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Introduction
A compressor is used to reduce the dynamic
content of a signal. How can this improve your
guitar’s appearance in the overall sound? Now
there are situations where a compressor should
not be applied – and there are definitely
situations when it is the key to letting your
guitar stand out and appear rock solid. Here
are a few examples.
Let’s say your aim is playing a steady clean
rhythm guitar figure at the same level all the
time. As we are all only human, this is virtually
impossible: You cannot avoid playing a few
strokes too hard once in while. This will most
likely result in the sound engineer backing off a
bit on the guitar channels in live situations to
avoid harsh sounding peaks. At this “lower”
overall level (that neither you nor the sound
engineer intended in the first place), your
weakest strokes in the guitar rhythm figure will
now disappear completely. The best approach
in this situation is using a compressor. When
set correctly, it will reduce the highest peaks,
giving you and the sound engineer a much
more homogeneous guitar level to work with.
You can also apply compression to a lead
sound to “even out” level variations. Combine a
low threshold setting (which allows the
compressor to operate constantly) with a high
ratio setting to achieve a very audible
compression effect.
However, if your personal style of playing, the
genre or a certain song requires a great
dynamic range, you might not want to apply
any compression at all.
When applied correctly, you will clearly benefit
from this effect, but you might also ruin your
sound by overdoing it. This is true for many
effects, but it is especially relevant for dynamics
processing.
To find out what compression can do for you,
try out G-Major 2 presets that employ the
Compressor block both with lead and rhythm
sounds. Experiment and adapt the
Compressor’s settings to your needs and
playing style.
Illustration
Threshold
Range: -30 dB to 0 dB
When the signal is above the set Threshold
point, the Compressor is activated and the gain
of any signal above the Threshold point is
processed according to the settings of the
Ratio, Attack and Release parameters.
Ratio
Range: Off to Infinite: 1
The Ratio setting determines how hard the
signal is compressed (see illustration above).
Example: With a Ratio setting of 2:1, an input
signal at 4 dB above Threshold is reduced to
only 2 dB on the output side. The “Infinite”
setting gives you a Limiter function.
Attack
Range: 0 to 200 ms
The Attack time is the response time of the
Compressor. The shorter the Attack time, the
sooner the Compressor will reach the specified
Ratio after the signal rises above the Threshold
point.
Release
Range: 0 to 200 ms
The Release time is the time it takes for the
Compressor to release the gain reduction of the
signal after the input signal drops below the
Threshold point again.
Gain
Range: -6 to +6 dB
Use this Gain parameter to compensate for the
level changes caused by the applied
compression.
COMPRESSOR
