| Home recording and general music post from the archived Yabb Recording Website Message Board. Some of the info here may be outdated but many of the audio recording and home studio tips are still good. Note: The only tags I made and attempt to convert are italics, bold, center and underline. So if you see some gibberish surrounded by brackets, just ignore it.
Recording Website Archived Yabb board Post
Febuary 2001 Yabb Message Board Archive
Subject: when to compress
by trodden | 04/08/01 at 15:10:56
:-/
Just wanted to get some tips on when some of you decide to compress to tape. I've usually been adding a little to the bass guitar and kick. What specifically should I be listening to to make this decision?
Subject: Re: when to compress
by eddie | 04/08/01 at 15:37:55
[color=Red][/color]Hi!
You can compress while you recording and in the mixdown, but I prefer not to compress stereo output,but only particular channels. Bass drum is fine with a little of comp., bass guitar and electric guitars. It depends what do you want. YOu can ever create some efects with compression.
Pay attention with vocals. Not over do it, 'cause they could loose dynamics. Also it is important how much of release and attack you apply....!!!8)8)
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Subject: Re: when to compress
by Maury | 04/08/01 at 17:44:10
Hi Trodden. It's easy to think too hard about this subject (I do it often) but all you want the comp to do is make the level of the drum (or bass) consistent. Set the comp to ONLY compress the louder parts, and let the quiet parts pass through unaffected. If you're compressing every single beat, then you have the threshold set too low (or your drummer is very consistent on his/her own and needs no (little) comp at all. Sometimes you don't need it - less is more. Think of the comp as an assistant engineer who's job is to "tame" the bass drum level. Good luck & come back with any questions. For what it's worth, I asked the same thing a year or so ago & when you get the ear for this it's really cool! BTW I'm no expert and STILL learing too.
Maury;D
Subject: Re: when to compress
by pcrecord | 04/09/01 at 07:16:03
Hi there,
There's alot you can do with compression including make things worse. If your unit include a gate, you can achive pretty nice drum sound. You should know that compression will make the drum sounds longer, if the late sound of a tom is not very good, you sure don't want to hear it. Compression will let you hear more of the quiet notes and the quiet noise too ! Carefull !!! The only place I use it often is the vocals but I start to use automation more and more (if the customers wants to pay ; it's a longer process). But some singer with good control don't even need it.
So for me I live without it unless there's something important I can't hear.
Bye !
8)
Subject: Re: when to compress
by *trodden* | 04/09/01 at 14:41:08
:)\
Cool, thanks for the input. Yeah, it is easy for me to think to much about it (when to compress)instead of just listening and making a decision. I guess the only thing i worry about is adding "too much" and not really getting the idea of what that mistake sounds like. when recording the the screamy punk/hardcore bands, i usually have to copress the vocals quite a bit. but still wonder if i am too much.
Subject: Re: when to compress
by Puke | 04/09/01 at 19:42:03
At the risk of being at odds with some of the posters. I don't really think, as a purist, one should compress. But in reality, as long as your limters are not crap, you pretty much end up limiting the shit out of damn near every channel. But you do have to start being quite careful if you are limiting the program as a whole rather than channel by channel. As far as tape goes, you are usually better off not to compress too much while recording, but rather wait until mixing to compress it. I'm not sure how the digital thing works as far as compressing before or after recordinge each channel. By the way, the normal term would more often be "limiter", a compressor is kind a like a watered down version of a limiter. But if you are doing it one limiter for each track, you would probably have your compressor set to "limit" if it will go that far.
Later, got relatives here.
Subject: Re: when to compress
by pcrecord | 04/10/01 at 07:44:59
You know what I once had a customer who did heavy metal music and I surely add too much (for my taste) compression on vocal. Well it was part of the intence aproach of his music. So that day the compressor was used to produce a special effect, not compresion as we call it. Obviously, there's a lot to do with a compressor/gate/limiter. I'd just experiment and see if the customer (or you) like it !
:)
Subject: Re: when to compress
by trodden | 04/10/01 at 18:42:26
ok, Along the lines of compression, about my gear.. i was given an alesis 3630. Free gear is good. Lately though i've just heard bad news on that model? i've not had much time to really play around on it, so i've not noticed anything. I've been sticking to the behringer composer most of the time. any comments?