How To Use Compressors: Ratios, Threshold, Attack & Release 

Dude I've been using compressors for 10 years and never known what I was doing, just turning knobs until things sounded right, and this video helped me immeasurably

Yes! These kinds of videos are invaluable. You are the guy to break this stuff down. Will really help countless people like myself who do these things at home with no formal training.

Rick has such an awesome way of explaining the different aspects of music. He’s straight to the point, but never patronizing. I love this channel, and it’s the most important channel on this platform.

One of the best analogies of a compressor i heard was like using your finger to push or pull the fader up or down with the aim of keeping the output signal constant. A human can do this, but a compressor is basically an automated way to do the same thing. Once you get that idea in your head with a fader going up and down to adjust the level, it all makes sense. In reality, its a bit more complex than that but this gives you a feel for whats happening.

FWIW, 33609 is a diode bridge compressor. TG12413/TG1 is also a diode compressor (zener diode). The Abbey Road RS124 (based on Altec Lansing 436C) is a varimu.

I love your variety of videos, but for me these practical ones are my all time favorite. Tools of the trade, how-to, or how to use gear, etc. Love to learn all this.

Great! I love the clarity of your explanations. So much useful information. More of these please! Thanks!

If I remember right, I found your channel by watching a previous version of this upload a few years ago. This kind of information is extremely helpful!

Just bought the Beato Bundle! I've been an avid follower of Rick, and am just getting back into guitar/band/music after a masters degree. I'm excited to learn from one of the absolute best.

Thank you! From a real hip hop musician, this is what you need to tell artists as a producer so they understand. Awesome video!

Love your mixing videos Tick glad to see your doing them again. Probably not as popular as the interview but still very important. Keep em comin

you made a 30 min video about compression a while ago and that helped me a lot, that's when i finally understood compression, this video is also great, thank you a lot

I’ve been looking for a tutorial/informative video like this for soooo long. Thank you for posting this!

This is great stuff. I love to continue learning more about it. Thanks for sharing your expertise in all this.

This was my favorite video yet! I can’t wait to experiment more with them

Thank you Rick. I did not realize you had 2 channels until you mentioned it in the middle. Appreciate you tips and ALL your videos and interviews. Merry Christmas!

Thanks Rick. I've been subscribed to both channels for many years!

what a great video TY Rick great to hear a person with so many years experience really cleared a lot of questions I had TY again man !!

Ricard, I’m very sorry I haven’t subscribed by now. You have blessed me and my church is live stream mix immensely. I still have a long way to go but I have learned a great deal from just your compression video alone. God bless you and your family.

I LOVE Variable Mu compressors on a mix bus. I don't know why and I know it's genre dependent, but for what I do, I love them.

Used to own an 1176 rev F. Liked it a lot. Unfortunately came to a place where financial pressures were making themselves known. Had a great tech go through it and sold it for around $2300 a few years back. I often wish I had it back, but I know I made the right choice for my situation.

Feel like I can't learn enough about compression And the more I learn the better I (and my mixes) sound Thanks Rick!!

omg, I love this, Hooray RB!

I have found that the emulated version of a Fairchild 670 is incredible useful in live settings to separate the instruments in a band by compressing the sides/center differently per instrument channel. You don't need to ride the channel controls as much to hear different instruments and you can keep the volume at a reasonable level which makes the listening experience much more enjoyable. Can't remember where I got the tip from, but it was from one of the great live sound engineers.

Thank you, Rick. I got more out of this 'mini-lesson' than most of the 30+ minute compressor vids out there. Usually they start with, "think of the compressor as a volume slider", which seems to fall short of the power of a compressor.

This is great! Id love to hear more of the side by side comparisons as you're explaining these

Love the 'Two' channel. Thanks for the refresher Rick.

Yes. What Rick is saying about compressors is right on spot. I think that the best thing that it does for an electric bass is that it makes the low notes louder and the loud notes lower.

Saved for this weekend. Thanks Rick

Field Effect Transitor? Fire that intern! 😀 Great video for people starting out, and also good reminder information for experienced mixers. Thanks.

This is an example of why engineering is as much of an artform as the musical performance.

Love these vids Rick, and you guest list is insane! BTW - Merry Xmas!

This was super helpful, Rick! Appreciate your work!

Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Beato!

Thanks Mr. Rick! Merry Christmas!

God Bless! thank you for sharing this at this time :) Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Rick! May your holidays be filled with joy!

Thank you! My new go to video on compression…

Been subscribed to this channel for quite a while though but it never pops up in my RU-vid feed so I tend to forget about it. The main channel appears in my feed all the time.

Great stuff! It’d be interesting to get demos of these which ones you think pair well with different parts of the mix - drum bus, mix bus, vocals, etc…

Loving this video, Rick.

the knowledge never ends with dr. beato!

Hey boss, thought I was already subscribed, because I knew that I was subscribed to you. Fixed it. Love your education, and thank you.

Hey Rick! Great videos as usual! Just a small detail, technically speaking the Neve 33609 is a Diode Bridge type of compressor..not a VCA.. but it makes a great mixbus (and drums) compressor indeed! You should try the BAE 10DC, that’s also nice! :) You should push your own label and bring back, well made and played music..at least to some extent..! Keep coming with these videos! 👍👍👍 🙏🏻

Glad someone finally made RU-vid video about compressors!

i knew you by this videos Rick, glad they are back

Pretty helpful after getting the Walrus Audio Mira optical compressor pedal.

Nice. Just playing with Inserting some new compressors.

Great, amazing content and explanation about this, I love, thank you Sr.

Awesome, thanks Rick!

Very valuable lecture !

Much appreciated! Valuable info, indeed!

This is educational. Thanx 🙏

Great explanation!

One of the best explanations! And I've seen tons of them😅

I think this is great, I dont know if you’ve done one but maybe also how to use a proper eq or when to use modulation like delays and reverb, a mix and master tutorial

This allows to make really great music that will get millions of plays that will pay you enough to make a fraction of your distrokid payment. Another great video!

I've no idea what he is talking about and yet I love it.

Great info! Thanks!

very interesting, for a guitarist compressor is a delicate tool

This is so great. No one does it better.

Hiya , thank you so much . . A lot to take in , but so grateful 🙏💚💙

I don't even know what compressing really means in producing, not to mention attack time or other terms. Would love an even more beginner's guide!

Wow so logic has a emulator of almost all the popular compression hardware put there but ? I have never had a clear explanation of what they do what they are and what they can do best . Thank you Rick you are a legend

Hey Rick, I see you using the Kush audio Compressor, I love that thing on horns bus

Extremely useful.

Best video about compression in RU-vid,

Thank you, very helpful.

Rick Beato provides the world with further irrefutable evidence that a good teacher isn't a luxury or optional. It makes all the difference as to whether a student will actually learn anything from their time spent in class. Rick, with his experience as a bona fide professor earlier in life, is a very well-organized and well-spoken lecturer. Teaching is a skill and a profession and it's not just something that just anybody can do well off the cuff or even effectively whatsoever without proper preparation and training. Period. His explanations are fun to listen to because you actually learn something from it every time. It isn't just performative or going through the motions to appear to be teaching when all you're doing is wasting time rambling in front of the class and burning minutes from the hours. He is teaching, for real, as all good and qualified teachers tend to do.

Thank you for this

Very veru nice. Thank you Rick :)

I literally just finished reading a book about this exact topic, and then you pop up with this

Great explanation, easy to understand. Quick question, what would you use on brass? trumpets mostly, solo or horn section?

Rereleasing information that is still educational in small bites is probably a good idea. I watched this vid back whenever but found this viewing useful.

I use really fast attack on overdriven guitar when I want the sound be a bit "crystallic" (I don't know if there's such a word). It is somewhat hard to play with that setting but it really brings out the lead guitar especially if you add delay into mix (and you probably don't want to add any other effect). You have to try everything since you might stumble upon sounds and effects you didn't even knew you needed! Actually, I think I have to buy a looper so I can test all the settings without having to hassle with the guitar all the time. Ps. I'm talking about effect pedals in amp's effect loop or before the amp. I believe Rick is talking about effects used in postprocessing. So there's a difference.

4:53 Logic comes with a stock SSL compressor emulation along with 6 other forms of you got that 🎉

just a bit of info... mu is not "emm-you" but rather "myou," a greek letter that symbolizes the voltage gain of a tube. the variable part is accomplished via a non-uniform pitch to the control grid winding inside the tube which causes portions of the space charge of electrons at the cathode to be exposed to different effective plate voltage field strengths.

I've been subbed since day 1. The tricks in making canned music are interesting. 8)

uau whata class! ⭐

TubeTech CL-1B… I miss her so much!

Hm was already in the upper 20% thanks for this video

I'm here for every mixing/production video you got on RB2 - I'm covering *every job and instrument, so ...knowledge me sir.

to learn this in the past, you should go to sound engineer school and then work in studios.... now, just search Rick BEato Compression guide.... and that's it. Those are the settings for my SSL The Bus+ (Ratio 4 to 1, attack 6ms, release Auto 1) and sounds great as a glue mild colored. Thank you Mr. Beato!! 👍

yeah, white board video !! I love those, thank you. that reminds me of the begining of your channel :)

The demo of 'When the Levee Breaks' made me suddenly realize that I've been listening with my compressor on all day.

There are a billion videos about compression, but I was missing this. What about the difference when using VSTs, that can be made to play very if not too consistent?

you know what's funny is I have the same M-Audio monitors !!! I bought them at guitar center back in 2001 ? LoL

in the beginning, is he talking about front end compression on the actual bass signal? like you would get from a compressor pedal? or the kind of compression you would put on perhaps as a plugin on the bass track as you're working in your DAW?

for the curious, I searched and found the analog (and tube driven) LA-2A from Universal Audio is 4700 USD (nice hardware...)

Good job Rick !! Explaining how compression works is no easy task :). Plugin compressors suck because they re-quantize your tracks. I call "the groove thieves" LOL !! Especially on software instruments and the plugins that use a lot of CPU power. If you run them in low latency mode, they work better :). Digital music is fun and cheap but it sucks LOL !!

Something interesting I think I can really trust your input on: It's 1979 and you walk into a favorite music studio, what single piece of studio gear do you most want to be there putting aside guitars, keys, and the desk? I'm asking because I want to create a vintage studio with mostly analog gear until it hits the computer, then also add in all the stuff I loved from the 1980s (synths etc, got a list) and a couple things from the 90s. Thinking an MCI JH542 for the desk, the Pink Floydiness, and the ability to automate, which are the same reasons for a Syntrx II in the list, it's an EMS VCS3 clone. I have the same question for 1989 and 1999 though too, because... more. Working on a wish list knowing if I write it all down I may have a chance at actually getting it. The heart of music died to me somewhere in the early 2000s and I think digital has a bit to do with that, so I'm pretty sure if I want to record music I love I'll have to do it on gear I love.

1:39 I have those same monitors

But I am and have been subscribed. Good advice on compression.

Re: earlier post... You have to understand that the analogy of manual 'volume slider' compression isn't a full blown description of how a compressor works and its basically only there to help new comers with little or no knowledge grasp what a compressor does. It does not explain attack, release, threshold point, spectral colouration, distortion, 'pumping' or anything else associated with character of compressors. There's a real art to using compressors and it can get complex and its very subjective. And in the case of this post - contentious and even heated. Just read the posts, people even get upset about it.. Calm down lol.. But, having said all that, if you break it down, the heart of a compressor commonly uses some component like an opto-isolator or an LDR type component which is configured in a circuit using feedback to reduce output signal depending on the signal coming in, and that is in fact, analogous to a person manually adjusting a fader to adjust the signal level depending on how big it is. Its basically the same thing - an adjustable voltage gain structure. Obviously, not as fast reacting as a compressor circuit, a fader is limited in speed but it can be a useful way to describe it nevertheless. It gets the idea across about pulling the signal back depending on its level coming in. How fast you react to pulling the fader (attack), how slow you return the fader (release) and at what point do you decide to move the fader at all (threshold). So its fair enough to use it as an analogy just to convey the concept of feedback driven signal reduction, but its not a full blown description. Far from it. So thats why you see it used in YT videos. And thats also why it gets attacked by some as 'BS'. Because its not the whole picture.

what song is this? its amazing!

Yay! White board lessons are back 🙌

TRacks also has a good SSL G compressor.

This explanation does justice to how to use compression on different sounds so as not to commit excesses that could ruin a beautiful song.

Oh I've been missing these videos without realizing it, videos where Rick doesn't rant. 🙂

How does studio compressors play with my always on JoeMeek FloorQ? I've used it for years and years and won't part with it for love or money. I also use a Wilson Effects 6 position Q Wah for just a touch of flavor as well. Do these pose problems for engineers? Edit: I forgot to add, I play a passive 5 Bass.