Conversation

Pet peeve: no, compression does not make the quiet parts of your signal louder, and I really wish people would stop repeating this.

• Compression makes loud sounds quieter. That's all.
• Compressors usually have a compression stage, followed by a separate volume-boost stage which makes the entire compressed signal louder.
• These are not the same thing.

Why does this bother me? For many years, I looked in vain for an explanation of how compression makes quiet sounds louder.

There actually is a related technology that dynamically makes the quiet bits louder. It's called upward expansion. It's a crucial part of how Dolby noise-reduction works.
Yes, there's also downward expansion; that's how noise-gates work.

Thankyou for coming to my TED talk.

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