I should have posted this ages ago but you know how it is. Sorry if this is general knowledge but I suspect not, sure had me fooled for a while and the now departed Red confirmed that it certainly was considered a source of confusion by the audio guys, well unless you took the time to study the manual very carefully.
This doesn't just apply to compression but as it's one of the few FXs affected by the level of the audio it's the one where it matters most.
Put simply the track FXs are pre the track volume envelopes, not post as one would quite likely think looking at the visual layout of the tracks and the headers. So if I apply compression in the track header with a knee at say -10dB but my audio is peaking to -16dB then the compressor isn't going to be doing much at all! So one would logically add a volume envelope and dial in say 12dB of gain. Except that still does nothing, that's only adding gain after the compressor so it (the compressor) is having no effect at all.
To make the compressor and the volume envelope do what you'd think it should do here's what you need to do.
Either add the Compressor FX to the master bus or if you only want to apply compression to one track, add another bus to the mixer, assign the track to that bus and apply the compressor to that bus master.
Why it's this way made no sense at all to me until I got my brain around how a real audio desk works, the track FXs are the equivalent of the insert FXs, which are pre the faders, duh.
Bob.
This doesn't just apply to compression but as it's one of the few FXs affected by the level of the audio it's the one where it matters most.
Put simply the track FXs are pre the track volume envelopes, not post as one would quite likely think looking at the visual layout of the tracks and the headers. So if I apply compression in the track header with a knee at say -10dB but my audio is peaking to -16dB then the compressor isn't going to be doing much at all! So one would logically add a volume envelope and dial in say 12dB of gain. Except that still does nothing, that's only adding gain after the compressor so it (the compressor) is having no effect at all.
To make the compressor and the volume envelope do what you'd think it should do here's what you need to do.
Either add the Compressor FX to the master bus or if you only want to apply compression to one track, add another bus to the mixer, assign the track to that bus and apply the compressor to that bus master.
Why it's this way made no sense at all to me until I got my brain around how a real audio desk works, the track FXs are the equivalent of the insert FXs, which are pre the faders, duh.
Bob.