Barry Rudolph's excellent compression article.

I searched this 25 year old Mix Magazine article out to help a couple friends without having to write up ALL of my own thoughts on compression for them since Barry did a lot of it better than I could already. This article is as good as I recalled, not too in depth, but it gets less basic about halfway through, but never digs specifically into certain designs and techniques.

All About Comoressors

That’s a fine comp'rehensive and comp'rehensible explainer. It clarifies a lot of what’s been for me not entirely grasped info in one place. Thanks for digging it out and sharing.

I remember long ago scratching my head over the COMP effect on my ZOOM 9000; it was utterly mystifying and there was no internet then to explain it either. I simply didn’t have the ears to hear what it did. Not like the Zoom’s legendary “metallic” effect - that was awesome!

That’s a fine comp'rehensive and comp'rehensible explainer. It clarifies a lot of what’s been for me not entirely grasped info in one place. Thanks for digging it out and sharing.

Glad it was useful. I figured once I found it I ought to disseminate beyond my IRL friends. I remember this clearing up more stuff for me than my boss ever could. Rudolph is a great educational writer.

I remember long ago scratching my head over the COMP effect on my ZOOM 9000; it was utterly mystifying and there was no internet then to explain it either. I simply didn’t have the ears to hear what it did. Not like the Zoom’s legendary “metallic” effect - that was awesome!

To be fair, early digital compression algos were pretty dodgy at first, the knees weren't really where you wanted. Remember windows "directX" plugins for early proto-daws?! that compressor never did what I wanted, i never felt like the gain reduction dialed in happened on my meters unless I made the thing pump with super fast time constants, everything about it was too linear for subtlety... anyway.

metallic, the sleeper effect that launched a thousand second rate industrial rock songs!