DigiDesign Drawmer Dynamics, Owner'S Manual

Chapter 3: Drawmer Dynamics Parameters

21

Attack Times

The longer the attack time, the longer the Com-
pressor takes to respond to increases in signal 
level and a slow attack time is often used to ac-
centuate the beginning of percussive or plucked 
sounds such as drums, basses and guitars. a long 
attack time can also permit peaks to pass unat-
tenuated. The limiter will pick these up, so it is 
quite common with slow attack times to see in-
creased limiter activity. A fast attack time will 
bring the input signal under control very 
quickly.

Pumping

Pumping

 refers to heavy compression with incor-

rectly set envelope parameters. This results in 
very audible gain changes when the compressor 
attacks and releases. It is often an indication 
that the release time is too long. Release time 
should be set short enough so that the gain has 
returned to normal before the next signal peak 
occurs, and, in general, it should be set as short 
as possible before audible gain pumping occurs.

In most cases, an output of 0 dBfs is the opti-
mum output level. Lower output levels can be 
set using the Limiter Threshold. You might want 
to do this so that later inserts can better receive 
an optimized signal level at their input. If so, set 
the Peak Limiter Level to the desired output 
value then adjust the Compressor Auto or man-
ual Gain control to ensure minimum Limiter ac-
tivity.

Peak Limiter Bypass

The Peak Limiter has no bypass control. How-
ever, turning the Level control fully clockwise 
will prevent virtually all limiting. To use the 
Limiter while effectively bypassing the Com-
pressor, turn the Compressor Threshold fully 

counter clockwise to its maximum of +0 dB. 
Then set the Ratio to its lowest setting of 1.1:1 if 
Gain Make-Up is set to manual. Set the Gain to 
0 dB if Auto Gain is enabled.

Compensating for Apparent Dullness in 
Compressed Material

Compression can sometimes seem to have the 
effect of dulling audio material. Most of the en-
ergy in typical broadband music is contained 
within the bass range. This high energy causes 
the Compressor to operate, causing any quieter, 
high frequency sounds occurring at the same 
time to be reduced in level. That is why the cym-
bals and hi-hats in a heavily compressed drum 
track seem to dip in level whenever a loud bass 
drum or snare drum beat occurs.

The solution is to use less compression or in-
crease the attack time to allow the leading edge 
of the brighter sounds to pass through the Com-
pressor before gain reduction occurs. Though 
the semi-soft-knee compression systems used in 
Drawmer Dynamics modules tend to minimize 
this effect, in extreme cases, it may be necessary 
to add a little artificial brightness to the pro-
cessed sound using equalization or some form of 
exciter.

The Limiter

If the Compressor module is used with higher 
ratios, it will function as a Limiter. In addition 
to this feature, there is a separate auto-adaptive 
Peak Limiter. This not only catches any peaks 
that a slow Compressor attack might pass 
through unprocessed, but also lets the user set 
an absolute output signal level that will not be 
exceeded.