PKD COMPRESSOR

Here are some musical examples of things one might want to compress in a commercial recording. We tried to apply what a mixer might consider somewhat "ideal" settings for the different insturments. 

The first track is a female vocals, which is monophonic and has a somewhat smooth character since notes are often sustained. Most of the time, the desired outcome of compressing a vocal is a much less variant and dynamic sound, so that the voice sounds loud even when it was originally quiet. To do this, one often wants a very fast attack (so that none of the initial plosives or transients at the starts of words stick out) and a medium-length release.

Original Vocal Track:

Compressed Vocal Track:  

The second track is an acoustic guitar, which is polyphonic and has a failry transiet character with a good deal of sustained decay. Depending on the performance and the type of song, one might want to either emphasize the transient or the sustain of the guitar. For this song, we wanted to make the guitar more "punchy" because of its rhythmic character, and thus wanted to emphasize the transients. We threrfore used a medium attack and a medium release, to mostly compress the portion immediately after the transient, thus emphasizing the attack.

Original Guitar Track:

Compressed Guitar Track: 

The third track is a Bass Drum, which is extremely transient and has almost no sustain. Usually, one wants to emphasize this transient nature with a compressor, so a medium attack and medium or short release are used. This lets through the initial transient but cuts down the sustain. It is harder to see the results here in the graph, but easy to hear them.

Original Bass Drum Track:

Compressed Bass Drum Track: 

Here are all the instruments together before they were compressed: 

Here are all the instruments together after they were compressed:

The results are fairly clear and help with the overall apparent loudness of the tracks, which contributes to the summed product sounding more favorable than the original.