Dynamic Processors

Hi!, I am Mathias Hernandez, greetings from Lima Peru!, For this assignment I am going to talk a bit about Dynamic Processors, of course, we are going to talk about the general and basic aspects of these, because nowadays there are a lot of possibilities of dynamic processors out there that give us lots of different colors to add to our music.

Dynamic processors, as their name states, manipulate the dynamic range of a signal. This mean, that talking very basically they can modify amplitude and/or our perception of loudness. They are usually Compressors, limiters or expanders and can be found analogically or nowadays more commonly as Daw Plug-ins.

Let me give you an example of what a dynamic processor basically do. When you are driving along and you hear a song you like, you rise the volume, however after a couple of seconds maybe someone speaks to you and you lower it so you can hear what the person is talking. However when te person stops talking you rise gently again. Here you are controlling the volume of the song (audio signal), in order to dramatically balance the sound of your surroundings to your audible confort zone. A dynamic processor does exactly the same, it makes the louder quite and the quite louder or vice versa.

This is great news!, because usually when you record not everything is in a perfectly exact volume setting. Singers for example sing words in a different volume, due to the natural air pressure they need to reach notes. So here dynamic processors come in, they help us to balance the performance and finally to make it more clear and stable within the whole mix.

But how?. A dynamic processor accomplishes this with 4 main function:I will use the Logic Pro X plugin compressor named Vintage FET for the examples.

ThresholdI like to think of this as the on/off button. This is a customizable feature that allows us to set where the whole dynamic process (in this case compression) will happen within a specific amplitude of an audio signal. In other words the threshold property tells the plugin at which specific amplitude (volume) to kick in. For example if you set a threshold to -10db you are telling the plug in to attenuate everything over -10db, or actually to start working at -10 db upwards.

RatioNow that we have set the threshold to where we want the plugin to start working, we need to think in the amount of gain we want to reduce. This is what ratio does. It is showed as a input to output ratio because here is where you select te actual amount of gain you want the threshold to filter. for example if we set it to 1:1, the compresor is doing nothing, but if you set it to 10:1, the compressor will turn the input of 10 to an a output of 1 (reducing it 10 times) and acting more as a limiter, because it sets up like a wall along the threshold.

The Threshold usually goes from 0 db to - 50 db in this exampleit’s set to -25.5db

Here the Ratio is showing a 10:1selection

Attack and ReleaseThese are, in my opinion, two very important parameters, because they can work not only to get a better sound, but also they can help as to create some cool effects while producing music. We already know when the plug in will act, and how much will it act. Now we need to now how fast. For example if we are ridding a fader, (manually lowering the volumen of a signal when it gets high and increasing its level when it gets low) we are concise of not only how much to reduce it, but also how fast to move it downward and upwards again, this is the basic concept of attack and release.

Attack: How fast the plug in reacts in lowering the audio signal (as if was lowering the fader)Release: How fast the plug in lets go and allows the level return to it original volume.

KneeThis Compressor in particular as many others nowadays have a KNEE setting, which can be said to modify the Soft or Hard parameter of the Compressor. When the signal passes the threshold serves as a type of softener in order for the change in gain not to be so abrupt.

Attack and Release are measured in ms, because it is an actual time measurement.

Knee is measured in a scale from 0 to 1.0, being 1.0 the greatest softener option

Here you can see what Knee Does, graphically it increases the curve in the threshold point, in order to soften the transition

These are the basic ways in which a Dynamic Processor works. Limiters, Expanders and Compressors, all share these 4 main characteristics, although what changes is mostly in some of them you can not see them as a custom setting, but trust me, they are there. What I have personally learned is that this type of processors not only help us “go over the limit” or “make a stable volume” but also with a bit of creativity we can make them do crazy effects and even help us emphasize some points in a given recording.

Hope you enjoyed this review!