The Big Squeeze

Like most of us, when I listen to recorded music I usually don't give a thought to why the music I hear, sounds so good.

When you go to a concert or live performance, you usually come away thinking that the show had a great sound or a bad sound based on whether or not the band's FOH (front of house) used compression and EQ. The best live sound is most likely derived from using as little signal processing as possible. The engineer or FOH may deem it necessary to recreate a certain sound or effect from a recorded single or album. The compression and EQ,used during a live show will be mostly on vocals. But, a recorded track is another story all together.

Often, there's so much going on, on a recorded track you have to use compression in order to get a cohesive sound. Compressing a sound alters it's dynamic range. It can make a loud sound softer or a soft sound louder. When it's used in audio recording, compression can even the volume level of each sound, allowing them all to fit together into a mix.

Some compressors have a certain unique quality that can add a coloration to your sound that's actually desirable and many that are used in today's recordings are chosen specifically for that reason. However, when compression is over used, the result can be such a loss of signal dynamics that EQ, or equalization must then be used to bring back what has been squeezed out.

Equalization provides the ability to restore a sound's natural quality by the raising or lowering of specific frequencies. It's like turning up the volume without using gain or attenuation. This works especially well during mastering. When it's clear that a track has been compressed and limited heavily, EQ is used in order to raise the over all volume. This is when boosting or cutting certain frequencies can bring back a sense of the songs character.

Compression and equalization brought together in just the right amounts or used judiciously will not only make a track sound vibrant and fresh, but if they are done so, you will never even know they've been used.