USEFUL COMPRESSOR SETTINGS
SOURCE                        ATTACK           RELEASE           RATIO          HARD/SOFT            GAIN RED
Vocal                                 Fast             0.5s/Auto          2:1 - 8:1               Soft                      3 - 8dB
Rock vocal                        Fast                 0.3s              4:1 - 10:1             Hard                      5 - 15dB
Acc guitar                         5 - 10ms         0.5s/Auto            5 - 10:1          Soft/Hard             5 - 12dB
Elec guitar                        2 - 5ms           0.5s/Auto               8:1               Hard                     5 - 15dB
Kick and snare               1 - 5ms           0.2s/Auto            5 - 10:1           Hard                     5 - 15 dB
Bass                                 2 - 10ms         0.5s/Auto            4 - 12:1            Hard                     5 - 15dB
Brass                               1 - 5ms           0.3s/Auto            6 - 15:1            Hard                     8 - 15dB
Mixes                                Fast              0.4s/Auto            2 - 6:1                  Soft                      2 - 10dB (Stereo Link On)
General                             Fast               0.5s/Auto               5:1                   Soft                         10dB

Hoe je je Preamp moet instellen is een kwestie van gehoor.

zoek het eens op... :|

Op mijn website http://www.hop.to/dbs staat het volgende (wel in het engels):

Most signal processors such as reverbs, equalizers and delays are designed to make an obvious change in the sound, but a compressor's action is much more subtle. When used properly most listeners won't be aware that signal processing is being used. Only if you hear the original dynamic range of a signal and compare it to the compressed version will the effect be noticable.
Yet, compressors are essential in modern audio work. Often the entire stereo mix may be compressed or limited during the mastering process. Finally, when you hear the piece of music on the radio, it passes through yet another compressor before it's transmitted.

A compressor/limiter is essentially an automatic volume control. Imagine an engineer with a hand on a fader and eyes on an input level meter. As long as the meter stays below a certain point (the threshold), the fader will remain all the way up and the gain is unchanged. But the instant the sound gets louder, the engineer pulls the fader down by a certain amount. After the sound gets quiet again the engineer will push the fader back up. That's what the compressor is doing, except much faster and more accurately than humans can do it.
Paradoxically, by cutting the peak levels, a compressor allows you to raise the average level of a sound using the output control and make it sound louder. By using the threshold and ratio controls, you can set a stable sound that will hold its position in the mix whether the track is very loud or very quiet.

Let's imagine there's a little robot inside your compressor, controlling it with its tiny metal hand on a fader and its single glowing eye looking at the input level meter. Also imagine that the front panel controls, or settings in the LCD readout, simply tell the robot what rules it should follow.

Threshold
Tells it how high the input meter can rise before it has to start pulling down the fader: If the Threshold control is turned fully clockwise (or the readout is showing it at 100%) it won't pull down its fader until the signal is very strong (up around +6dB); if it's turned counter-clockwise (or close to 0% on the LCD display), it'll have pulled the fader down even before the lowest green -30dB LED lights.

Ratio
Tells it how far it should pull the fader down when the signal is above the threshold level: Should it pull it down just a little bit (compression) or pull the fader as far down as necessary to make sure the output level is never higher than the threshold (limiting)?

Hard/Soft
Affects how it reacts as the signal approaches the threshold: Does it reduce it exactly by the ratio only after it crosses the threshold, or does it gradually ease into the full ratio as it gets close? The red LEDs of the reduction meter will tell you how much the robot is pulling down the fader at any time (some compressors with LCD readouts may not display this value).

Attack
Involves the speed of the robots's response, as does the switch. Short attack times order the robot to get its hand on the fader 1/10,000th of a second after it sees a too-loud signal; long attack times tell it to let transients less than 1/5th of a second pass.

Release
Tells the robot how quickly it should push the fader back up again after a loud signal has stopped; when it's turned counter-clockwise (towards 0%), it pushes the fader back up instantly, and when it's full clockwise (up at 100%), it'll take three seconds to push the fader back up to unity gain. If the compressor is in Peak mode, the robot responds to the highest voltage peaks, and in RMS mode it will respond to the longer-term average signal level (and the Attack and Release controls have no effect). It's as if the robot is looking at a fast-acting LED meter in peak mode, and a slow old-style mechanical VU meter in RMS mode.

The Output control
Is simply a gain control located after our robot has done its thing. Just to recap, the most important controls are the Threshold and Ratio settings. They both interact to get the effect you want, and that requires some experimenting.

For example, if your average input signal is 0 dB, a ratio of 2:1 with a threshold of -12 dB will give you 6 dB of gain reduction, as will a ratio of infinity with a threshold of -6 dB. But the latter setting will sound more "squeezed" than the former.

Avoid common compressor mistakes: Extreme settings will lead to extreme results. If you set an infinite ratio and turn the threshold down to -40 dB, the compressor will do what it's being told to do: turn the level way down. If you then try to compensate by cranking the Output control to its maximum, you'll amplify the noise of your mixer, EQ, mic preamp, and the compressor itself. The noise will fade itself in whenever the input signal stops, resulting in the classic pumping and breathing problems. Noise is present in every system, and improper use of any compressor will amplify it to an obnoxious level.

For low noise operation, make sure your mixer, compressor, and amplifier settings are set properly. As a general rule, you want as much gain as possible in the front of the system (at the sound source), so that a good line-level signal is travelling through the whole signal path. If you have a weak signal to start with, and then amplify it at the end of the signal path (by turning the main outputs of the mixer all the way
up, for example) it will be excessively noisy.

When using a compressor on a live P.A. system, improper settings can cause feedback. Make sure that a channel is well below the feedback point when there is no gain reduction active. If you hear feedback every time the music stops, you must lower the overall level of the system.

Compressor Settings

The following examples are merely suggested settings, but they can help you to get started if you are new to compression or need help finding a particular sound.

Vocal Limiting :
Vocalists tend to be one of the most dynamic recording challenges in any studio or stage. Even though a singer may go from a whisper to a scream during the course of a song, it's the engineer's job to keep the vocal's level in line with the rest of the ensemble. You can do this by setting the compressor with a highratio and a high threshold. This way, softer sections will go by uncompressed, and louder peaks will be kept under control.

Threshold set so that the loudest sections get around -6 of reduction(usually around 3 o'clock)
Ratio set for 6:1
Knee set for Soft
Peak/RMS set for RMS

Vocal Compression and Spoken Word:
In other cases, you may want to compress the entire dynamic range of a vocal. This is typical of sung vocals and voiceovers for radio commercials. Whenever there is signal, there is some compression taking place;just barely on the soft passages, and up to 12 dB of reduction during loud passages.

Threshold set so that one REDUCTION LED (-1 dB) lights during softest passages with signal (11 o'clock)
Ratio set for 2:1
Peak/RMS set to Peak
Attack set to 0.1 ms (7 o'clock)
Release set between 10 and 12 o'clock (100 ms.) Raise output to compensate for gain reduction

Touch sensitive triggered percussion samples :
Engineers often compress percussion tracks just to get a nice punchy sound in the mix. The settings below sound good on a snare sample:

Threshold set so that all hits are compressed (around -3dB)
Ratio set for 4:1
Knee set for Soft
Peak/RMS set for Peak
Attack set around 8 o'clock
Release set around 9 o'clock
By turning the Threshold down even more, you can "squash" the sample as much as you want. Turn the
attack up (longer) to get more attack out of the sample, and down for a synthetic slap effect.

Bass samples:
Since bass samples form the foundation of most electronic music, it's important that the levels don't jump around in the mix. By all means zero all velocity sensitive expression parameters on either your sequencer or sound source, but by adding compression to bass tracks (or almost anything else) you can make them punchier.

Threshold set so only the peaks are compressed (around 0dB)
Ratio set for 4:1
Knee set for Hard
Peak/RMS set for Peak
Attack set around 9 o'clock
Release set around 10 o'clock

De-Essing:
Occasionally when recording vocals, the letter "s" seems to jump out louder than the rest of the part. This is because sibilant letters, especially the letter s, have more high frequency energy than other letters. This can cause tape recorders or other components to distort, even though the level may not seem very loud. This "sibilance" can sometimes be eliminated by moving the microphone, but often a de-esser is required. Many compressors allow you to perform de-essing on a track by using a sidechain. By placing an equalizer in the sidechain, you can set the compressor so that only certain frequency ranges trigger the unit to start compressing.
The trick is to set the EQ to cut all frequencies except for the sibilant range, between 3-6kHz. Then set
thecompressor like this:

Threshold set around 0dB
Ratio set for 6:1
Knee set for Hard
Peak/RMS set for Peak
Attack set at minimum (0.1ms)
Release set around 8 o'clock

The Threshold should be set so that an "s" triggers about -3 to -6 dB of compression. If other sounds are triggering the compressor, you might need to adjust the EQ cutoff frequencies.

Gelukkig :D dan heb ik het niet voor niets zitten tikken...

Kom ik wel in de credits van jullie producties :D hehehe