Marco Raaphorst wrote:weird thing though: when overdriving sine waves you turn the nice sounding since waves into squarewaves. this never sounds like compression to me.
I know the distortion is the result of the overdriving the signal, but it doesn't always sounds like compression though. often the tone becomes MORE aggresive and more spikey. see the sine into squarewave example I am giving.
saturation is an art form
I am playing guitar so you know.
One way to measure compression is to measure the crest factor, or the difference between the peak level and the average (RMS or VU) level. Higher numbers mean less compressed.
A sine wave has a crest factor of around 3 dB while a square wave has a crest factor of 0 dB.
So by that metric yes, more compressed for sure!
For guitarists, more distortion = more sustain. The only way to get sustain from a guitar is to reduce dynamic range, or “compression”.
But sometimes the addition of so many more harmonics masks the compression aspects of distortion/overdrive.
Would love to see examples of harmonic addition without affecting the dynamic range - don’t know if it’s possible, but I’m assuming it’s not.
Finally, not all compression “sounds” like compression - depends on how we have all learned what compression sounds like. For example, I don’t think upwards compression “sounds” like compression, because I learned that something that sounds compressed has obvious artifacts such as an enhanced attack and rising decay (think: Beatles drums for release or piano for attack).
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