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Daisy chaining a dual mono compressor


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Like out from one side, into the next. Limiting on first stage, soft knee compression on the second. I’m asking first because this would be an ordeal the way I have everything set up..? This is a new concept for me.

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Like out from one side' date=' into the next. Limiting on first stage, soft knee compression on the second. I’m asking first because this would be an ordeal the way I have everything set up..? This is a new concept for me.[/quote']

 

Not quite certain what benefit if any would be had by applying soft knee compression after hard limiting. That approach to me sounds entirely counterintuitive.

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Not quite certain what benefit if any would be had by applying soft knee compression after hard limiting. That approach to me sounds entirely counterintuitive.

 

Thanks, I trust your opinion. It was just flying all over GS.

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As a general rule-of-thumb approach, most professionals might apply some compression (i.e., something with a compression ratio set at something not even approaching the infinity or extreme setting of such control) to a track or tracks during mixing and in some cases even while tracking, especially if a vocalist might happen to exhibit an extremely wide dynamic range in their vocal approach, for instance. Of course this is a general application, not a one-size-fits-all.

 

Hard limiting is more commonly viewed (though again, not always in every circumstance of course) as a step generally applied during finalization or even mastering in hopes of limiting all the peaks to a given threshold to provide enough overall headroom to raise the volume, hopefully while avoicing clipping. However, when used to excess, a well-trained ear can certainly observe the loss of dynamic range variations that inevitably will result.

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Like out from one side' date=' into the next. Limiting on first stage, soft knee compression on the second. I’m asking first because this would be an ordeal the way I have everything set up..? This is a new concept for me.[/quote']

 

Lots of engineers will use an 1176 and a LA2A together when tracking or mixing, with the 1176 (sometimes placed before, and sometimes after the LA2A) doing limiting and the LA2A doing compression.

 

Stacking, or running two compressor / limiters in series is a very common technique. It also works with DAW plugins - in fact, I feel it helps to reduce some of the negative aspects of plugins, which tend to become more obvious the harder you push them and the more gain reduction you demand from them - with two in series, neither one has to work as hard, and IMHO, they'll often sound better that way than hitting a single compressor harder.

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Lots of engineers will use an 1176 and a LA2A together when tracking or mixing, with the 1176 (sometimes placed before, and sometimes after the LA2A) doing limiting and the LA2A doing compression.

 

Stacking, or running two compressor / limiters in series is a very common technique. It also works with DAW plugins - in fact, I feel it helps to reduce some of the negative aspects of plugins, which tend to become more obvious the harder you push them and the more gain reduction you demand from them - with two in series, neither one has to work as hard, and IMHO, they'll often sound better that way than hitting a single compressor harder.

 

Thank you! This is a new concept for me.

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I'd go soft knee first, to tame the peaks somewhat before hitting the limiter. Seems to work. You can also stack multiple compressors to take a little bit off each time, but you need to be very careful with your dynamics or you'll wreck everything.

 

My preference lately is for opto style peak limiting, but that's just down to the material I've been getting sent tbh.

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Something I frequently do with a compressor' date=' usually on vocals. I'll have the uncompressed track and a compressed track. Bring up the uncomp vocal to just below where it should sit in the mix, then bring up the comp track until it's sitting correctly in the mix.[/quote']

 

You can do something similar (parallel compression) by using a pre-fader aux send to send signal from the vocal track to an aux return channel with the compressor inserted on it. Adjust the level of the two faders (and thus the ratio of the dry vs compressed signals) to taste.

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