Playfair Audio Dynamic Grading
>Imagine a compressor without attack or release controls, no threshold or ratio. This is exactly what you get with Playfair Audio’s new plugin, Dynamic Grading, which aims to approach compression as if it had just been invented. How would dynamics processing work if it had just been dreamt up in 2022?
The plugin starts by displaying two histograms, one for input and one for output, each taking readings of the average level of the incoming signal against how long that average level is maintained.
It’s hard to express in words, but that goes to show how novel this concept can be. Come with us as we tackle a new way to compress.
Figuring out the visuals >
Let’s try Dynamic Grading on drums. When we load it up, the histograms on both sides start building up. Left is input, right is output. The vertical axis displays level in dB, whereas the length of each horizontal bar indicates how long the audio has spent at each level. Usually, a couple of areas will stand out within your histogram – these will build up around key parts of the dynamic, such as the sustained body of a drum sound or the highest crack of its initial transient. You can change the histogram’s time window to react faster or slower in the bottom-left.