QU16 compressor – gain reduction. Quick question for gurus :)

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This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by Profile photo of volounteer volounteer 2 years, 11 months ago.

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  • #100950
    Profile photo of Bill Hester
    Bill Hester
    Participant

    Hey guys

    Can I first just say a huge thanks to everyone who contributes on this forum. I have had a QU16 for about a month, and have been here many, many times as I’ve gradually figured out how to use the thing! Absolutely invaluable advice and guidance from this community. Thank you!

    I have just one question as I’m struggling to set the compressor properly. I’ve read the manual, and searched online – can’t find any reference to this.

    I’m a studio producer and understand how compressors work. Usually when using compression in the studio, I’m looking at the level of gain reduction, and (eg for vocals) would be looking for 4-6 dB max. Frustratingly on the QU16 with the little coloured bars I can see when compression is happening, but I have no idea how much.

    I may be dumbly overlooking something (I hope so) but just wondering if anyone had any advice as to how to see how much GR is actually happening? The compressors are pretty fully-featured, it just feels a little like ‘flying blind’ when trying to dial in (at least for me right now!).

    VERY grateful for any thoughts or advice.

    Thanks and warm regards to all, Bill Hester

    #100952
    Profile photo of SteffenR
    SteffenR
    Participant

    Bill… use your ears 😉

    I’m afraid there is no scale to get a value of gain reduction.
    As a workaround a can suggest to use the QuPad app,
    there is a 10 and 20dB margin on the gain reduction display. But no real scale as well…

    I think you will get “a feeling” for the amount of gain reduction after a while…

    #100953
    Profile photo of Bill Hester
    Bill Hester
    Participant

    Hey Steffen

    Thanks so much for the quick reply, and somewhat relieved to know I wasn’t doing anything dumb anyway! 🙂

    You’re right of course about using my ears. I’ve found it’s easy to overdo these things especially in a busy sound check with limited time, and so I’ll use all the aids I can to make sure that I’m not overcompressing (which I’ve found can lead to other problems esp with monitoring). Sounds like the QU PAD app is a little better – I am using this too, so will check out the graphical display there and see if that’s more helpful than the on-board display. I’m in the band too, so just a limited window to get everything set and then it’s on with the show!

    Thanks again – much appreciated, Bill Hester

    #100954
    Profile photo of SteffenR
    SteffenR
    Participant

    The app has more screen space available

    #100961
    Profile photo of volounteer
    volounteer
    Participant

    @bill Hester

    Your max compression actually done would depend how loud the signal was and where you set the threshold as well as the slope.
    The type of compression would also affect it, as would hard/soft knee or other options you see on the screen.

    You could send a calibrated level sin wave to hold the meter constant if you need to see where it hits the compression start, or how high it goes with compression.

    But if your talker is low SPL then you wont get any compression, and if they are very loud you may get more than your goal.
    This is a major problem for us with our pastor(s) at church, and some guest orators were even wider DR causing big problems for intelligibility.

    Are you doing music or V/O like an audio book?
    Your talker should be trained to be more consistent and avoid the problems. Possibly your singers too.

    If you can record them in a DAW okay without clipping, then I would do the compression during editing if it is that picky; and also adjust (DC offset and peak level) followed by setting RMS, DR, final Peak, LUFS, or whatever else you want to achieve.
    But if you are live then you have the same problem the rest of us do like with our pastors and their DR.

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