Inverting dynamics compression with minimal side information

Benoit Lachaise; Laurent Daudet
DAFx-2008 - Espoo
Dynamics processing is a widespread technique, both at music production and diffusion stages. In particular, dynamic compression is often used in such a way that the “average” listener can best enjoy the music. However, this may lead to an excessive use of compression, especially with respect to listeners in quiet listening conditions. This paper presents estimates on the amount of extra data that is needed to invert the effects of such non-linear processing, using simple blind identification techniques. We present two simple test cases, first in the case when perfect reconstruction is needed, and second when the ancillary data rate is constrained, leading to an approximate reconstruction.
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