If you’re struggling to make your music recording, podcast or livestream stand out from the crowd with a present and punchy sound, you may have heard that “compression” will help you achieve your results. Apogee HypeMic’s built in compression does just that. 

We’ve tried 10 ways to Sunday to describe compression – it’s “the reduction of dynamic range”, it’s “squeezing the audio”, it’s the “polish you hear on the radio” – but in the end, the best way to understand compression is to hear it in action.

We challenged LA-based singer-songwriter Joel Taylor to record an entire track with just HypeMic, and we recorded each instrument and vocal take with a pair of HypeMics carefully positioned and adjusted to capture his performance identically, with one crucial difference. One mic had compression engaged, one didn’t – science, my friends!

We noticed something really interesting with the pair of lead vocal tracks – even when the peak levels of both tracks were precisely matched (in other words, the loudest note of each track was set for exactly the same level on the audio tracks’ meters) – the compressed vocal had a punchy, upfront character that made it much easier to mix. 

Take a listen to the final mix – everything was recorded with a single HypeMic, including piano, bass, guitars, vocals, even the drums – a single mic! We chose the compressed mic for bass, drums, one guitar and vocals, while we chose the uncompressed mic for the piano and the other guitar.

Download the raw tracks to hear for yourself! Drag them into your favorite DAW and push up the faders. Imagine your creativity unleashed with such a simple and great-sounding professional tool!

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