Compressor.

[KevinS]

I've never/very rarely seen a need for compressor. Am I missing something? Some people's sine wave signatures look interesting, but mine are all jagged. (That's fine with me. You should see my garage.) Frankly, I cannot hear any difference in the little experimentation I have done.

[TriciaG]

Some people's voices are more spiky than others.

Some people blast out a vowel sound that makes the wave form spike, or they have a spot where they're simply louder for a brief time, causing them to not be able to amplify enough. I think from what I've heard, your voice is well-modulated and thus doesn't need compression.

(I see it on the test recordings sometimes. Usually it's the "Had it been an AC-tual LV contribution..." that does it. )

[KevinS]

Ahhh. That explains it. Thank you!

[lurcherlover]

I've never/very rarely seen a need for compressor. Am I missing something? Some people's sine wave signatures look interesting, but mine are all jagged. (That's fine with me. You should see my garage.) Frankly, I cannot hear any difference in the little experimentation I have done.

Hi Kevin. I don't think a compressor is needed for most voice recordings and such software sometimes degrades the audio. If I have the odd spike, then I will manually reduce it in the in the edit. If I have more than 15 of these spikes in a thirty minute file then I need to watch out more when I'm speaking. I find good voice technique usually saves a lot of hassle, and I'm continually trying to drag my readings up to a reasonable quality, but it's hard and I don't often make it! It's like performing music, one can never get to the point of perfection that is desirable.

[KevinS]

I've never/very rarely seen a need for compressor. Am I missing something? Some people's sine wave signatures look interesting, but mine are all jagged. (That's fine with me. You should see my garage.) Frankly, I cannot hear any difference in the little experimentation I have done.

Hi Kevin. I don't think a compressor is needed for most voice recordings and such software sometimes degrades the audio. If I have the odd spike, then I will manually reduce it in the in the edit. If I have more than 15 of these spikes in a thirty minute file then I need to watch out more when I'm speaking. I find good voice technique usually saves a lot of hassle, and I'm continually trying to drag my readings up to a reasonable quality, but it's hard and I don't often make it! It's like performing music, one can never get to the point of perfection that is desirable.

I see now. I sometimes have to reduce the first word of a new section. I often launch into it with too much enthusiasm. But the (de)amplify effect works fine.

[commonsparrow3]

I don't think a compressor is needed for most voice recordings ... If I have the odd spike, then I will manually reduce it in the in the edit. If I have more than 15 of these spikes in a thirty minute file then I need to watch out more when I'm speaking.

I see now. I sometimes have to reduce the first word of a new section. I often launch into it with too much enthusiasm. But the (de)amplify effect works fine.

I think I must be exactly the sort of speaker that the Compressor was made for. With my flat Great Lakes accent (think Rochester/Buffalo/Cleveland) I tend to spike louder on vowels like short a and short o. I have way more than 15 spikes per recording - more like a dozen per some sentences! And there seems to be no help for it with my accent. When I first started at LV, I didn't know compressor existed, and I would go laboriously through the recording, mashing down each spike individually with De-amplify. It took forever. If I tried to simplify the task by just de-amplifying the entire recording, the in-between bits became too soft.Then one of Phil's videos clued me in to the magic of Compressor. Ta-Da! Spikes are reduced, in-between bits unaffected, and my annoyingly flat vowels no longer jump out loudly to ambush listeners! People who naturally are able to read at a more even level probably don't need it - (lucky you!) - but for me, it's a perfect solution. (Sample illustration of what I'm talking about is here in an image I've posted to dropbox.)

[lurcherlover]

I don't think a compressor is needed for most voice recordings ... If I have the odd spike, then I will manually reduce it in the in the edit. If I have more than 15 of these spikes in a thirty minute file then I need to watch out more when I'm speaking.

I see now. I sometimes have to reduce the first word of a new section. I often launch into it with too much enthusiasm. But the (de)amplify effect works fine.

I think I must be exactly the sort of speaker that the Compressor was made for. With my flat Great Lakes accent (think Rochester/Buffalo/Cleveland) I tend to spike louder on vowels like short a and short o. I have way more than 15 spikes per recording - more like a dozen per some sentences! And there seems to be no help for it with my accent. When I first started at LV, I didn't know compressor existed, and I would go laboriously through the recording, mashing down each spike individually with De-amplify. It took forever. If I tried to simplify the task by just de-amplifying the entire recording, the in-between bits became too soft.Then one of Phil's videos clued me in to the magic of Compressor. Ta-Da! Spikes are reduced, in-between bits unaffected, and my annoyingly flat vowels no longer jump out loudly to ambush listeners! People who naturally are able to read at a more even level probably don't need it - (lucky you!) - but for me, it's a perfect solution. (Sample illustration of what I'm talking about is here in an image I've posted to dropbox.)

Yes I would agree that a compressor may be needed and work well if there are as many and extreme spikes as you seem to be getting. But for many people it probably won't be needed. And in those cases it's best not to use it as it will be unnecessary and could lead to too much flattening out of the audio.

[lurcherlover]

I've never/very rarely seen a need for compressor. Am I missing something? Some people's sine wave signatures look interesting, but mine are all jagged. (That's fine with me. You should see my garage.) Frankly, I cannot hear any difference in the little experimentation I have done.

Hi Kevin. I don't think a compressor is needed for most voice recordings and such software sometimes degrades the audio. If I have the odd spike, then I will manually reduce it in the in the edit. If I have more than 15 of these spikes in a thirty minute file then I need to watch out more when I'm speaking. I find good voice technique usually saves a lot of hassle, and I'm continually trying to drag my readings up to a reasonable quality, but it's hard and I don't often make it! It's like performing music, one can never get to the point of perfection that is desirable.

I see now. I sometimes have to reduce the first word of a new section. I often launch into it with too much enthusiasm.

This happens a lot. I certainly tend to emphasise the first word, especially if it's an immediate repeat of a sentence or few words that have been messed up. Of course if this happens a lot then the compressor could be the answer!

[DACSoft]

... People who naturally are able to read at a more even level probably don't need it - (lucky you!) - but for me, it's a perfect solution. (Sample illustration of what I'm talking about is here in an image I've posted to dropbox.)

Like yours, my reading results in very spikey recordings. I've found that using compressor helps even out my voice, so I include it in my editing checklist for all my recordings. I think you're right; Compressor was created for those like us.

Don

[sjmarky]

All of my recordings get a mild compression, about 2:1. By reducing the extremes of the volume the audio is easier to listen to; the soft parts don't drop out, the loud parts aren't excessive. While compression isn't absolutely required, judiciously applied it can make for a more pleasurable listening experience.

[lurcherlover]

Has anyone tried a limiter on your recordings? This works when recording and limits the peaks by an amount you choose when setting up. I am going to experiment with this as I have one on my recorder, built in. Never used it before. Will report back!

[lurcherlover]

UPDATE: I tried the limiter at the time of recording. No matter how loud I shouted it still kept the peak at 1.7dB below zero, so no distortion, although I would never record so close to the clipping point. I'm usually -8dB below this and -3dB below for LV. My last recording just uploaded to SPC203 and not yet in Magic Window is a Shakespeare sonnet (no130) and on this version I used the compressor in post production.(You can hear this once the poetry collection is published at the end of April/start of May).

Peter

[lurcherlover]

I've just put them on a server, so if you would like to compare the straight ones with the compressed you can. The compressed ones are sonnets 116 and 130.

Here is the link. https://my.pcloud.com/publink/show?code=kZlfGPkZ1srQvtb5CffO8qtmQjIF3HCENx9V

Peter