COMPRESSION AND LIMITING DEMYSTIFIED IN ABLETON LIVE 10

There are times when music production, especially when it comes to mixing, seems like some weird kind of medieval black art, left over from the days when men in lab coats toiled over warm valves in a place called a ‘recording studio’. One of the most mysterious aspects of this process is compression – and this crosses over into limiting, expansion and, if you’re not careful, mastering. Everybody knows that compression is important but, like EQ, not everybody knows how and when to use it, or even what it is. Here, we’re going to avoid technical explanations as much as possible, and instead give you some ideas about how to use it within your Live productions and performances.

The most basic explanation of a compressor is that it’s a device that reduces the distance between the quietest and loudest parts of sound. You set a level, above which you want the loud