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Compression - how to apply
Dear all,
I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. Jim |
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#2
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Hi Jim,
I'll try to answer your questions but keep in mind there is a good change that I'm misinformed or confused on certain issues so don't take my word as law, please read, listen and try things a lot and make up your own mind. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Yes, sometimes. Meaning compressing at either point can be useful and desired but it's sometimes unnecessary and undesirable. For example in a live performance situation it might be important to capture a recording of a vocalist that you are unfamiliar with. As you might know, musicians tend to be 'shy' during sound check so even if you set your levels careful, half way through the show the singer may 'eat' the mic and let out a primal scream, possibly causing some nasty distortion in your recording. To guard against this you can put a compressor ( or limiter or both ) in the signal chain as a safety net to keep that signal's amplitude at a reasonable level. On the other hand if you know the singer and their material and you are recording on more than one night you may want to not use compression and just ride the levels manually as needed. An example of why to compress only during mixing is that it will give you more options with your mix. If you compresses everything during tracking it can really limit your options during mixing and if you went really overboard on compression you may have to retrack the part ( or wish you would have every time you listen to that track for the rest of your days! ;-) My feeling is that most compression should be left for the mixing stage unless you know you are going to want a particular effect or you really know what you are doing mixing. Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. If you are listening to the track during playback and lowering the track volume stops the clipping then yes, you could use compression or limiting to stop the clipping. If the recording already contains the clip distortion then no, it probably wont help. ( if you are using a computer you can sometimes hand redraw a clipped wave form to make it more acceptable and there are some plug-ins that can automatically remove clips. ) Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown There is no real hard fast rules that will always work in every situation. It can be frustrating and tedious but you really need to analyze the sound/mix and determine if it's acceptable to great or if there is something wrong and if so, what exactly is it that you don't like. Then imagine what would need to happen to the sound to make it the way you would like it, but don't think in terms of what device or plug-in to run it through, just in your mind imagine the sound changing to become what it should be and make note of what you were mentally changing. Now think about all the audio tools and techniques you have at your disposal and try to determine which one(s) will achieve what you did in your head. Let's say you have a mix where the bass guitar seems to disappear when lower notes are played but higher notes sound fine. Also the bass track when soloed seems to sound fine. If you turn the bass track up in the mix the lower notes get better but the high notes are too loud. So is it that we want to make the low notes louder or the high notes softer? If you look at the big picture it seems like we just want ALL of the bass notes close to about the same level. A compressor and / or limiter can help you accomplish that by automatically controlling the volume one the signal reaches the threshold level you set. There is more to compression than just the threshold too. There is usually an Attack and Release control. In general, unless you are trying to create a special effect, try to set the attach and release controls so that they follow / mimic the sound you are compressing. In the bass example above we might want to set a fairly fast attach and a some what slow decay since a plucked/popped electric bass string behaves that way. Be careful with using too fast of an attack. I found that when mixing my drums, if I set the attack on a tom too fast it would sound terrible. Why? Well, I had thought that drums would need a really fast attack but the compressor attack was faster than the drum's attack and I was only hearing just the first millisecond or so. But then by setting the attack to 25 to 30 milliseconds it allowed enough of the stick hit and some of the tom's tone to develop before the compressor kicked in, which gave the toms a punchy attack but still controlled the tom's long sustain from dominating the mix. You could possibly think of compression and limiting in bungee jumping terms. The bridge is - infinity dB ( zero volume ), you are a +1 dB signal and the ground is clipping ( +0.001 dB etc ). If you were to jump off of the bridge without a bungee cord you would seriously clip! ( ouch! ) The bungee cord is your compressor. If you hang the bungee cord off of the bridge without you attached, the point that the other end of the bungee hangs to it your threshold level, since it will go that far with out affecting it's payload ( you ). Now tie yourself to the bungee cord and jump off. Once you pass the threshold level the bungee compressor starts causing gradually increasing resistance until it (hopefully) stops you at some point before clipping. The difference between compression and limiting is if you used a heavy rope or chain of the same length instead of a bungee. The threshold is the same but nothing goes beyond the threshold. This can be good for some audio uses but can sound odd and unmusical for others. And it is REALLY bad news for jumping off of bridges. ( although there is some tribe in Africa or South America that likes to do that off of short towers ) So hopefully I haven't confused you more. I've found it helpful to play records/CDs through a stereo compressor and then just play around with the settings to see what they do and then start trying to do specific things with the recorded material. Try some recordings that are really dynamic like symphonic stuff or whatever. Best of luck! John L Rice |
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#3
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Weatherman wrote:
Dear all, I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. You need to distinguish compression from limiting. Though both use essentially the same circuitry and are normally sold as limiter/compressors the uses are very different. You don't say what you're trying to achieve. Hence no guidance can be given. Indeed it seems like you want to apply it without any clear idea of why or what it can do for you. In short though, limiting is used to restrict the maximum signal level, compression is used to manipulate dynamic range creatively. Graham |
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#5
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John
Thank you so much for going to all the trouble you did. I found your advice useful, to say the least. I record using the minimum of processors, and straight to an AKAI HD system. So Compressor and some effects are the only processors I try to use - very acoustic-based music in the style of Linda Williams, etc. Many thanks again. Much appreciated. Jim "John L Rice" wrote in message ... Hi Jim, I'll try to answer your questions but keep in mind there is a good change that I'm misinformed or confused on certain issues so don't take my word as law, please read, listen and try things a lot and make up your own mind. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Yes, sometimes. Meaning compressing at either point can be useful and desired but it's sometimes unnecessary and undesirable. For example in a live performance situation it might be important to capture a recording of a vocalist that you are unfamiliar with. As you might know, musicians tend to be 'shy' during sound check so even if you set your levels careful, half way through the show the singer may 'eat' the mic and let out a primal scream, possibly causing some nasty distortion in your recording. To guard against this you can put a compressor ( or limiter or both ) in the signal chain as a safety net to keep that signal's amplitude at a reasonable level. On the other hand if you know the singer and their material and you are recording on more than one night you may want to not use compression and just ride the levels manually as needed. An example of why to compress only during mixing is that it will give you more options with your mix. If you compresses everything during tracking it can really limit your options during mixing and if you went really overboard on compression you may have to retrack the part ( or wish you would have every time you listen to that track for the rest of your days! ;-) My feeling is that most compression should be left for the mixing stage unless you know you are going to want a particular effect or you really know what you are doing mixing. Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. If you are listening to the track during playback and lowering the track volume stops the clipping then yes, you could use compression or limiting to stop the clipping. If the recording already contains the clip distortion then no, it probably wont help. ( if you are using a computer you can sometimes hand redraw a clipped wave form to make it more acceptable and there are some plug-ins that can automatically remove clips. ) Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown There is no real hard fast rules that will always work in every situation. It can be frustrating and tedious but you really need to analyze the sound/mix and determine if it's acceptable to great or if there is something wrong and if so, what exactly is it that you don't like. Then imagine what would need to happen to the sound to make it the way you would like it, but don't think in terms of what device or plug-in to run it through, just in your mind imagine the sound changing to become what it should be and make note of what you were mentally changing. Now think about all the audio tools and techniques you have at your disposal and try to determine which one(s) will achieve what you did in your head. Let's say you have a mix where the bass guitar seems to disappear when lower notes are played but higher notes sound fine. Also the bass track when soloed seems to sound fine. If you turn the bass track up in the mix the lower notes get better but the high notes are too loud. So is it that we want to make the low notes louder or the high notes softer? If you look at the big picture it seems like we just want ALL of the bass notes close to about the same level. A compressor and / or limiter can help you accomplish that by automatically controlling the volume one the signal reaches the threshold level you set. There is more to compression than just the threshold too. There is usually an Attack and Release control. In general, unless you are trying to create a special effect, try to set the attach and release controls so that they follow / mimic the sound you are compressing. In the bass example above we might want to set a fairly fast attach and a some what slow decay since a plucked/popped electric bass string behaves that way. Be careful with using too fast of an attack. I found that when mixing my drums, if I set the attack on a tom too fast it would sound terrible. Why? Well, I had thought that drums would need a really fast attack but the compressor attack was faster than the drum's attack and I was only hearing just the first millisecond or so. But then by setting the attack to 25 to 30 milliseconds it allowed enough of the stick hit and some of the tom's tone to develop before the compressor kicked in, which gave the toms a punchy attack but still controlled the tom's long sustain from dominating the mix. You could possibly think of compression and limiting in bungee jumping terms. The bridge is - infinity dB ( zero volume ), you are a +1 dB signal and the ground is clipping ( +0.001 dB etc ). If you were to jump off of the bridge without a bungee cord you would seriously clip! ( ouch! ) The bungee cord is your compressor. If you hang the bungee cord off of the bridge without you attached, the point that the other end of the bungee hangs to it your threshold level, since it will go that far with out affecting it's payload ( you ). Now tie yourself to the bungee cord and jump off. Once you pass the threshold level the bungee compressor starts causing gradually increasing resistance until it (hopefully) stops you at some point before clipping. The difference between compression and limiting is if you used a heavy rope or chain of the same length instead of a bungee. The threshold is the same but nothing goes beyond the threshold. This can be good for some audio uses but can sound odd and unmusical for others. And it is REALLY bad news for jumping off of bridges. ( although there is some tribe in Africa or South America that likes to do that off of short towers ) So hopefully I haven't confused you more. I've found it helpful to play records/CDs through a stereo compressor and then just play around with the settings to see what they do and then start trying to do specific things with the recorded material. Try some recordings that are really dynamic like symphonic stuff or whatever. Best of luck! John L Rice |
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#6
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Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I am aware of why I need to use
it....e.g. to ensure certain levels are consistent and to boost gain overall - with specific tracks. I just don't seem to be able to get my ears to hear subtle differences, and I seem to either get very heavy results or results that - to my ears haven't made any difference at all. If it's because of my musicality, I thought perhaps that if a standard existed - let's say if a ratio of 2:1 or 5:1 on vocals was a generally good starting point - then I would start there and at least know I was on the right track and work from there. Articles on EQ'ing helped me see that a lot of success with EQ is about cutting rather than boosting, and I hoped there was some general advice around compression. Regards Jim "Pooh Bear" wrote in message ... Weatherman wrote: Dear all, I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. You need to distinguish compression from limiting. Though both use essentially the same circuitry and are normally sold as limiter/compressors the uses are very different. You don't say what you're trying to achieve. Hence no guidance can be given. Indeed it seems like you want to apply it without any clear idea of why or what it can do for you. In short though, limiting is used to restrict the maximum signal level, compression is used to manipulate dynamic range creatively. Graham |
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#7
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Many thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.
Jim "alan" .@. wrote in message ... "Weatherman" Mrs. wrote in message news  Dear all, Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? im taking an audio class that has two instructors. one likes to use external compressors when recording and the other likes to use the software compression in the mix. i guess it ultimately depends on what you can afford, your recording situation, isolation and other factors. personally i have no choice but to use the software... -alan |
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#8
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On Sat, 27 Nov 2004 23:29:24 GMT, "Weatherman" Mrs.
wrote: Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. How to set up a compressor: http://homerecording.about.com/libra...y/aa110497.htm An ebook on the subject ($$): http://www.audiocourses.com/compression/ Compression and limiting explained: http://www.harmony-central.com/Effec...s/Compression/ All above found in 5 minutes on Google searching "audio compression recording." You may also find it useful to download some manuals from various standalone compressors, like FMR's Really Nice Preamp (others here could suggest more sophisticated ones, or, uh, do a Google search.) In any case, the above should get you started. Willie K. Yee, M.D. http://users.bestweb.net/~wkyee Developer of Problem Knowledge Couplers for Psychiatry http://www.pkc.com Webmaster and Guitarist for the Big Blue Big Band http://www.bigbluebigband.org |
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#9
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im taking an audio class that has two instructors. one likes to use external compressors when recording and the other likes to use the software compression in the mix. i guess it ultimately depends on what you can afford, your recording situation, isolation and other factors. personally i have no choice but to use the software... -alan I never compress while recording as I cannot undo what has been done. Digital recording gives me more than enough dynamic range to allow me to do this. Compression is something that is best learned by listening. Start with a 2.5:1 ratio and see what happens. Change attack and release times and see how that affects the sound. Change ratio and see what happens. Chage threshold and outputs and compare the sound. If the sound doesn't seem to change much, but your dynamics are reduced, you have a pretty good unit. If any amount of compression seems to distort the sound, you have an Alesis 3630. Richard H. Kuschel "I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty |
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#10
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Weatherman wrote: Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I am aware of why I need to use it....e.g. to ensure certain levels are consistent and to boost gain overall Ok. Now we're talking. One of the best examples of 'getting a consistent level' I had to deal with was a guitar - unusually ! most guitarists usually give you plenty of level ;-) - in a live band situation. The guy was playing with 'studiolike' dynamics and the guitar was being lost in the overall sound half the time. In this case you need to use compression to reduce the dynamic range. I seem to recall using a threshold of around -30 / - 35 and a modest ratio of around 1.25/1.3:1 . This initially reduces the level so you have to adjust the output level control ( technically known as 'gain make up' ) to compensate. The overall effect was to lift his level back into the mix. I was surprised at how small a ratio I had to use. The threshold had to be set low enough to catch the quiet bits. I used 'auto' for the attack / release btw. Works fine on most sources. When you need to get clever you can fiddle with that stuff. I saw a post about drums - a good example of where you might want to set attack yourself. Watch the gain reduction meter btw - a good indication of how effective your settings are. - with specific tracks. I just don't seem to be able to get my ears to hear subtle differences, and I seem to either get very heavy results or results that - to my ears haven't made any difference at all. Well..... Good compression *is* subtle ! It's not like an 'in your face' effect. It's there to enhance a mix. If it's because of my musicality, I thought perhaps that if a standard existed - let's say if a ratio of 2:1 or 5:1 on vocals was a generally good starting point - then I would start there and at least know I was on the right track and work from there. 5:1 is where you call it limiting. I.e. a 5dB Increase in input only gives 1 dB increase in output. There isn't a 'standard'. You use it as required. Same as EQ. My experience shows musical results with the lower ratios such as below 2:1. But why not experiment and see ? Articles on EQ'ing helped me see that a lot of success with EQ is about cutting rather than boosting, and I hoped there was some general advice around compression. It sems to be rather less well covered as a rule but I'm sure there must be info out there. What I've learned about how to apply it has been by practice. Graham |
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#11
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In article .@. writes: im taking an audio class that has two instructors. one likes to use external compressors when recording and the other likes to use the software compression in the mix. i guess it ultimately depends on what you can afford, your recording situation, isolation and other factors. Is there a substantial difference in their ages, or in the type of music that they work with most often? Whether you use hardware or software for compressing when you're mixing is a matter of availability (of both the equipment and the gozintas and gozoutas so you can hook it up) and preference for a particular sound. Whether you compress during recording or not (and whether you compress when your're mixing (or not) is determined by you're recording. The ringer is that most (if any) software is capable of compressing in real time when recording, or at least let you hear what it's doing. so if you need to compress what's going in, you pretty much need to do it with hardware. -- I'm really Mike Rivers ) However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over, lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo |
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#12
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Many many thanks, Graham. I think you have certainly got me on the right
road. Much appreciated. Jim "Pooh Bear" wrote in message ... Weatherman wrote: Many thanks for taking the trouble to reply. I am aware of why I need to use it....e.g. to ensure certain levels are consistent and to boost gain overall Ok. Now we're talking. One of the best examples of 'getting a consistent level' I had to deal with was a guitar - unusually ! most guitarists usually give you plenty of level ;-) - in a live band situation. The guy was playing with 'studiolike' dynamics and the guitar was being lost in the overall sound half the time. In this case you need to use compression to reduce the dynamic range. I seem to recall using a threshold of around -30 / - 35 and a modest ratio of around 1.25/1.3:1 . This initially reduces the level so you have to adjust the output level control ( technically known as 'gain make up' ) to compensate. The overall effect was to lift his level back into the mix. I was surprised at how small a ratio I had to use. The threshold had to be set low enough to catch the quiet bits. I used 'auto' for the attack / release btw. Works fine on most sources. When you need to get clever you can fiddle with that stuff. I saw a post about drums - a good example of where you might want to set attack yourself. Watch the gain reduction meter btw - a good indication of how effective your settings are. - with specific tracks. I just don't seem to be able to get my ears to hear subtle differences, and I seem to either get very heavy results or results that - to my ears haven't made any difference at all. Well..... Good compression *is* subtle ! It's not like an 'in your face' effect. It's there to enhance a mix. If it's because of my musicality, I thought perhaps that if a standard existed - let's say if a ratio of 2:1 or 5:1 on vocals was a generally good starting point - then I would start there and at least know I was on the right track and work from there. 5:1 is where you call it limiting. I.e. a 5dB Increase in input only gives 1 dB increase in output. There isn't a 'standard'. You use it as required. Same as EQ. My experience shows musical results with the lower ratios such as below 2:1. But why not experiment and see ? Articles on EQ'ing helped me see that a lot of success with EQ is about cutting rather than boosting, and I hoped there was some general advice around compression. It sems to be rather less well covered as a rule but I'm sure there must be info out there. What I've learned about how to apply it has been by practice. Graham |
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#13
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#14
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"Mike Rivers" wrote in message news:znr1101649737k@trad... Is there a substantial difference in their ages, or in the type of music that they work with most often? yes, it makes the class really great because they have completely different approaches, except that in class i keep thinking "but so and so said..." one instructor is very into analog, but you can see the purist in him tempered by the availability of great new digi gizmos; and his students are obviously too poor for classic $1000 compressors or even a few rnc's. i like working with the analog stuff when i can though, since the digital interfaces are mostly modeled from the old analog anyways... good topic, thanks for the help. does anyone have any recommendations for software compressors? esp. free ones! -alan |
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#15
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Weatherman wrote: Many many thanks, Graham. I think you have certainly got me on the right road. Much appreciated. Jim You're welcome. A bit of experimenting will work wonders. Don't forget to watch the gain reduction meter / led ladder. Graham |
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#16
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oops i meant ""
-- """"" x x (~) "alan" .@. wrote in message ... "Mike Rivers" wrote in message news:znr1101649737k@trad... Is there a substantial difference in their ages, or in the type of music that they work with most often? yes, it makes the class really great because they have completely different approaches, except that in class i keep thinking "but so and so said..." one instructor is very into analog, but you can see the purist in him tempered by the availability of great new digi gizmos; and his students are obviously too poor for classic $1000 compressors or even a few rnc's. i like working with the analog stuff when i can though, since the digital interfaces are mostly modeled from the old analog anyways... good topic, thanks for the help. does anyone have any recommendations for software compressors? esp. free ones! -alan |
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#17
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#18
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Weatherman wrote:
Dear all, I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. How is pretty simple, too. You twist the knobs until they acheive the desired effect. The fun part is not "how", but "why". Some examples: - on a rhythm guitar part run thru a cheezy Leslie sim, I noticed that the levels varied more than I liked as the Leslie "swung". So I squished 'em. - a bass part sounds pretty good, but it's not "present" enough, and the arrangement is flawed in a way that makes the bass "disappear". Compression modifies the note envelope such that the part is more audible without using a bunch more mix bandwidth, or without radical EQ. Really, though, in this case, the arrangement should be fixed, or EQ applied. But there have been times... - You want the snare to "crack" - more leading transient. Or you want to hear the strainer settle after each note. Two different compression effects. - You want a really washy ride cymbal, so you squash it to make it spill out the sides. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Usally, it's more reversible after it's tracked. That's also a choice, though - comitting to mix decisions earlier makes for more interesting mixes. Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. No. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown Don't use any compression for final mixdown until you've pretty much finished the mix, and then not much. Unless you want a squooshed mix. But save an unsquooshed one so if you get tired of the squooshed one, you can go back... Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. The thing to do is get a DAW package, add some compression plugins and see what the knobs do. If you can swing some hardware boxes, do that too, but the DAW ones will give you a *general* idea for cheaper. Jim -- les Cargill |
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#19
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Play with the knobs and listen to what they do. Use that knowledge.
"I'm beginning to suspect that your problem is the gap between what you say and what you think you have said." -george (paraphrased) |
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#20
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Many thanks Les....excellent advice.
Jim "Les Cargill" wrote in message ... Weatherman wrote: Dear all, I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. How is pretty simple, too. You twist the knobs until they acheive the desired effect. The fun part is not "how", but "why". Some examples: - on a rhythm guitar part run thru a cheezy Leslie sim, I noticed that the levels varied more than I liked as the Leslie "swung". So I squished 'em. - a bass part sounds pretty good, but it's not "present" enough, and the arrangement is flawed in a way that makes the bass "disappear". Compression modifies the note envelope such that the part is more audible without using a bunch more mix bandwidth, or without radical EQ. Really, though, in this case, the arrangement should be fixed, or EQ applied. But there have been times... - You want the snare to "crack" - more leading transient. Or you want to hear the strainer settle after each note. Two different compression effects. - You want a really washy ride cymbal, so you squash it to make it spill out the sides. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Usally, it's more reversible after it's tracked. That's also a choice, though - comitting to mix decisions earlier makes for more interesting mixes. Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. No. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals guitar final mixdown Don't use any compression for final mixdown until you've pretty much finished the mix, and then not much. Unless you want a squooshed mix. But save an unsquooshed one so if you get tired of the squooshed one, you can go back... Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. The thing to do is get a DAW package, add some compression plugins and see what the knobs do. If you can swing some hardware boxes, do that too, but the DAW ones will give you a *general* idea for cheaper. Jim -- les Cargill |
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#21
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"Weatherman" Mrs. wrote in message ...
Dear all, I've been trying hard, through looking through the archives and newsgroups, dBx conducted a workshop on compression/limiting in the 80's, and I think I learned more there in 1 day than my previous years in radio with all the 'leveling amps' and peak limiters simply because they applied the information to both recording and live sound which is what I had gotten into by that time. Some of the info is touched on briefly at: http://www.dbxpro.com/ftp_mirror/PDF...sion%20101.pdf etc as well as reading up, about compression. As a newbie, I understand WHAT compression is supposed to achive - more or less, still learning. But I am still stuck at HOW you actually apply it. Do you apply compression to an incoming signal as it is played "live", or do you apply it to a pre-recorded track as you mix or ping pong? Normally, apply only to a track going in if it's absolutely needed like on a really rowdy vocal and then only enough to keep things from clipping. Most signals need to be left clean until you decide how they will be used in the mix. (Oh, it's OK to comp the bass guitar if it's lined in but I like to mike an amp, but that's just me ...) Can compression make tracks which clip, reduce their level? My experiments say no, but I am just learning. DIGITAL CLIPPING IS BAD, VERY BAD ! Control levels as needed to keep things out of the red. If your using 16 bit: then some very dynamic sources (that rowdy vocal, a slapped bass, maybe drums) might be helped along by some slight compression or maybe a peak limit just below the clip point. 24 bit should never need dynamics control going in. Finally (whilst I'm here, may as well go for broke) - although everyone wioll have their own taste and style, and each song will have different requirements, is their a basic starting point for people like me, as to what kind of compression to apply - i.e. settings - for say, vocals Probably the most appropriate source to compress but only just enough to smooth out the loud stuff. If your'e reducing gain by more than 4-6 dB on peaks it's too much. guitar electric: not needed acoustic: maybe just a bit- 2-3 dB final mixdown if it's a good mix it shouldn't need much if any, but if you are tempted to compress a mix use a high pass filter ( dBx's 'contour') to keep from pumping on bass/kick. an eq in the sidechain rolled of below 100 or so will work if the unit doesn't have a HPF. Any advice, or pointers to websites, books, etc would be greatly appreciated. If it's creating an audible effect then it's too much, unless you are using it just as an effect. Jim Good Luck RD |
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