This is the most detailed explanation of any plugin I've ever seen before, she needs to get an award for being straight forward and clear and not talking for 15 minutes prior to showing you what she wanted to , cudos!!
Good explanation. But beginners beware, it's like salt and pepper (EQ as well) A little goes a long way. Too much and you flatten the dynamics of your track and it will be loud but lifeless.
does being deaf affect your ability to sense and process the dynamics and transients for better or worse? maybe a video adam neely can do an explanation on
Good analogy, but i'll be honest, it drives me NUTS when my brother is constantly messing with the volume on a movie. I mean, the sound experts already worked on the sound and I'm pretty sure they want it louder and softer at certain points. It's part of their signature on their master piece. Just a randome comment... I sometimes think about taking the batteries out before watching a movie with my brother.
People like you (Stella) are like the best friend I never had, with helping me out finding my way in climbing this mountain of information on music production. Bless you!
A good teacher knows the matter, but knows how to transmit it. This woman is an excellent teacher. We need more people like her teaching in every matters. Good job!
Compression has been used primarily to raise the total volume of a song so it sounds louder on the radio. Music companies are 'competing' with others to get 'heard'. This has DESTROYED a LOT of music in the process, by taking away lots of the dynamics and subtlety, which is often the MAGIC in the song. By the way, I'm 62, and have been performing professionally and playing in bands since I was 13 years old, in 1970.
I just have to comment, These are the videos real beginners need, i bought my gear, set up my DAW, and started to make some music. 1 sequence, 4 bars....hey i had a drum beat playing with some guitar sounds and i was happy. Then i started to watch music producing videos on RU-vid and then it hits me that i had absolutely nothing. And many videos on YT was to technical to understand as a beginner. Gladly i found some RU-vid teachers who thought about the real beginners. Started to learn what a sequence is, a drum track how they work. .....and i have learn. I have more sequences now 😁. But still a lot to learn. Never thought about mixing an mastering tracks, always felt like other instruments besides drums and guitar never fit in...after some Google searches i learn that the trick is to mix and master your music. Echo i know, EQ i know But what is delay, reverb, compression etc...another quest on RU-vid begun for me to learn. And again, a lot of videos where to fast or to technical. If you want to learn how something works you first gotta know what something does or what the purpose of something is. And that's why i thank Stella for explaining all this with the beginner in mind. I feel i am progressing in this whole music making thing. I really like this hobby. So Thanks again Stella for your clear and helpful information! ❤️🌹🎼 Ps, your pretty to, you remind me of Aubrey Plaza one of my favorite actresses! Musical greetings from The Netherlands 🌹
One of the best tutorials I've ever watched. It's straight to the point, it's dynamic and it's not overly complicated. I'm an ESL speaker and I could understand everything you said crystal clear. Thank you so much!
To other RU-vid content creators: Five seconds of intro music (and captions). That's really all that is needed (if that). Just five seconds. If you're going to have intro music and captions, make them five seconds long, like in this video!...then get on with the video! This is my favourite kind of RU-vid video. See also Jomboy Media videos. They just get on with it!
I don’t know if they still do this (I never listen to radio these days) but when I was young we used to wonder why our records, played on our expensive component stereo systems, sounded so different from the way the same records sounded on radio. It’s compression, in a device radio stations refer to as a Dynamic Audio Processor. This explanation of compression is the best and most concise I have ever heard. Bravo!
Had to laugh when I saw this- I have the same shaped desk, the same Mac keyboard, and a PRS guitar and keyboard in the same positions in my studio. With this video on my monitor, I felt like I was in the Matrix or and Escher drawing or something.
Stella, you absolutely nailed this video! 👍👍 The examples that you selected were great, making the video only require the two examples that you used! It was short, sweet, and right to the point! You actually surprised me when you covered the most basic parts with waveforms SHOWING exactly what is going on during each stage. Being able to do all of this in under six-minutes is outstanding, and shows how obvious it is that you are both an excellent musician AND teacher! 🤘 I was initially looking for a specific aspect on compression, but the way you explained it, along with what I already know, I now get the ‘science’ behind it, which was never really explained to me correctly in the first place, and I would feel comfortable doing some more advanced stuff now, e.g. factoring the attack in so I can “catch” the beginning of the notes, or using tone with compression to “brighten” the mix or track, especially in mastering. You actually covered “mastering” without throwing the term around (as you added the gain in, so on a basic level the sound would be ‘tight’ and ‘loud’ without overall clipping! This is great for me as it would help me limit the amount of plugins that I am using since I could take affect of a single plugin to accomplish more, leaving the ‘fluff’ out! 🚫🎛 I personally feel that the two most important plugins in any DAW are the Compressor, and the EQ. For that very reason, high quality plugins should be carefully selected and subsequently used. I have been using, or more accurately, learning to use FabFilters Pro-C 2, but again, it does almost all of the heavy lifting for you, so I didn’t need to know as much detail regarding what goes on behind the scenes. FabFilters plugins just sound good! For EQ, I’ve been using the 6144 by DDMF as it sounds JUST LIKE a Neve 5033! The gain on that thing is incredible, as a Neve **should** sound, so who knows, I may use it after compressing since I have to balance the EQ out anyway... But that’s the beauty in production, you get to learn by doing, and sometimes you even come across something that **shouldn’t** sound half-as-good as it does, but ends up sounding even more awesome than you first thought! That’s ‘production’ to me, it truly is a process of lifelong learning! 😊 I just subscribed to your channel, and have a feeling that I’m going to enjoy the other videos, but more importantly - Learn Something From Them!!! 🎓 Many thanks! ~ Jay ✌️💙
I understand how a woman who is knowledgeable in this field may have somewhat of a seductive effect on young men (in the same field). Kinda like the rather popular gamer fantasy. I am sure they will overdo it, but I understand where they are coming from. It's like a woman who finds a man who isn't clueless about the stuff she is into. It feels good. Cheers.
I think she's super attractive. So what? Don't assign your assumptions on me. It's perfectly natural to give someone a complement. By definition it's a sincere form of showing you understand the way someone is. I don't know but you guys came off as being...... what's a way of saying fake or posser with out having to worry that someone is hyper sensitive? Contrived! Too condesending...You know it's perfectly ok to Not assume that just because you find someone attractive it doesn't mean that the attraction isn't also about How they are as well how they look. I don't care how hot a girl is if she's not a good person she not cute to me. If Stella was here I'd ask for number.
This is probably the best explanation and example of what compressors do that i've come across in years, without all the vague terms or jargon you find so much of on youtube about compression. Thank you.
Very good explanation! Only one thing to add. It would be great if you set the attack value of the compressor to a value that permits not to kill the transient of the snare and the kick (maybe starting from 30 or 40 ms). So It'll sound more natural. Thanks for the lesson!
Hands down the best video on compression I’ve ever seen. Simple yet, clear explanation of what is actually happening!!! Thank you so much STELLA. I can actually say I FULLY understand the dynamic of what is happening when I’m compressing now🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
surprise surprise a comments section filled with comments on her appearance - I somehow doubt the male audio engineers get the same judgements. found it a very useful video, thanks
1:34 - The graphical explanation here made it all sooooo much easier to understand!! Edit: After watching the whole thing, I can safely say this has been an excellent explanation all the way. Many thanks!
WOW thank you for explaining this so simply and efficiently. It is so rare to find videos that get straight to the point and make it understandable for beginners. Hopefully there are more like this on the channel :)
I think that, in general, women are not encouraged to express themselves. I think that, in general, you will find that just about all forms of expression are male-dominated. I think that most men don't like women all that much or don't feel they can relate to them or are scared of them...so they tend to make everything into a boy's club.
George Martin, Glyn Johns, Don Landee, Jack Douglas and Walter Becker disagree. Overuse of compressors has made popular music of the last fifteen years seem louder and louder and less and less intimate. After listening to contemporary music I am left feeling exhausted because of artificial loudness. I can hardly distinguish one cymbal from another and all of the guitars are blended in a way that makes them seem artificial.
True words! generally speaking: production methods in general through all of the genres seem to differ less and less from each other. Hard to find real distinguishable music production :\
True, but I wanted to focus on just the listening. When I did this, I didn't even know there were two versions. It wasn't until after I watched it again that I knew the side by side was being played, and only then I thought to myself it might have sounded different and that was only because I could see the compressor meter moving.
@@javierv.5242 Same here, can't really hear the big wow of a good compression unless using it radically (harsh snare shots with gentle kicks for instance). Did you find a way to become more sensitive to it?
@@oridoron7 i just put on my headphones. i can only hear a difference at 0:08 with the drums but i perceive it more as EQ. the high frequency content is coming through more clearly. i don't think she did a good job with her examples tbh
@@oridoron7 i still feel 0:20 the second track with compression sounded better but she said it was "heavily compressed" lol. i would expect "heavy compressed" to sound like crap.
@@javierv.5242 Hi there again. I agree with you, it doens't feel heavily compressed at all. I found a nice discussion about this in Gearlutz Forum, where individual asked why he can't really hear a true difference in compression. I'm posting the link, it's made me feel better www.gearslutz.com/board/newbie-audio-engineering-production-question-zone/1081379-cant-hear-effect-compression-me.html
Compression has been a big obstacle for me to overcome in understanding. The previous video i watched helped me gain a better understanding, but this video just tremendously helped me in understanding it. Thank you.
I'm doing my masters in media and communication. I've got a unit in advance audio broadcasting production. I had huge anticipations but unfortunately due to Corona outbreak, as a precautionary method, universities are shut momentarily in Melbourne. I found this series really helpful and recommended it to my friends. We cannot thank you enough. Really informative, crisp and easy for beginners like me. Have a good one!
Folks, compressors are the Kryptonite of sonic fidelity. There are times to use them. But that should be the exception -- not the rule. Unfortunately, mixing engineers are in love with their buttons, levers, and knobs. When you record a sound, it is pristine. Every time you put it through a compressor, or any form of processing, you are polluting the signal. The reason why the vast majority of today's music has mediocre sound quality is due to unnecessary over-processing. If a singer's voice is too loud, then the stem (the isolated track) of her voice should have the gain lowered mechanically, via a quality, analog attenuator -- not via a computer's algorithm. If there are problems with the singer singing too low and too loud, then the singer should re-tape the song (bands make countless takes of their songs). A computer should not be used to correct a problem. Rather, the problem should not exist, which negates the purpose of needing to correct it. Computers are overused to mix music, because it is a lazy man's mixer. There is a harmful sonic price for using computers to compensate for what should be corrected via putting in the effort to get it right initially, so that you do not need any corrections. Corrections come at a price. All forms of processing degrade the audio quality. Every piece of equipment adds its own character, its own coloration, its own distortion to the final product. And those artifacts are cumulative. If the drums are not coming trough with enough slam, it is not because the drums are not making slam (if you ever were in a room with a drummer, you would feel slam like never before). The problem is with the location of the drums in relation to the microphones, or the gain on the drummer's stem. When you hear music and the drums are not really present in any meaningful way, and the singers are ear-aching loud, it is because of the mixing equipment as seen in this video. Think about it... Does anyone think that a singer can drown out a drummer? It is nonsense. Yet countless songs have singing that hurts your ears, and drums that are hardly there. If drums get lost in the mix, it is not because they need compression, it is because the mixing engineer turned down the gain on the drums, or did some other processing that killed the drums. Compressed music, for the most part, sucks. It is responsible for the loudness wars, which kills dynamics, and sucks the life out of the music. It ruins soundstaging. It ruins imaging. It ruins transparency. It ruins realism. It ruins sonic works of art that extremely talented bands work their hearts out to create. I doubt that a single mixing engineer has ever listened to their work on a stereo like this: img.digitaltrends.com/image/wilson-audio-alexx-setup-3-1500x1000.jpg And this is why they think that their work has good sound quality. The above stereo will reveal everything that is wrong with a song, and will reveal all of the magic in a great song. And the songs that sound great on the above system will make any stereo sound much, much better.
@@NoEgg4u By the way, when you say things like "mixing engineers are in love with their buttons, levers, and knobs" or "this is why they think that their work has good sound quality" its a pretty safe bet to say you're lying and have no idea what you are talking about and just regurgitate information you've heard from someone else.
@@MastrGandalf You explained why I wrote: "I am also a professional audio engineer, and I lost brain cells writing this". You need not prove to me that you understand written language. You are free to let whoever reads your comments know that you have that skill, if that satisfies some need that you have. You are partially correct as to what I have heard from someone else. As a professional audio engineer, I know that you know people that get lost in their equipment (you might be one of them). They love to talk about their gear, and they love to make art with their gear. If they do not have that love, then they would not be a good audio engineer. As a fellow professional audio engineer, I know where to draw the line. I know when something is supposed to sound processed vs. supposed to sound natural. If I like a lot of ketchup on my hamburger, I do not force everyone else to consume a lot of ketchup. Once too much salt is added to the soup, there is no undo button to remove the salt. Many audio engineers like a lot of ketchup, or a lot of salt, etc. And they are the ones cooking the meal (mastering the mix). They do not set aside their desire for over-seasoning their mixes. The world ends up stuck with their clearly opaque, compressed, unrealistic, computer driven sound quality. And you stick up for them. You are part of the problem. You are in an occupation for which you do not understand its core purpose.
Compression DESTROYS lots of music. Music needs dynamics to have feeling and portray the emotions of the musicians. It needs to be used very sparingly.
T H A N K Y O U ! ! ! ! For a clear explanation on this. RU-vidrs out here sounding like mathematicians and physicists trying to explain this. And while it is math and physics, thank you for making it simple for us beginners.
Very nicely done. You not only explained compression quite well, but your instructional style is great, very straightforward, clearly demonstrated as you explain the details. Many thanks.
Thanks Stella. This has been the best explanation of how compressors work I have ever heard. Though I have always used my ears to achieve the results compressors add to a track, I now have a better understanding of what I'm actually doing when I adjust the threshold and ratio. Thanks again. You're lovely.
I loved this instructional video about compression from Stella. It was clear and precise right to the point. Compared to all the videos I've seen before about compression this has to be the best.
You are a great teacher, I love this example based teaching; you extracted the concept of the tool and its application gracefully, and you did not bombard us with too much at once, kudos to you.
Been trying to understand different terminologies of audio and sound and you made it easy for me . Thank you . Gain , compression , EQ, Q, Limiter, threshold ......... been struggling to understand to use for audio dialogue video editing .
🙏🙏 i kinda knew what a compressor does but i love how this tutorial goes on explaining what the important parameters are and what each does. thanks a lot 🐨
Stella, I cant thank you enough. This is the kind of tutorial I have been looking for! Most of the tutorials out there answer the HOW. Sure I can follow instructions, but I am looking for answers to the WHAT and WHY. Superb explanation
