Hi all!

I was working on a track today and I had my BX Meter on the master to measure peaks' levels and dynamic range. Now I know that (standard) compression basically turns peaks down to reduce dynamic range, but when I isolated my drum bus and applied a Waves SSL Compressor to give it some glue (GR was about 2-3 dBs) I noticed that the dynamic range on my meter was increased!

Does anybody know what's happening behind the scenes? Am I just crazy? Is it behaving normally or it's some kind of unwanted bug in either the compressor or the meter (or both)? If that's normal, then I should definitely consider quitting music since it's completely against what theory says...

Thanks to who's going to answer, cheers!!

 

Your understanding is incorrect, Weedhopper. Compression reduces the difference between the softest and loudest levels. It squeezes the top and raises the soft at the same time. Limiting is what shaves off peak levels to a certain threshold without raising the soft levels. Either one can be used to increase overall gain, but usually you are shooting for none at this stage.

 

Yeah, and that's what theory says, but in my case, why is it INCREASING dynamic range if those processors are used to DECREASE it? Isn't bringing peaks down/turning soft audio up a way to limit dynamic range?

 

The dynamic range was increased due to the transient and the attack settings on the compressor, if you wanna shave the sounds you can use a limiter,a clipper, a compressor with very fast attack. My favourite with the fastest attack is the elysia compressor mix or master version, i believe FabFilter Pro C reacts fast aswell

 

As said Algae & Mostwest, dynamic process like comp, limiter, expander and so one, change the dynamic of a sound, obviously.
What you have to be aware are the settings of your compressor. Here the "replicate "of the famous SSL bus compressor if I understood well.
If you take down the threshold with letting the attack long, then you let the transient goes thru the threshold. So to catch these transients you have to let down the attack until you hear it. Then you have to check your release setting to help the comp to doesn't squash too much your drums ( unless if you want it). And check the gain to compensate a bit. Check if the compressor bus meter is dancing on your kick and snare. If its the case that's very good starting point.
Be aware of few things:
on a bus, I tent to never put a big compression, just a tiny. Because you have to put here and there other compressor ( on sn, hh, tom ect - for my side I prefer to keep kick outside the drums bus) . The thing is to have multiple 'lil compression in several stage of the chain, to go to your drum bus. So always several comp in each drum track than a big comp on your drum bus.
Why ? 'cause if you do so, you'll keep the dynamic tons better than squash it with a too strong compression on your drum bus.
Because if you are working with busses, all these busses ( drm bus, keys bus, voc bus, perc bus, or my side I prefer to keep kick & bass outside the busses need to be not over compressed
just a tiny before going to the master bus.
All this to keep dynamic on track, giving live to the music, groove . Because you can tweak each comp in the way they 're participating on a certain groove on the tracks.

You can aswell use in addition, some brickwall limiting, or clipper to keep presence without clipping your tracks (and of course the master). But again with softness. If not you'll destroyed the sounds, in fact you will add too much distortion . In some case that sounds very good of course.

cheers