Information on an audio Compressor DBX 266XL

0:00 Not this particular unit in particular, but on units called compressor

Alright folks, now this video is on one of these guys. Not this particular unit in particular, but on units called compressors. Now this guy here is from a company called DBX. It's known as the 266SL compressor gate. But we're just looking at the compressor fact or the compressor part on this particular unit. Now first of all, what is a compressor? Well, compress, you squash something. A compressor squeezes, let's say, air into a tyre. So if I had a tangerine in my hand and I went like that, I'd compress it, squash it and it would just go all over me face. I'd look right numpty. So, what does one of these do? And why do you need one of these? Do you need one of these? Is it a good idea? Maybe you should just go on the bus and go to the beach and jump in the sea. Anyway, right now first of all what I want to explain is your mixer. I want you to have a look at your DJ mixer and theoretically on your DJ mixer you should have LEDs.

And if you look to the side of those LEDs, quite often you've got numbers. They'll start off with minus, go to zero, and then they'll go to plus. Could be minus 20, minus 10, minus 5, zero, then plus, plus, plus. Now first of all, we need to look here at the threshold. Now exactly the same on there. If I go very slowly, we should be able to see a plus and a minus there. Right, now that guy there has got minus 40 plus 20 and that's not dissimilar to the level on your mixer. So, in other words, what happens here with the threshold first of all, let's say you set your mixer so it's just tapping into the amber, say plus 3 for example. What you need to do, and by the way if I've got any terminology incorrect please techie guys put comments underneath here and say Jonathan, you're a waste of time, this is how it really is.

1:53 You set your mixer so it's just tapping into plus three

You set your mixer so it's just tapping into plus three. And on this threshold, let's say if I put that to plus three, it basically means that this unit will allow anything just about two plus three dB in. Anything after that, it can start to think, oh, there's something dodgy going on there. So I can set that anywhere. So in other words, if you've got a couple of numpty DJs who are going to be using your kit And they're always in the red. If you actually set something like this correctly, they can do what they want because basically all that will happen through the speakers, they'll get a very horrible muffled compressed sound and theoretically again, they shouldn't be able to blow any... Hello? Right, OK, now I've got notes here as well so I've got this website there and what I'll do, I'll put the link to this particular page as well. Threshold.

Right, ratio. This sets how much compression is applied. So, in other words, ratio. Let's have a look. That's that one. Now, to make this very simple, I can apply as much or as little as I want using the ratio. In other words, let's say all of a sudden we get above the level I set on the threshold, I can have the compressor really squash it down or not much. Alright. Now attack, this sets how fast the compressor kicks in once the threshold has been breached. Now basically what that means is let's say for example I set the initial level to say 0 dB and all of a sudden someone comes along on the mixer and whops it up so it goes to plus 6. Well basically what will happen is I can set this so within 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 milliseconds this unit will just kick in and compress the sound.

3:47 You've got that compressed sound

Or it'll think, well I'll leave it for a while and I'll kick in a bit later or sooner or straight away. That's what that will do. And then the decay. This sets how fast the compressor lets go once the input signal has dropped back below the threshold. So in other words, let's say we're back to that scenario where we're up in the red, all of a sudden, wash, it kicks in. So you've got that compressed sound. And let's say then the DJ thinks, oh dear, DJ tutorial by Ellaskins The DJ Tutor offers a wide range of options to choose from. If, on the other hand, you have got, let's say for example, powered speakers, you'll go from your mixer into something like this, out of this, into your powered speakers. Practice and enjoy. Thank you.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.