H-Comp BPM sync release (distance / time = speed ?)

Just got H-Comp and am wondering this:
If my release is set to a 4th of a note (host bpm sync), this means it will need X time to return to 0 compression right?
Right.
So if im having 3dB of gain reduction it will take X time for -3dB to return to 0dB of gain reduction, and that is done in a particular Y speed. But if, at the same X time, im having 10dB of gain reduction it would need a release of much faster Z speed to go from -10 to 0 dBs. So if Z speed is greater than Y speed it means that the release is program depandant, right?

(here is where I did my experiment before posting this. here is what i got)

For the release to be accurate to the rhythmic value it needs around 20dB of gain reduction.
In other words, you DO have a bpm synced value set as the release but only if you compress in the -18 to -20 range.
If you compress around 4-5 dB the gain reduction will be at 0dB in way faster than the given BPM value.

So shouldnt the release be variable, depending on how much it reduces?
So at greater values of gain reduction the release speed should be faster and at lower values of gain reduction the speed should be slower?

(by speed I mean the speed of the indicator reaching back to 0)

Am I getting it right or am I missing something?

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You make an excellent point and it might have been a simple oversight on their part. Unless the release is program dependent, which I guess is possible. I’d have to play around with it myself to know for sure.

Chances are you’re right. But then when making the choice of release time you might want to go with maybe an 1/8 note or maybe 1/2 note depending on what you’re doing with H-Comp and its context within the music itself. So to some degree it does become a little academic as choice ultimately comes down to how it sounds in the end.

Yes and what im looking for right now is for a quarter note release no matter how far the reduction goes. like a variable release that abides to the BPM as far as the timing goes but when reduction is minimum the release is slow and when the reduction is maximum then the release gets back to 0 way faster, within that quarter note.

Try yourself what Im observing and tell me that im not going crazy over this and there really IS something that was overseen.

But i CAN adjust the timing to my likings but then again that would be by ear right? So id be more accurate if I go with increments of higher resolution (like msec) and not fixed values like 8th and 4th etc, right?

Ive had these crazy concepts and feature requests from time to time and they have all been ignored. I was bombing three plugin developers (one small and two major) with this plugin concept and was ignored. Two years later WavesFactory comes out with TrackSpacer and even got an award for it (good for them), and then I saw Mix Monolith implement part of the concept. But its still not 100% there… Oh well.

Let me know about H-Comp.

I had a look and it H-Comp and tend to agree with your observations.

I ended up trying it on a drum groove, but with a setting of 1/2 note. The idea is to try and suppress every second kick note in that groove, among other things. This would also mean that the compressor would have to recover in time to allow that first beat through, ideally.

I tried this in extreme settings to really emphasise the difference. Although, the more extreme I set the the Ratio and Threshold, the more it would introduce distortion. This could be expected in any compressor really and it isn’t always a bad thing, but it does say that the compressor isn’t fully recovering in time for the first beat to pass through.

I did notice, however that by increasing the Attack from its minimum, enough not to effect the level of that second beat, that it was able to alleviate alot of that distortion and add some extra body and pump which I think to be a good thing in this case. It could also be further enhanced by using a little of that Punch control. Using those two controls in tandem with your musical release settings will help you create something closer to the desired effect… but there isn’t any auto compensation or something program dependant going on, just as you thought.

Another thing worth noting is that, despite the fact that you really have to make some manual adjustments, you can set your Release time to a musical division, then switch the mode to MS to have that same time reflected as milliseconds. So you can use the Host/BPM mode to quickly set your Release value, then switch it to MS to adjust it to taste. So it can be useful in that respect too.