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For example I record a guitar cover and I want to know do I need to put dynamic range compression on it because it lasts for 3-4 minutes? Or should I put dynamic range compression on vocals? I ask because it is a long take and it's not a song but a video cover of a song.

Or do people in blogs put dynamic range compression on vocals because they talk for 10 minutes straight?

Brian Towers
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anatolio15
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  • Don't think 'compression' is the right term here. – Tim Nov 10 '22 at 19:40
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    Do you mean compression from the audio engineering or the software engineering definition? Because the two concepts are not really related. – dissemin8or Nov 10 '22 at 19:49
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    Hi! You seem to be confusing two meanings of "compression." When people talk about "applying compression to" a recorded source, they usually mean [dynamic range compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression), which makes soft parts louder and loud parts softer. It doesn't affect the size of digital files. Meanwhile, [data compression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression) *does* find ways to make digital files smaller. There are many approaches; whether you need it or not would have a lot to do with how and where you're sharing it. – Andy Bonner Nov 10 '22 at 19:54

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In music-making, "compression" means narrowing the dynamic range of audio signal content. Usually it is used to make instruments and mixes sound louder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_range_compression

When talking about data compression, it means making the amount of stored and transferred data smaller. Sound files can be data-compressed, and then we talk about methods and file formats like MP3 and FLAC compression. It's supposed to sound the same, but take up less data storage spage and be faster to transfer over networks. For images, you've probably seen things like JPEG and PNG. For general data files, you may have seen the name ZIP. These formats are about data compression as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_compression

When you upload music to internet services, you'll most likely want to use audio data compression of some sort, often MP3, instead of sending raw uncompressed files over the internet. MP3 and other audio data compression methods can reduce the amount of transferred and stored data a lot. A data reduction of 90% is common. Uncompressed, a minute of "CD quality" stereo music takes around 10 megabytes, but with MP3 or other audio data compression methods it can be on the order of 1 megabyte, depending on the exact method and quality settings.

piiperi Reinstate Monica
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