Stop guessing. Start hearing.
There’s a reason your mixes don’t sound like the records you love. It’s not your plugins. It’s not your room. It’s not your ears. It’s that you’re making compression decisions without understanding what you’re listening for.
You’ve watched the tutorials. You’ve written down the settings. “4:1 ratio, 10ms attack, 100ms release for snare.” But when you try those settings on your snare, it doesn’t sound like the tutorial. And you don’t know why.
If any of that sounds familiar, keep reading.
Here’s the thing about compression tutorials: they give you answers without teaching you how to think.
“Use these settings on vocals.” Great. But what if your vocal was recorded differently? What if the performance has different dynamics? What if you’re going for a different sound?
The settings don’t transfer. They can’t. Because compression isn’t about numbers – it’s about listening.
The problem is how compression is usually taught. Either it’s buried in technical jargon that doesn’t help you make decisions, or it’s reduced to “magic settings” that work on one source and fail on everything else. Neither approach teaches you to hear.
I want to tell you a story.
When I moved to Melbourne to work at Sing Sing Studios, I was assisting a producer named Forrester Savell. I’d been in the industry for a few years at that point, mostly doing recordings. But mixing? I wasn’t great at it.
So when Forrester was mixing, I had nothing to do. I’d just sit there. Next to him. Watching him mix. All day.
Here’s the thing about Forrester – he’s a stoic. Not talkative. I’d ask him a question and he’d give me a one-word answer. “What shortcut is that?” “Command-S.” That’s it. No expansion, no explanation. I’m a talker. So it was kind of torturous, honestly, just sitting there in silence watching someone else work.
But I learned more from sitting next to him than I had in four years of uni. Not because he taught me. Because I watched. I saw what he reached for. I saw the order he did things. I saw how he reacted when something wasn’t working. I saw his instincts in action.
That’s how you actually learn this stuff. Not from formulas. From observation. From watching someone who knows what they’re doing and absorbing how they think.
I’ve been making records for two decades now – over twenty years working at some of the best studios in Australia, mixing rock, metal, punk, indie, electronic, hip hop, pretty much everything. And for the last decade, I’ve been teaching audio engineering at university level. I’ve taught hundreds of students, watched them struggle with the same things you’re probably struggling with, and figured out what actually helps people get better versus what just sounds impressive in a lecture.
This course is everything I wish someone had told me when I was sitting next to Forrester, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing.
I can’t sit next to you while you mix. But I can show you how I think. I can give you a framework for making compression decisions that actually translates to your mixes. Not recipes. Not magic numbers. A way of hearing and making decisions that you can apply to anything.
Most tutorials tell you what settings to use. I teach you why those settings do what they do. Once you understand why, you can make your own decisions based on what you’re hearing.
Every sound has a front end (the transient) and a back end (the sustain). Compression is choosing which to emphasise. Attack and release stop being mysterious numbers and become creative tools.
Different compressors are different tools for different jobs. Choose the right one before you touch a single knob, based on the sound you’re going for, not random experimentation.
Not party tricks. The Power Shelf and The Power Trifecta – the practical techniques I actually use on every mix.
Listen with intention. You’ll hear a source and know whether it needs compression – and more importantly, know when it doesn’t. A lot of mixing problems come from compressing things that didn’t need it.
Choose the right tool. You’ll understand why different compressor types behave differently, and have a framework for matching the tool to the sound you’re going for. No more random plugin selection.
Dial in settings by ear. Not by copying numbers from a tutorial, but by understanding what attack and release actually do to the sound. You’ll know what to listen for.
Troubleshoot in seconds. When something sounds worse with the compressor on, you’ll know how to diagnose the problem and fix it. Lost the punch? Attack too fast. Pumping? Release needs adjusting. You’ll recognise the symptoms instantly.
Develop your own taste. This is the big one. By the end, you won’t need me to tell you what settings to use. You’ll have developed your own instincts based on what you’re hearing.
What this course is (and isn’t). What you’ll be able to do by the end. Misconceptions we need to kill before they get in your way.
Threshold, ratio, attack, release, makeup gain, knee. Not just what they do – why they do it. The gain staging sweet spot most people miss. The level matching trap that makes everything sound worse.
VCA, FET, Opto, Vari-Mu – why choosing the right compressor comes before touching any settings. The aesthetic framework for selection. A/B demos on the same source so you can actually hear the difference.
Seven techniques I use on every mix: Series Compression, Parallel Compression, The Power Shelf, The Power Trifecta, Sidechain Ducking, Upward Compression, and All-Buttons-In (the classic 1176 crush).
“It sounds worse with compression on.” “I lost all the punch.” “It sounds pumpy.” “The low end is distorting.” Real problems, real diagnoses, real fixes.
Compression settings for vocals, drums, bass, guitars, and mix bus – organised by what you’re trying to achieve. Starting points, not rules. They get you in the ballpark; your ears take you the rest of the way.
How I actually think about compression in a mix. When to compress, when not to. EQ before or after. A full session walkthrough where you see every compression decision I made and why.
I’m Dan Murtagh. I’ve been making records for two decades. I’ve worked at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne and run my own studio, Ferntree Studios. I’ve mixed everything from metal to folk to electronic.
For the last decade, I’ve also been lecturing in audio production at Collarts in Melbourne – teaching recording, mixing, and post-production at university level.
This course is everything I teach my students about compression, structured for people who can’t sit in my classroom. It’s practical, it’s honest, and it’s designed to actually change how you work – not just give you more information to forget.
I want to be honest with you: this course won’t make you a compression expert overnight. Compression is a skill. It’s not a formula. You develop it by mixing a lot of music, making mistakes, and paying attention to what works.
What this course does is give you a framework – a way of thinking and listening that accelerates the learning process. Instead of randomly tweaking knobs and hoping for the best, you’ll have intention behind your choices. And that makes the experience you gain way more valuable.
But there’s no shortcut around the experience itself. You have to put in the hours. You have to mix stuff. You have to make bad decisions and figure out why they were bad. Be patient with yourself. This isn’t a race.
The Compression Code is launching soon. Grab the free Compression Cheat Sheet now – starting points for every common source and goal, in a printable PDF – and you’ll be first to know when the course opens.
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