From the course: Digital Audio Foundations

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Compression and other dynamic processing

Compression and other dynamic processing

From the course: Digital Audio Foundations

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Compression and other dynamic processing

- The word compression applied to audio has two possible meanings that can easily be confused with each other. So, let's clear that up first. One meaning is data compression. Making a file take up less computer space. MP3 is one example. It trades off sound quality for smaller file size. We discussed data compression in another video. In this video, I'm referring to dynamic range compression. Let's define dynamic range compression by describing the tool that does it. The compressor. It's like a robotic engineer that turns down the volume whenever the signal gets loud and then turns it back up when the signal gets quiet again. The goal is to reduce the sound's dynamic range, that is compress that range. The Dynamic Range of a sound refers to how different it's quietest and loudest moments are from each other. So, a sound with very loud and very quiet moments has a wide dynamic range, and a sound that stays fairly near the same loudness has a narrow dynamic range. The compressor is…

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