I didn't mean I don't have any questions because I'm not learning anything new, I just meant that nowadays I tend to self help, find my own answers etc, but on this occasion it had me beat lol!
Compression is something I vaguely understand, but I'll be honest, you've done me with that sentence lol, I'm baffled.
attack and decay are the same for compression as they are for synthesis, the attack refers to the build up from no sound to full sound
give it a try, get a nice big snare and put loads of compression (1:5) on it with a very short attack, say 0.1ms, audition it and then up the attack to say 3ms and 5ms, you should notice the diffrence
the longer the attack, the more of the original sound shape (transient) will come thru before the compression kicks in, its useful for eg to keep the punch of the sound, but heavily compress the tail and/or reverb
this is something you should definitly learn and pracitce as much as you can, esp for dubstep and its Huge snares, compression is the key to getting the sound down, its important for kicks aswell, using very fast attacks on kicks leaves them lifeless and flabby, but uping the attack beyond the attack transient allows the initial punch to come thru while the compression kicks in after and keeps the sound big but in check
gentle compression with the right attack and decay settings will do wonders, you can do it by ear, but for a start, I'd do it manually, load up your snare sample and use your DAW time makers to figure out how long the attack is, and how long the decay is, then alter them in your compressor to see how it affects the sound, eventually as your ears tune up you'll do it by ear with just little adjustments as you go along
also worth noting that your ears have an inbuilt compressor, if you have been listening to loud music, you will find it harder to control the compressor properly, so its def a job to be done at low volume and with plenty of breaks
