"Sock Puppet #4" wrote in message ...
Please don't laugh at me, but...

Compression, in all instances of my using it, tends to thicken up the wav by
lowering the peaks and pumping up the valleys, for a uniform sound.

But what if I want to do the opposite? Meaning, I want to further the divide
between both. For example, trying to get the snap of a snare to come out
more, and less of its trail. Say, everything above -6db gets a boost (or
stays put) while everything below it disappears a bit more (gradually, not
noise-gate-like).

What kind of settings would I use?

What you're describing is limiting. The waveform gets more bricklike
when you limit the peaks and bring the average up.

If you want to make a snare look more like a sideways T than a
sideways V, use compression.

Set your ratio anywhere between 4:1 and 10:1. Attack as slow as
possible. Release as fast as possible. Adjust your threshold or input
(depending on the device) until your seeing 4-10 dB (regardless of the
ratio) and if you look at the new waveform you've created you'll see
it look more like a T.

Now, from here, you need to get into compressor types. An Opto is
slow, so it's going ot hav a hard time making that "T" as severe. A
JFET on the other hand should allow the transient to pass through for
as long as you've set your attack and then really squash down to make
the stem of your "T".