[ReZound-users] Dynamic range compression (newbie alert!)

[Steffen K. <kl...@do...>]

Hi,
I'm a ReZound newbie with a bunch of rookie questions.

I stumbled across ReZound while googling for a dynamic range compressor
that I could use to make my CD copies more listenable in the car. With
all the background noise, poor speakers etc, I found myself turning the
volume up and down all the time when listening to classical CDs via the
car stereo.

ReZound does a good job at solving this problem. I know nothing about
(digital) sound processing, but I found a workable set of DRC parameters
empirically, and with the help of some comprehensible explanation on
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/Compression.htm

However, I'd like to understand the maths a bit better to optimise what
I can do and make it more predictable. So here are my questions:

- What's the difference between dB and dBFS?
- Is the DRC ratio a dB ratio (i.e. the dB space above the threshold
  gets slashed by ratio)?
- What's the best way of compensating gain for compression to achieve a
  similar maximum level on the output? So far I've used trial and error
  as I couldn't find a way of calculating the required output gain from
  threshold and ratio.
- Why are the gains in the DRC dialog not in dB?
- Why is the minimum level on the level scale (main window) about -30dB?
  With wav files ripped from CDs I would have expected much lower
  minimum levels?
- Is there a way of quickly determining the maximum level of a
  particular sound file? (the Ctrl-RightClick feature is very useful for
  checking on likely candidate passages btw)
- When copying audio CD's I normally take images using cdrdao, to
  preserve in-between-track sounds etc. Are there plans for ReZound to
  handle those images (pick out the audio bits) for the future? For
  now I have to rip CD's track by track if I want to ReZound them,
  potentially losing inter-gap sound, messing up gap lengths etc. It
  would be great if I could process a whole CD in one go.

Any help on this would be much appreciated.

As for the toolkit debate, being a GTK person and a theme freak myself
I don't mind the Fox tk. In fact, ReZound is the second Fox app I can't
do without (the other one being Fox calc). I think for specialised apps
like ReZound the functionality and usability aspects are far more 
important than how well it matches the desktop aesthetics. Both Fox and
GTK are readily available for Win anyway. 

Cheers
Steffen.