Plosive and de-esser oddity

[gdougherty]

Using the Levelizer with the fastest attack and relatively short release times to catch plosives and sibilance, if I crank down the threshold too much I get a clicking static like sound. Audibility seems to be gain reduction dependent so if I have it set for a soft talker then get a loud talker on the channel it kicks in until I get to the threshold and back it off. Using ratios of 20:1 to inf.

Is this to be expected?

[Bob L]

The Levelizer offers the zero attack time which will instantly on the next sample change the level... this is really not realistically possible in normal gear... there is always some attack time... this option though can be used on mushy attacks, like a bass gtr for instance to create a sharp edge which could be useful in some cases...

Normally, for vocal and most other instruments, you would set the attack to a few ms... that should eliminate the static spike sound and create a more natural attack.

Notice that the SAC chan compressor only goes as low as 1 ms to keep the compression more natural.

Bob L