reacomp precomp is confusing me!

[Tom Drinkwater]

I was having trouble getting the results I expected in reacomp so I did a test with some test tones and saw some very unexpected behavior.

osx, mountain lion, reaper 4.261

I might be mistaken here and there, but there is stuff that seems to be just wrong. I've been assuming it was me for ages, but just couldn't get expected results,which is why i checked.

here's some of the things that puzzled me:

* release times are actually a rate!! actual time varies with threshold or amount of compression or something - so why not state what the control actually is! ie 50ms per 6dB or whatever.

* attack envelopes are a log curve with a very fast start, (with the result that most of the gain reduction happens in the first 1/4 of the specified time) but release envelopes are linear. why? can we control attack and release shapes?

* when precomp is used the gain reduction starts early by the amount of the precomp and follows the attack time envelope, BUT when it gets to the actual start of the event that triggered the gain reduction it does it again, so the attack envelope is visible in the result twice, once before the event and once in the normal place. This seems to subvert the whole point of precomp which is to move the attack artifacts to the quieter/silent bit before the loud event.

* when precomp is used the gain starts to increase again at the precomp time before the end of the loud event, ie the release seems to be moved forward by the precomp amount too. why would anyone want that? BUT it is more complex than that because when the loud event finishes the release happens after it in the normal place AS WELL

* in short pre-comp doesn't just offset the attack by the precomp amount, as expected, it seems to apply a whole separate layer of compression, including release, shifted by the precomp amount, in addition to the normal unshifted behaviour. why?

is all this normal and intended? i find it very confusing, and not helpful for any use scenario I can think of.

Is there a reacomp manual that explains all this clearly? I've read what I can find and none of these issues are clear, or even mentioned.