think of a compressor as a volume controller on a sound. it makes the loud bits quieter and the quiet bits louder. so for example on a kick drum you could decrease the initial high transient (peak) so the sound dosen't clip (distort) and increase all the valleys (low transients) thus making the sound phatter.Originally Posted by serox
It's good to practise compression theory in a wave editor where u can physically see the waveform and what ur compression results do to the sound.