A compressor is mainly used to reduce the dynamic range of a signal. Especially modern music is mostly compressed at a high ratio to improve the overall loudness. It’s done to get the highest attention of a listener, "fatten" the sound and bring more "power" to the track. If a signal is compressed too much it may sound dull or "dead" afterwards or it may start to "pump" (which could be a powerful effect but can also destroy a track completely). The right compression is the key to reach a professional sound and is the high art of mixing and mastering. Because of its complex settings it may take a long time to get the right feeling for this kind of effect.

Compression is done by detecting the volume above a chosen level threshold and dividing it by the factor set with ratio. So if you set the threshold to -12dB and your signal reaches -6dB a ratio of 2:1 will result in a signal at -9dB. Because an exact manipulation of the signal would cause distortion of the waveform the reduction can be levelled over the time. This is done by setting "Attack" and "Release". attack determines how long the signal has to rise above the threshold before any reduction will occur and release sets the time the signal has to fall below the threshold to reduce the reduction again. Shorter signals than the chosen attack time will be left untouched. The overall reduction of the signal can be made up afterwards with the makeup setting. So compressing the peaks of a signal about 6dB and raising the makeup to this level results in a signal twice as loud than the source. To gain a softer entry in the compression the knee flattens the hard edge at the threshold in the range of the chosen decibels.

The filter accepts the following options:

level_in

Set input gain. Default is 1. Range is between 0.015625 and 64.

threshold

If a signal of stream rises above this level it will affect the gain reduction. By default it is 0.125. Range is between 0.00097563 and 1.

ratio

Set a ratio by which the signal is reduced. 1:2 means that if the level rose 4dB above the threshold, it will be only 2dB above after the reduction. Default is 2. Range is between 1 and 20.

attack

Amount of milliseconds the signal has to rise above the threshold before gain reduction starts. Default is 20. Range is between 0.01 and 2000.

release

Amount of milliseconds the signal has to fall below the threshold before reduction is decreased again. Default is 250. Range is between 0.01 and 9000.

makeup

Set the amount by how much signal will be amplified after processing. Default is 1. Range is from 1 to 64.

knee

Curve the sharp knee around the threshold to enter gain reduction more softly. Default is 2.82843. Range is between 1 and 8.

link

Choose if the average level between all channels of input stream or the louder(maximum) channel of input stream affects the reduction. Default is average.

detection

Should the exact signal be taken in case of peak or an RMS one in case of rms. Default is rms which is mostly smoother.

mix

How much to use compressed signal in output. Default is 1. Range is between 0 and 1.