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![longest signal path four bit or longest signal path four bit or](https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/wipeoute284a2-omega-collection_20180328083947.jpg)
This is the basic shape of a kick - it punches in and out with a bit of ring and room tone in the tail. In this case, we know that if we feed a kick drum through our compressor we’re going to see a signal with a very fast attack, a very short sustain, and a gradual bit of decay and release. Here, the signal coming into the input of the compressor is the same signal that the detector is seeing, and ultimately the same signal that the processor is acting on. Let’s start with the most simple scenario: a compressor with an inline detector circuit. Traditionally, however, compressors will have external controls that tell the attenuator what to do. It does one thing, and it does that one thing very well. There are no external parameters which change how the compressor acts. Many compressors have fixed answers to these questions - they are built to move at a certain speed and degree. Of course that leads us back to those nagging questions: How much attenuation are we doing? How fast? How quickly are we letting go of the attenuation? There are a number of different designs to this attenuation circuit, but they ultimately aim at the same goal: turn the signal down when the detector says so. I’d like to discuss the processor side of the compressor first.
![longest signal path four bit or longest signal path four bit or](http://d2vlcm61l7u1fs.cloudfront.net/media/ab0/ab0fcf94-7a67-4f67-ac51-9fddeca2c5ee/php0G6NcR.png)
That’s a little weird to picture at first, but it actually helps quite a bit to think of two processes separately - the actual effected signal that is output, and a signal that’s determining what the compressor is acting on. Thus, we kind of have the kick drum existing in two forms at once. It’s a “chain” of circuitry that exists on the “side” of the main signal so that the compressor can figure out how the main signal should be effected. It travels down its signal path into the processor, but it also goes down another path to the detector known as “the sidechain.” If you think about that phrase “sidechain”, it’s actually very descriptive of the detector path. When we send a kick drum through a compressor, that signal splits into two routes.
#LONGEST SIGNAL PATH FOUR BIT OR HOW TO#
We can think of a compressor as two circuits: a “processor” which effects the signal, and “detector” which tells the processor how to act. In order to understand what compression does we need to understand how it generally works. The big question is: what parameters are we giving this robot finger to operate within? Are we having the attenuation happen fast, slow, somewhere in the middle? Are we doing a lot of attenuation or just a little? How much amplitude is required to make this attenuation occur? As these questions get more specific, compression starts to get a bit more complex.
![longest signal path four bit or longest signal path four bit or](http://s53mv.s5tech.net/nbp/link/Multipath.png)
With less signal, the finger attenuates less or not at all. As more signal comes in, the finger turns down the signal going out. It’s like a little robotic finger on a volume knob that reacts to an incoming signal. So good news - if you’re struggling with compression it’s gonna click and you’ll just “get it.” Hopefully, this guide you are reading will help that happen.Įssentially compression is just dynamic manipulation. However, it’s actually fairly simple once the understanding takes place. It can be a bit difficult to picture and hear what’s really happening, making it a little tricky to understand.