compression is a form of dynamics control and may be one of the most important processing tools. in the world of digital processing, it's easy to slap processors on your tracks and not really know exactly how they are affecting your signal. so let's get a better understanding of just what exactly is going on when we wiggle those settings knobs, shall we?

*quick note: these examples are necessarily simplifications. audio rarely works in such linear and simple ways, nor have I drawn these in any scientific or exacting way - the scales aren't properly logarithmic, time does not flow evenly, nothing is measured, &c. these are merely to encourage a better understanding of the basic principles of compression.

try this exercise: record some midi into your daw with a wide range of velocity. then, select all of those notes and increase their velocity until they start to "max out" at 127, one at a time. finally, pull them back down to one of their "starting points". a la: