Expanders

[MR808]

What is the purpose of using an expander when mixing or mastering a project.

Please give some examples

[Cliffy_Boy]

It acts as a noise gate to clean up background noise on quiet passages. It can also increase some dynamics that may have been lost by too much compression but the success depends on the source material.

[3JDamon]

I use an expander to suck the mud out of a location recording in a boomy room. Works best with rock bands where there isn't much dynamics to the bass anyway, either full blast or off. Used on 150Hz and below, I set it so it opens quickly for good punch, then closes in about 200ms so the gain reduction sounds natural. The Waves C1 comp/gate is handy for this, and lets me compress the bass at the same time to give it more attack which is usually necessary.