Re: audio compression prior to recording

There's absolutely no benefit to trying to work this way, whatsoever. Those who compress on the way in do it using outboard gear to get a specific sound that comes as a direct result of the hardware unit, ot to control dynamic range before the audio gets to the soundcard (converters, interface, etc.) Once it passes into the computer, any benefit would be lost. So the sound would not be any different from adding a compressor once it's already recorded. And compressing on the way in is actually a lot less common than you'd think. These days, many, many engineers prefer to record everything completely dry so there's a blank slate to work with inside the box. The benefits of outboard gear are, most importantly, a specific sound that software can't create (i.e. an LA-2A) or to control dynamic range BEFORE the sound reaches the soundcard, in the analog domain. Once it reaches the soundcard and it's in the digital domain, all processing should be done inside the program.

I hope that makes sense!

Emmett