Definitions for New Producers

lets get this topic sticky'd so others will be able to come to it when they have questions on what a term means and what not.

Compression
Is the reduction in sound levels of a signal to keep it from passing a certain threshold level through the use of Hardware or Software. Which helps give the instrument more punch and clarity

Gating
The technique of erasing or clearing out the ambient noise from your tracks, to give it a clear and crisp sound. Gating works by using a "Noise Gate" which is either Hardware or Software, and what the "Noise Gate" does is listens to the track and ducks it in or out to minimize the ambient noise


Source

Im going to try and add 1 or 2 a day, this way I can help myself and other new producers in finding information because I see alot of users here getting vexxed when new users asked simple question

Those definitions seem a bit specific to recording drums, not general production.

e.g. gating has more uses than simply reducing noise, and that definition uses "ducking" without defining it

Wikipedia has better definitions of both
Audio compression
Noise gate

Pastor-of-Muppets wrote:Wikipedia has better definitions of both
Audio compression
Noise gate

So does tweakheadz lab, so...

http://tweakheadz.com/guide.htm