px}.s5ap8yh1b4ZfwxvHizW3f._19JhaP1slDQqu2XgT3vVS0{color:#ea0027} With a hard knee, the compressor does not apply any compression until the audio signal crosses the threshold. to understand this, think about the number of cycles that are occurring during attack time. if you have a signal going right over, you won't hear the soft knee. Heard a couple different explanations for both the knee is modulating the ratio around threshold... About attack time for expanders would all work the same as in compressors this attack phase depends on frequency... Attack property 's default value is 0.003 and it can be as you stated at! 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