Hi and welcome to another Bitwig episode.
My name is Mattias.
Ok, so what's the difference between the Dynamics
Processor and the Compressor of Bitwig Studio?
Let's find out!
In the previous episode we were discussing
how to create a multi-band compressor within
Bitwig Studio.
This time we are going to take a look at the
differences between the Dynamics and the Compressor.
So, here I have recorded a little bass line,
a little bass line.
And I deliberately played it with a very high
dynamic range.
So I'm playing quite parts and a little bit
more powerful parts.
And the bass part sounds like this.
[Bass playing.]
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So you can hear that we have some quiet sections
and some more powerful transients.
And it's always a good practise to add a spectrum
analyser to your audio tracks when you are
recording audio.
Because as we can see here... we have some
hiss going on in the upper range of the register.
So what we do is we just add the equalizer
to get rid of the absolute lows and these
higher hiss frequencies.
Now we have a much cleaner signal to work
with.
[Bass playing.]
Ok, so let's first take a look at the Dynamics
processor (plugin).
I will reset all the settings here, so we
have a... just a clean line.
And there has been some misconception about
this Dynamics device.
That somebody thought that it's a multi-band
compressor, but it's actually...if you can
see if we hover over this "Lo threshold".
It will say: Threshold for the low stage,
used for the quieter parts of the signal.
And this "Hi threshold", threshold for the
high stage, used for the louder parts of the
signal.
So this is actually our audio level.
And we have the quieter section down here,
and the more loud parts up here.
So if we look at this graph while playing
back the track.
We see this little white dot jumping around
on this orange line.
And that's where the audio level, or the audio
peak is at that specific moment in time.
So what we can do with this dynamics processor.
We can actually control how the quieter parts
are going to behave.
So let's see if we adjust this curve.
Dragging down the ratio so we have...so we
drag down the curve.
It will actually make the quieter sections
even more quiet.
And we can also drag this second slider for
the higher part, or the louder part of the
sound.
And we can do upwards compression.
And this is called "expansion".
So now we have tipped.
I think it's called "tipped"!?
We have "tipped" the curve so that the quieter
sections get more quiet and the more loud
parts get even louder.
So we have a very high dynamic range.
[Bass with high dynamic range plays.]
We can compare that to the unprocessed signal.
[Bass playing.]
And, yeah, in this case it's not very good
practise to add expansion but...
It's a great example I think to see what this
dynamics device can actually do to your audio.
So now we have done some expansion.
Then if we reset the controls.
Just double click all these knobs.
And we reset them, then we can increase the
ratio for the upper range.
And now we are doing compression.
So the louder parts of the signal will be
pushed down.
Then we can also push up the quieter section,
like this.
And compressing the quieter section.
So now we are evening out the signal so the
quieter gets more loud and the loud part gets
compressed.
So we even-out (level out) the signal.
Yeah, so that's compressing with the dynamics
processor.
And we can see that it sounds very transparent.
We don't have any colouration.
Or no appearant (obvious) colouration of the
sound because it sounds like the original
recording take.
Except that it's heavily compressed.
Even if we set this attack and release times
to quite drastic and fast times.
[Bass playing.]
Yeah, here we start to have some coloration
because the attack and release are set so
high.
But it's still quite transparent, not too
much saturation.
[Bass with slight saturation playing.]
And then some other features of the dynamics
processor, or the Dynamics device is that
we have side-chain.
So we can actually side-chain this to... if
we record some kicks in here.
[Recording some kick hits.]
So we can attach that kick drum from the Producer
Essentials Kit.
We can attach that to this device input.
If we go to Group and select our Producer
Kit and drum chain and the kick.
Now when we have attached the kick to this
device as a side-chain input.
You can see this little icon, it represents
that we feed a signal into this dynamics compressor.
You can see as soon as we have signal coming
in from the kick it will compress and drag
down the volume of the bass.
Down here we can increase the volume for the
side-chain input.
If we have a very low kick, or very low hi-hat
that feeds this side-chain, we can increase
the volume.
If we want.
So we get more effect on this compression.
Yeah, so that's the side-chain compression
part in the Dynamics plugin.
That's a quite transparent compressor with
many features.
Now let's go ahead and look at the Compressor
device.
Let's reset all these parameters by double-clicking
again.
Ok, so let's see if we increase the ratio
and set the threshold so that it evens out
(levels out) our signal.
[Compressed bass playing.]
And since this is a bass we can set the attack
quite high because we don't want so much transients
popping out.
We want to even out this bass-line.
[Bass playing.]
So the compressor is effecting the whole frequency
spectrum range.
It's not separate bands, this is a full frequency...eh,
full spectrum frequency compressor.
And the Dynamics is also full frequency.
So the compressor and the dynamics compressors
are full frequency compressors!
They are not effecting only the bass, or only
the highs.
If you want to do that you have to use this
multiband-fx setup to split the bands.
And then apply compressors to the different
bands.
[Compressed bass playing.]
So what's cool with this compressor is that
it's emulating the 1176, UREI with a FET transistor.
So that you get coloration to the sound if
you start to increase the input gain.
And if we decrease the attack and release.
Ok, so what's good with this compressor is
that it's emulating a 1176 kind of.
So that if we decrease the attacks and releases
we can get some really gnarly and gritty sounds
out of this compressor.
Let's experiment a little bit with that.
[Gnarly compressed bass playing.]
So there we have the clean signal.
And then with a little bit of saturation and
fuzz.
So you can use this compressor very effectively
to introduce a little bit of saturation to
your sounds.
Yeah so that's the main differences between
the Compressor and the Dynamics plugin.
So with the Dynamics plugin you can do expansion,
and you can do compression.
But with the Compressor it's only compression,
but with some more saturation.
Ok, so what do you think about the compressors
of Bitwig Studio?
Do you like them?
I think they are quite decent for, I mean
a native compressor.
They should be transparent and not add too
much coloration and I think they do a decent
job at that.
Personally I'd like to introduce some grit
to my sounds.
So I tend to use third party compressors most
of the time.
And this free compressor called "Molot" is
very good.
I'll include a link in the description so
you can check it out.
And this is really good for adding some grit
into your sounds.
Ok, so if you don't have Bitwig don't fear
because there's a link in the description.
An affiliate link.
And there should also be a discount code.
If you want to support these videos you can
buy any of my sound packs.
There's link in the description.
I have a special Producer Essentials Pack
for Bitwig Studio with a lot of presets.
And a great Producer Essentials Drumkit.
And I also have another sound pack in development
for Bitwig Studio that will be released quite
soon!
Ok, so now you can continue and watch my next
video.
Thanks for watching today!
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some nice comments in the feedback.
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Thanks a lot for watching today and see you
in the next video.
Bye!
