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Dynamic processing is one of the most useful – and misunderstood – parts of music production. Here’s how to master this most important and creative of processes, forever!

> Music would be very boring indeed without variation, and that’s exactly what musical dynamics are all about: variations in loudness. Examples might be a quiet verse leading into a loud chorus, a synth line that gradually increases in volume, some notes within a pattern played louder to accent them, a singer belting out certain words for emphasis, and so on. There may be unintended variations too, such as a bassist or drummer unable to play each note or hit at a constant volume where required.

Fixing unintentional problems is one thing, but even deliberate accents and changes in volume will almost certainly need some control to fit the norms of what we as listeners expect to hear in a finished, cohesive mixdown, free of unexpected jolts in level and excessive variance. While mixing, you may also discover a build-up of low-level sounds such as background noise – too much of this can pile up, resulting in a cluttered, unclear mix.

So what can we do about all this? How can we get dynamics under control to create a solid, professional mix? Well, you could use volume automation to briefly turn down any overly loud notes, to cut out background noise, or to bring up the level where required, and so on… But that’d be a right old hassle. There’s got to be an easier way, right?

You’re in luck: help is at hand in the form of the many dynamics processors available to the modern producer, such as compressors, expanders, noise gates, transient shapers and limiters. These effects take the hard work out of managing levels, and in fact, they are more than mere functional tools, offering the possibility of imparting such qualities as character, ‘glue’, movement, punch and snap to your tracks when used wisely. For even greater precision, power and flexibility, there’s frequency-conscious compression, multiband dynamics and parallel processing.