What's with attack?
Home > Home Recording Forum > Gear Gab > What's with attack?
Posted on Apr 21, 2004 08:11 am
FunkDadyP
No Commercial Appeal.
Member Since: Jan 09, 2003
In terms of compression, why wouldn't you want the compressor to attack as soon as possible. I'm understand what attack does, but why would you want it to wait a few milliseconds for it to take effect?
[ Back to Top ]
SonicoMember
Since: Apr 19, 2002
Apr 21, 2004 09:29 am Some instruments, like drums have a nice transient at the very beginning of the wave they produce when played. That transient give them a sharp and punchy sound to cut thru the mix and stand out well. Another example could be, a bass guitar, compressed with medium attack will have more punch and sometimes that's what the mixing engineer is looking for.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Apr 21, 2004 10:02 pm What atack does and how it effects the instrument sound can be deceiving. Most instruments take time to build their sound. A stringed instrument takes time to build vibration from the time of excitation to the full build of the strings vibration. A horn takes time for the air to build enough pressure for a full sound from the time the player firsts blows into the insturment. A short attack will make the build up at the begining of a note sound unnatural and in many cases destroy the character of the instrument. Even large drums sound natural with the attack opened up a little. Give it a listen, with say....a 4:1 ratio and a threashold where you are working the compressor for maybe 6db on the top end. Just play the attack between say 5 and 30ms on a stringed instrument and hear the difference.
Apr 21, 2004 10:26 pm Yes, in most cases you want your attack up a bit. It's all about shaping your dynamics. That's what makes compression so cool-- You can drastically alter the sound of an instrument with different attack and release times (And ratios). For example, I find that about 0.7 to 1 milliseconds followed by a quick release time gives you that slick rock "snap" to the right kind of snare drum. It doesn't necessarily sound natural, but that's the point. In other cases you want to open it up even more for a more natural sound. A good way to hear how attack and release settings are effecting your sound is by bringing the threshold down ridiculously low while you tweak them. Sometimes if I have say a crash cymbal that sounds really harsh, I'll close the attack all the way and that kind of smoothes over the sound. It all depends.
