So what's the big deal down here, when in terms of peak and RMS on some compressors, you'll be given the choice to whether you are going to be monitoring the peak signal or the RMS will average signal in terms of detecting the threshold. What I've done here is I brought up this error old trusty example of the size to can snare and I've set up two level meters. And each level meter is looking at the waveform in a slightly different way. The RMS is just a geeky way I won't get into all the details but when you take a root of a square, you'll always get a positive results and then no matter where the waveforms are below the zero crossing that whatever Okay, on new eyes, we're going to glaze. So let me just say whenever you see RMS just think average when you see peak and that is measuring the peaks of the signal.

So let's have a look at this snare and sidestick and look at these levels right here. Basically, I've set up these two levels on this track, and set them to look at different at the waveform different ways, an average and a peak and let's play them. So you can see that while the RMS is quite lower than the, than the peak, that makes sense, given the, the nature of the sound that we're hearing, the initial snap of that snare drum is very, very short. But in a peak level meter, it will see exactly how loud those those peaks on right now is it right at at zero dB, but the average level when you think about that the initial hit of that snare drum is very short. The rest of it is a much lower signal. And so an RMS will take an average of that that's why the level here is much lower.

By the way, in this way, you can actually look at peak and RMS kind of overlaid on top of each other. So you can see, the darker green is zero and the lighter green is about minus 20. Let's put it back just a strictly RMS here. So what does this have to do with compression? You might ask, I'm glad you asked over on this side on the compressor, some compressors will give you a choice of whether the threshold is measured against your peak metering or your average metering. And so here's how this kind of takes effect.

So let's imagine that well, we can actually have a look at it over over here. So at zero dB, let's set a threshold at minus 10, which is set there right now. What's the deal with minus 10? Well, I know that in minus 10 if we're looking at the peak Then is this is this some snare drum passing? The that threshold when we're looking at peaks? You bet it is because it peaks up to about here.

But you remember this one over here doesn't even make it to minus 10. So with this set to peak metering, what do you think we'll see any gain reduction here? I think we will, because at minus 10 on the big scale, you can see that we're getting passed down. Let's go ahead and play that. Yep, you can see that we are having some gain reduction there because we've passed this minus 10. Now, let me stop that and switch over to RMS and what do you think's gonna happen?

We're not even going to hit that right. So there should be no gain reduction right up here. Does that make sense? Okay, so don't sweat it if you don't see that on some compressors but quite often, you'll you'll see that on Some high end compressors that you can determine whether you are going to be looking at the average level, or the peak level is the pros, pros and cons of the two. If you are doing vocals or you know, musical instruments that have, you're basically interested in dealing with the average level, then go to RMS, because then the threshold will be whenever you set up the threshold, it will determine whether you get past that threshold on the base of the average of that signal. And for most circumstances, that's the way to go.

However, what are you doing a lot of limiting if you start going you know, way up here into you know, the 20 to one like that. Here's what you're really wanting to do is caught up on when you sit setting things up with limiters, you're tend to do a higher threshold, but set up to peak so you can catch those peaks as they come through. Certainly if you set this to RMS, there might be peaks coming through here that you have no clue about. So here's the rule of thumb. If you're doing compression most of the time, and musical central using RMS, if you're doing limiting, then peak is quite often the best meter in two years. Okay, I promised that I was going to be going through all the math, they all you geeks out there, I'm Please don't take offense.

I'm a geek too. So what we're going to be going through here is just see exactly how this math adds up. So what I've done is I've brought up a example file, it's example number eight, I believe it's called try time. It's just three sine waves, each at different specified levels. The reason I'm using a sine wave is a very accurate way there's not it's not bounced around or anything like that. I've gone through a compressor, right how right now which is set a default, it's also bypassed and then I follow that along with a level meter and that is going to be Looking at the peak levels of these guys here, the reason I'm setting this up to peak and fat, I'm gonna do the same over in my compressor.

So that is detection can be set up to be looking at peak levels is that it's a little bit more of a clinical, we'll get far more accurate numbers if we're looking at all this math, so this is set to peak, the level meter is set to peak, this is bypassed right now. So we're just looking at the exact levels that are coming off of this track and we'll start at the top minus 20 minus 10. So you can see I've set them up there at specific levels so we can have some fun with a compressor. So I'm gonna take the bypass offs and now this will be going this track will be going through this compressor, and we'll be able to see what's going on. Now the first part is set at minus 20. So therefore, if everything set correctly this peak, and I set this to minus 20, then we should have zero gain reduction.

That makes sense, right? If this is set to minus 20, and this is exactly minus 20, then we know we've learned this a million times that only the stuff above that threshold will get compressed. So when I press play, I should see zero gain reduction there right. Now, I'm seeing some Garel action. Why is that? Can anybody can I have an idea of what's going on?

Maybe as a few astute ones can see exactly what's going on. In the knee. The knee is graduating into the threshold. So a soft knee will start that compression, a little below that threshold. If we set this to a hardening right here then we should see beautiful Zero gain reduction here, if we would have bumped this down just a tiny bit. Yeah, we start seeing it.

Okay, so let's set this back to zero there. In fact, I'm going to set up the gain reduction to be straight the makeup game to be zero, the knees going to be that way, we're going to start off with a two to one ratio sitting at peak. Okay, let's start having some fun. What we're going to do is go between this portion and this portion, and this is minus 20. And this is minus 10. So in the playback kid crosses across here, how much more level is going to be coming into this compressor is going to be 10 Db more, right?

Right now with the threshold at minus 20. Nothing's happening here. But as soon as it hits this, we're going to be 10 Db over this threshold and with a ratio of two to one Other words, 10 Db is coming in over this threshold two to one, how much gain reduction should we be seeing here? Let's test it. No gain reduction and get ready. There you go fine.

For extra credit, what's gonna happen when we go up here, another 10 db, how much gain reduction it's gonna be, check it out. Exactly as you jump up 10 Db with a two to one ratio. The first step up here is only going to let five DB come through, there'll be a gain reduction of five dB. And then when it jumps up another 10 db, it's going to be having that again. So there's a 20 range between here which is the threshold and here, so therefore only half that will be Coming in half of that 20 degree span sorry, that 20 Db span is 10 db. Let's try it.

So five to one. What are we going to see here? Okay, the first one is a 10 Db difference, and a five to one ratio. In other words, 10 Db is coming in 10 more DB is coming in over that threshold, and it's going to be compressed by to one. What is that going to be? Think about it.

Okay, let's see. That's right, eight DB reduction, because with a 10 Db span there, and we're reducing it five to one, then that's only going to give us two DB out. So 10 minus two gives us that at eight DB reduction on See how it looks over here on the third one, see if you can get the out the outcome. Yet about 16 db, it's only letting four DB out to 20 Db span five to one, right? So it's only going to let through four dB, and 20 minus four is about 16 db. So I hope you got those ones, right, if you like, pop it into your own da W and start messing around with the compressors and see if you can guess all that game reduction.

By the way. In order for this to work, you'll probably need to have peak detection on to get these kind of clinical numbers. Okay, so you're going to stay around for extra credit. Hmm. Let me do a quick tip here. And this is just one that I use every now and again and The reason I'm going through this example is it really takes some of the things we've been learning and just kind of has you thinking a little bit more outside the box.

Here's what I've done. I have a male vocal here, let me mute this. So there's basically two tracks if you're not familiar with reason. There's two tracks here that come up on these two channels here. So I've muted the second channel here. So here's the first one.

We've heard this example of course, in your example file. Cool, again, muskie. So here's what I've done. I've just copied that track onto another track here, which I have over here, and I've just renamed this copy again. And here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna mute the very first one.

I've set up a noise gate. On this second track. We've seen this before, let me just bring this down. Okay, we actually don't need to see those tracks name anymore. Okay, so here is a noise gate on the second track. And with this threshold, of course set this well here that I'll hear everything.

Where do we bring it up? Then I'll only hear the very loud parts right? Start from the top again. Ask you do leave. So you can see what I've done. I've just set up a noise gate, so only the very loud parts of the vocal will come through and here's what I did.

I go down here and set this to zero, then we won't actually hit anything that's coming out of this channel, right? We'll hear the lead vocal. But the second part that has been gated, we actually won't hear through the main mix. But the reason I'm doing this is that I could set up, I've set up an echo in here on effects and I'll turn that on. And if you've seen pre and post before we set this up to be pre fader. And guess what happens even though this fader is all the way down here, then only the very loud parts of this track will go out to the Echo, and come back and let's see if we can make this happen.

Cool. Again, smart. Where do we even do that? Only the loud parts can echoed. Can we get back? Can we get back Bob, we wasted.

So you can see in this example, there's lots of very cool things you can do with dynamics process. Just think about all the ways you could split off a signal and process that completely different and then use that split off signal to then do something else. Thanks so much for your time. We'll see you on the next masterclass. Cheers.