mnailor wrote:Does anyone use compressor settings on their Hauptwerk audio channels that work well for you? Specifically, what attack and release msec values work for a large organ?
The goal is to reduce very loud registrations a bit to save my ears. There is no risk of audio clipping at my level settings. I'm just sensitive to loud sounds. Reducing the overall volume makes soft registrations too quiet for me, so that's not a good option.
I'm thinking about running all 26 main + sub channels through the audio interfaces' mixers to try out the compressor. MOTU 24Ao and RME UFX.
Thank you for any relevant experiences. This is a home installation.
I am not an expert in compressors, nor do I use such a filter often. However, I would avoid dynamic compressor actuation (attack, release, etc.) by setting the threshould to a sufficiently low value that covers the background noise of the ventil. Thus, all instrument emission will be equally compressed, with no side effect on attack and release changes. Chose a compression ratio just enough to achieve the desired mitigation of the voluminous emission of large stop combinations (would say between 1.2:1 and 1.5:1). Then adjust filter output so that the background noise level will not higher than the original pre-filter one. I use ReaComp free compressor filter from Reaplugs.
Another approach is to use a limiter. The VST host I use (Cantabile Lite) has a built-in limiter available in the audio engine settings. Turning it on and configuring the output limiter for a convenient threshold achieves interesting results as well, although due to the dynamic nature of this filter, and second to my personal preference, I still prefer static compression ratio through all the dynamic range of a given instrument.