Expander
An expander is the gentle opposite of a compressor: instead of turning loud parts down, it turns quiet parts down further, widening the gap between your loudest and quietest moments. Where a Noise Gate slams shut below its threshold, an expander eases off smoothly — a softer, more transparent way to push down low-level noise.
Reach for it when:
- a gate feels too abrupt — you can hear it snapping open and shut — but you still want the quiet background pushed down;
- you want to widen the dynamic range a touch without fully muting anything between words or notes.
FX inserts can be added and set up on Free, but they only affect the sound with Premium.
Adding it
On a channel's FX tab, click + Node ▾ → Dynamics → Expander. It drops into the chain just after the selected node. To edit it, pin one of the dock's two panels to it with ⇅, or set a panel to ⟳ Follow FX tab selection and click the node.
In Simple mode, add it from the Effects block's ⚙ instead — see Simple mode.
Where it sits in the chain matters: it reacts to whatever level reaches it, so place it before anything that boosts quiet detail (like Loudness Equalization) — otherwise you're fighting that later boost instead of cleaning up before it.
Reading the panel
The graph is a transfer curve, the mirror image of the Compressor's: level coming in runs along the bottom, level going out runs up the side. Above the THRESH dot the line is a plain diagonal — nothing changes. Below it, the line bends downward according to RATIO, so quiet content comes out quieter than it went in. The dashed line marks the RANGE floor — the expander never pushes the signal down further than that, however quiet it gets.
While the engine is running, a bar along the bottom shows the incoming level, and the GR strip on the right edge shows how many dB it's currently pulling down.
This panel is compact enough that it has no ⛶ maximize button; it always shares the dock.
Controls
| Knob | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| THRESH | −60…0 dB | −40 | Below this level the signal starts getting turned down. Set it just below your normal speaking/playing level, above your background noise. |
| RATIO | 1…10 : 1 | 2 | How aggressively quiet parts are pushed down once below threshold. 1:1 does nothing; higher digs in harder. |
| RANGE | 0…60 dB | 40 | The most it will ever turn the quiet parts down — a floor, so background never goes fully silent unless you want it to. |
| ATTACK | 0.1…50 ms | 5 | How fast it lets the signal back up to full volume once you rise above the threshold. Short = snappy return; long = a smoother re-entry. |
| RELEASE | 10…1000 ms | 150 | How fast it ducks the signal back down once you fall below the threshold. |
A good starting point
- Add the Expander, stay quiet and watch the graph — note where your background noise sits.
- Set THRESH a few dB above that noise floor, so normal speech or playing stays untouched but the quiet tail between phrases gets pulled down.
- Start with RATIO around 2:1 for something gentle; raise it if the background is still too present.
- If the transition between "on" and "off" feels choppy, raise RANGE so it doesn't try to remove too much, or lengthen RELEASE for a smoother fade.
An expander doesn't fully silence anything — it thins the background out. If you need dead silence between words, a Noise Gate is the more direct tool; the two can also be used together.
If it sounds wrong
| You hear… | Try… |
|---|---|
| Background barely changes | Lower THRESH, or raise RATIO. |
| Quiet passages sound unnaturally thin or "sucked out" | Lower RATIO or RANGE so it pulls down less. |
| A choppy on/off feel between words | Lengthen ATTACK and RELEASE for a smoother transition. |
Presets, bypass and reset
- PRESET ▾ in the panel header applies a saved setup, or saves the current one under a name. Once one is applied the header shows Preset: name — see Knowing what preset is applied. Ready-made expander setups can be found in the Workshop — Workshop ▸ Browse, filter chip Expander.
- ON / OFF bypasses just this node — the quickest way to hear whether it's helping.
- RESET returns every knob to its default.
Related
- Noise Gate — a harder on/off cut below threshold, versus this node's gentler downward push.
- Compressor — the mirror-image job on the loud end: pulls loud parts down instead of pushing quiet parts further down.
- Limiter — a hard ceiling on the loud end, the counterpart to this node's floor on the quiet end.
- Effects Rack — adding, ordering and rewiring nodes.