Compression

I was checking the sound of some of my 12-string tunes on the car stereo; the soft notes were getting lost in the car noise. I wish car stereos had built in compressors. A compressor pumps up the quiet parts. Sometimes you can hear a really aggressive compressor on a radio announcer's voice; the background noise "pumps up" between each phrase. I usually can't hear compression when it's done right - the music seems to sound the same, but I can hear every note, even while driving.

Sometimes compression is done for a musical effect, and
I'm starting to use it on some test pieces. I've often been jealous of the sound many 12-string guitarists get with their magnetic pickups. You probably know the sound: a bit "digital", as if the attack is a bit squared off, then a very slow decay. The decay often sounds a bit louder than the attack, giving the notes a kind of bounce. This turns out to be fairly easy to mimic with compression. I'm using the SC4 plugin from Steve Harris. The latest pieces use the fastest attack: 1.5 milliseconds, a short decay: about 30-50 milliseconds, a 4.5 ratio and a 10 dB elbow. It doesn't sound real, but it makes me a tad less jealous of the magnetic pickup players.

Here's a demo piece.