i know some about compression….but there are some things that mess me up….such as…making the higher-pitched sounds come in and out, or not at all - even if they’re on a different audio track….is that a software-related joint? and how should i remedy this if it is? or even if it isn’t?

Well, hope this helps a little…if it’s not what you’re asking then forgive me!

When you compress a track (traditionally), you are taking the louder parts of the sound and knocking their volume down and taking the softer parts and bringing them up - this makes the overall volume of the track more consistent. Now let’s say you are compressing a drumloop - if the bass drum is the loudest sound, then when it hits the higher frequencies (like high part of the snare or cymbals) will have a drop in volume, because the bass drum is making the compressor drop the volume of the track right there. Make sense? The same principle applies if you are putting normal compression on the whole mix - whatever part is loudest will make the rest drop in volume if they are both sounding at the same time. So the solution would be to put an EQ before the compressor and turn down the bass (or whatever is the loudest)

Now if you are only compressing one track, and it’s making the highs of another track drop out, it’s possible that you are overloading the mix bus (or the master fader). You might want to check the master fader and make sure that it’s not going into the red and distorting. Sometimes that can cause the softer tracks to cut out…

Hope that helps!

Tim

if you want to compress the whole track, you might want to consider using a multiband compressor like waves c4.
those compressors split track into different frequenca bands and allow seperate compression for each individual band and thus prevent the bassdrum pulling the volume down of the highs, for example.

yeah, that helps a lot…i didn’t really understand the entire concept…i’m sure i’ll have to jack with it a little more to really get it, but yeah, thanks for the help!