What types of compression are there in music production and what do each of them do?

Answer 1

First lets discuss the job of a compressor. Pretend you are listening to a singer and the singer gets very loud and then very soft in one phrase. Using a compressor, the audio engineer could turn the loud parts down. this makes the track louder. On the compressor, there is a dial called make up gain. This turns the volume up making the softer part louder. this technique "tames" the track making it easier to mix.

Now different compressors have different sound qualities. Some compressors are transparent meaning you can hear the difference in the audio, but the compressor does not color the audio in any way. Some compressor may the high frequencies sound smoother. So the questions becomes what compressor makes the audio your working on sound the best.

Know as for your question what types of compression are there? that sounds as if you are talking compressor rations and that various by compressor. 2:1 4:1 8:1 20:1 and know that the higher the compression, it becomes a limiter.