Good Compression Setting for Pop Song?

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

I would like to know if any of you have a killer compression setting for a pop song.
I don’t want to get into the loudness war, just something to make the song punchy.

Thanks!

2

There are no easy presets because it depends on what you’re starting with, what kind of sound you want, and it’s just “complicated” to get something that sounds good.

Probably the easiest way to get some “clean loudness” (assuming you’ve already normalized) is with the Limiter effect set to Hard Limit (with make-up gain).

Pro mastering engineers use a variety of compression plug-ins and of course they have the skills & experience to get the most from them. Izotope has a [u]Mastering Guide[/u], and although the concepts & procedures are generalized, it’s written with their software in mind, including their “Dynamic EQ” multiband compressor.



I don’t want to get into the loudness war, just something to make the song punchy.

And that’s where things get complicated because when you say “punchy” I think of dynamics, yet dynamic compression is by definition a reduction in dynamics. (And, some people will describe compression as sounding “more dynamic”.)

3

Actually, I should have asked that question in regards to Audacity’s compressor- what would be suggested settings for Threshold, noise floor, ratio attack and release time?