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Q: I’ve been reading quite a lot about surround sound lately.

I figured it would be something interesting to try since I’m already really comfortable with stereo.

One major question of mine regarding the center channel and its usage was already answered here a while back, however, lately I’ve been a bit confused with compression.

I know that you compress each track individually just as you would for a stereo track, however, how do you handle compression on the Master?

Any tips?

A: As you mentioned, many aspects of applying compression are generally the same. However, there are a few subtleties.

In general, according to our friends at TC Electronic, when applying overall compression for a surround mix, most people find that since the final surround mix is being spread among six speakers as (in the case of 5.1 surround) instead of two, often less compression and equalization is needed, as opposed to the requirements of stereo mixes.

A good general setting for surround compression should be rather low; 2:1 or 3:1 with long attack and release times.

Thresholds should be set so that there’s rarely more than 3 - 5dB of gain reduction.

As always, we welcome input from the PSW community and would love to know your thoughts on surround compression. Feel free to let us know in the comments below.

 
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