That Radio Sound - Compression & Limiting
 

I don't know whether I'm asking for something you folks consider
industry trade secrets, but could somebody explain to me how that
big, boomy, bright, full "radio sound" is achieved?

My ears love uncompressed music as much as the next audiophile's,
but under some circumstances, like while driving and listening to
my compilation CD-Rs, FM radio-style compression is preferable.
Moreover, some tracks simply sound magical with that compressed,
booming radio sound -- think "Cruisin'" by Smokey Robinson. :-)

So, sitting in the company of CEP 2.0's hard limiter and dynamics
processing functions here at home, I'm wondering if that kind of
sound can be duplicated, or at least closely immitated, in my
livingroom.

It should be stated that while I've never set foot inside a real
radio studio, I have a fair understanding of how this processing
works from lots of reading and a technically-oriented mind. I.e.,
what compression/expansion do as opposed to hard limiting, how
thresholds and ratios and compensation gain relate to them, the
roles attack, release, and lookahead times play in affecting the
punchyness in the output, the fact that everything above happens
independently yet simultaneously to different frequency ranges
(multi-band compression) which partly overlap (crossover?), etc.
I just lack the expertise and experience real engineers have to
make all those things work in harmony to produce a true "radio"
sound without breathing and pumping. g That's why I'm here.

At http://www.snpp.com/staff/brian/drc/, I've uploaded a few
GIFs showing the DRP options offered by CEP 2.0. While genuine
multi-band DRP is not possible in this program, it does permit
you to define the low and high frequency cutoffs for each DRP
action. Theoretically, then, it should be possible for me to
achieve "multi-band" compression by performing DRP in multiple
passes, once for each band.

Anyone have any hints on where I might start? Like tips on what
compression/expansion ratios, thresholds, compensation/output/
input gains, and attack/release/lookahead times are best applied
to each band, etc., if I could achieve something like the sound
that well-engineered classic rock/oldies/pop/new age stations
exhibit (big, booming, and larger than life -- but not *totally*
dead dynamically, like soft rock stations engineered to be heard
through alarm clock radios)? Of course, I realize that beggars
can't be choosy. :-)

I'd really appreciate any pointers this group might have.

P.S. - Something I'm vastly ignorant of is where the low & high
cutoff points fall for each band in the multi-band compressors
used by most stations -- as well as how MANY bands they usually
have to begin with, and by how many Hz/kHz they usually overlap
(crossover?). Info here would likewise be very much appreciated.


Brian
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