Quote:
Originally Posted by TabbyCat
Calling a compressor an "automatic fader rider" is a little dangerous, and saying that a fader is doing the same thing isn't quite accurate, most of the time. The reason being that a fader will adjust the entire period of a waveform as a unit, symmetrically altering its overall gain.
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it's generally impossible to distort / flatten a single-cycle waveform with a channel fader - unless you start working with ultra-speed sample-level automation curves.
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So you agree that they're doing the same thing, albeit at different scales in most cases.
Anything you can do with a compressor, good and bad, can be done with a fader. The reverse is obviously not true, but an
appropriate* compressor could happily take on the bulk of your levelling work with no ill effects and little difference from what broad automation might accomplish, leaving you free to spend time automating the awkward parts or pushing the level up and down creatively i.e. for verses/chorus/etc.
*appropriate: Having long enough time settings to get past transients, and/or lookahead so that you can actually compress from just before the transient to just after it like someone riding a fader would.