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How necessary is compression?


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The compressor is (or can be) a wave shaper. Once you realize that, it opens you up to a lot of possibilities. It's not just something for squishing audio.



Exactly. To me, it has three uses: to increase average level, to shape the transient, to increase/decrease sustain. The latter is dependent on how much transient you let through by dialing in the attack, and how fast/slow you set your release.

And then there's also the fact that many compressors have a "character" that is also applied on a case by case scenario, depending on your needs. It is how the detector circuits of these compressors engage their attack that is a large part of their "sound", IMO.

The best way to hear the "sound" of a compressor is listen to it when it is really working hard at high gain reduction values.

Cheers :)

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Some applications according to Roey Izhaki's book:



    He goes into detail for each situation, often providing audio examples and settings. I think there's at least 50 or 60 pages of his book dealing with compression. :eek:
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Some compressor plugins have a look ahead smart attack and or release features built in and can look ahead at when the transient occurs and self adjust itself to the wave. In comparison, regular plugin comps like their hardware counterparts, the attack time is manually set.

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Some applications according to Roey Izhaki's book:



  • Making sounds bigger, denser, fatter

  • Accentuating the inner details of sounds

  • Adding warmth

  • Containing levels

  • Balancing levels

  • Loudening

  • Softening or emphasizing dynamics

  • Reshaping dynamic envelopes (not just transients, but also decay)

  • Bringing instruments forward or backward in the mix

  • Making programmed music sound more natural

  • Applying dynamic movement

  • Ducking

  • De-essing

  • Applying dynamic equalization



He goes into detail for each situation, often providing audio examples and settings. I think there's at least 50 or 60 pages of his book dealing with compression.
:eek:

 

That's an excellent list. Now, some of that depends on what kind of compressor you use (adding warmth, for instance), but that's exactly what people who are good with compressors can do.

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Some compressor plugins have a look ahead smart attack and or release features built in and can look ahead at when the transient occurs and self adjust itself to the wave. In comparison, regular plugin comps like their hardware counterparts, the attack time is manually set.

 

 

Yes, they have that look-ahead function.

 

Wanna know a "secret", though?

 

In your DAW, reverse your audio. Apply your compression, printing that. Reverse that. Bang. Instant "look ahead" compression. You have to mess with this a bit to get it right on, but that's your "look ahead" compression. I mean, not really, but you can see the advantage of this in certain cases, can't you?

 

That said, I don't really do this very much, but should I think of it or need it, it's a useful technique.

 

(and no, it's not really a secret. Engineers have been doing this for eons)

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Yes, they have that look-ahead function.


Wanna know a "secret", though?


In your DAW, reverse your audio. Apply your compression, printing that. Reverse that. Bang. Instant "look ahead" compression. You have to mess with this a bit to get it right on, but that's your "look ahead" compression. I mean, not really, but you can see the advantage of this in certain cases, can't you?


That said, I don't really do this very much, but should I think of it or need it, it's a useful technique.


(and no, it's not really a secret. Engineers have been doing this for eons)

 

 

Hum, never thought of doing that. I'd be curious to see how it would affect the transients. The release would be the attack and attack the release.

May sound funkey. The attacks on most compressors will only adjust to 10~12ms and releases to several hundred. may make for some choppy releases.

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Hum, never thought of doing that. I'd be curious to see how it would affect the transients. The release would be the attack and attack the release.

May sound funkey. The attacks on most compressors will only adjust to 10~12ms and releases to several hundred. may make for some choppy releases.

 

 

You have to patient with it at first and think "backwards". You'll be able to hear the value in this, especially with dynamic vocals and things like that. Like I said, it's not something I do often, but when I need to do it, it works pretty great.

 

The attack on my Waves RCompressors are as fast as 0.50ms, and they can also do expansion, which I love for certain things, so they are very useful plugins.

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You have to patient with it at first and think "backwards". You'll be able to hear the value in this, especially with dynamic vocals and things like that. Like I said, it's not something I do often, but when I need to do it, it works pretty great.


The attack on my Waves RCompressors are as fast as 0.50ms, and they can also do expansion, which I love for certain things, so they are very useful plugins.

 

 

I have that one too but dont use it much, The two waves plugins I use the most are Multiband, and L2. They are all good plugs but do require alot of horsepower. I use them for mastering though.

 

i was cleaning up my drive last night getting rid of duplicate mixes, and I played one back and said dam what did I do right there.

I had a plugin in the mains I was testing out a few weeks earlier called T Sledge. I've probibly had on my drive for a few years and never messed with it. I had downloaded tons of free ones and never got around to testing them.

 

I found the site for it and it said

 

"T-SLEDGE is a multi-band compressor for mastering, equipped with peak limiter, level maximizer and 4 compressors/expanders/limiters. And it is equipped with 2 kinds of dividing filter IIR/FIR. So, it also operates as a dynamics EQ".

 

http://rekkerd.org/sweetboy-vst/

 

The mastering presets have a good variety of tones. Its also got an "Air" switch that is pretty darn cool. You can select a preset and flip that switch and it sounds like it cuts a nice EQ curve for different presences boosts removing sub lows and enhancing air frequencies.

 

Its GUI is small but the plugin uses low resources. it does have a running historigram that shows you the wave form so you can get an idea of how much you are slamming the wave which is nice. It's a great mains plugin. Just select a preset, then adjust your mains so you dont have clipping. I havent tried it on channels yet but It might be killer on drums and vocals.

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Dont know, I'm not a mac guy. When you choose to use a mac you choose to not have access to alot of great free stuff out there.

 

Well, yeah, you get different free stuff. But yes, there does seem to be more stuff for a PC.

 

And I didn't choose a Mac so much as I was completely victimized by Windows 95 and ran screaming to anything else that worked correctly!!!!! :D

 

I actually have continued to work with PCs and Macs this whole time, and am very comfortable on a PC, but Win 95 was just so bloody awful...

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Well, yeah, you get different free stuff. But yes, there does seem to be more stuff for a PC.


And I didn't choose a Mac so much as I was completely victimized by Windows 95 and ran screaming to anything else that worked correctly!!!!!
:D

I actually have continued to work with PCs and Macs this whole time, and am very comfortable on a PC, but Win 95 was just so bloody awful...

 

Win 95 was like 16+ years ago. Win 7 in comparison is night and day. Very few issues any more

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Great stuff here.
ditto on making sure it sounds good on all speakers sizes. This is one of the main points of compression. There are some dangers is compression tho. Its easy to have 6-8 tracks of drums alone. Add guitars, bass, vox, and chorus and u soon stack up 20+ tracks. EQ is equally as important as compression, and in my opinion should be applied BEFORE compression. If you compress every track you have you can easily over compress.

After compressing each track, you still need to most likely compress the final mix as well. Just saying, too much compression can make u sound worse.

So, I suggest standing on the shoulders of giants and learn when, where and how much to use from real studio guys. Saves a ton of time that way. I used "The official engineers handbook" It flat out goes through examples of compression and tells you specific numbers to plug in. Once you get the hang of it, you'll have it down and find your own tastes.

Good luck

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EQ is equally as important as compression, and in my opinion should be applied BEFORE compression.

 

Hi Chris, and welcome to the forums. :) I'm interested in your thoughts about and preference for EQ in the chain prior to compression. Is that because you like to tailor what the compressor is going to work on?

 

In general, I find EQ useful both before and after compression, depending on what I'm trying to accomplish. With EQ after compression, I find you're actually changing the tonality of the sound, whereas pre-compression EQ will interact with the compressor more -- you boost or cut with the EQ, and it changes the signal level and frequency response, and therefore the compressor threshold and response... and the compressor is fighting against the EQ, or maybe "reacting" is a better word. You can use that to your advantage if you are trying to use a high pass filter to get rid of room rumble or low frequency resonances or "boom" that is triggering the compressor or gate and giving you uneven / erratic compression. By EQ'ing some of that out before the signal hits the compressor, the compressor doesn't "see" as much of it, and therefore doesn't respond to it.

 

While I understand that pre-compression has its uses, I generally feel post-compression EQ is usually more useful for actual tonal shaping. YMMV. :)

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When you EQ before compression, the frequencies that have peaks compress the most, and frequencies

that have valleys get comped the least.

 

When you EQ afterwards, its more like adjusting your home stereo EQ adding to or removing frequencies.

 

In wider ranged frequency tracks or mixdowns I like using multiband compression.

Multiband, has several compressors in one and you can adjust the frequency width of each

comp to target specific frequencies. You can adjust the bass/kick frequencies so they sound tight together

then adjust the frequencies for guitars, snare, vocals and cymbals with different comp settings.

then you can use the same attack and release times to glue them all together so they puch air

at the same pace and glue the parts together better than using one comp for all or using individual

comps on separate tracks.

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To add to what WRGKMC just added, I'm a big fan of using de-essers to clean up low-end problems, especially when doing mastering work. The Sonnox De-Esser works wonders for this, since it allows access to frequencies from 20-20kHz. Not all de-essers do this - something I never understood and was always kinda bummed about.

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To add to what WRGKMC just added, I'm a big fan of using de-essers to clean up low-end problems, especially when doing mastering work. The Sonnox De-Esser works wonders for this, since it allows access to frequencies from 20-20kHz. Not all de-essers do this - something I never understood and was always kinda bummed about.

 

 

That's cool. I don't know why I never thought of doing this since it's basically frequency-dependent compression. I use de-essers sometimes for overheads if my cymbals are too bright (which is admittedly something that doesn't happen super often, particularly since I started using Heil dynamics for overheads) but hadn't thought about doing what you describe.

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That's cool. I don't know why I never thought of doing this since it's basically frequency-dependent compression. I use de-essers sometimes for overheads if my cymbals are too bright (which is admittedly something that doesn't happen super often, particularly since I started using Heil dynamics for overheads) but hadn't thought about doing what you describe.

 

 

It's a life-saver! Especially with de-essers that can do very very steep filters (72db/octave). You can pinpoint a resonance and completely obliterate it. Say your bass has a nasty resonance at 125, but that's right where the fundamental of your kick sits (or maybe the 2nd harmonic). Well, you don't want to lose your kick's nice fat low end, but you need to clean things up. Set the de-esser in time with the tempo of the tune and do some serious clean-up - like 6-12dB of reduction. It'll be like a nice surgical EQ, but the reduction will take place after the kick hits. Wham!

 

What Heil mics are you using? I got hooked on Coles 4038's over the summer for overheads, but where I'm at now doesn't have anything quite that dark. I have a sordid love affair with a dynamic/ribbon combo on drums ;)

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It's a life-saver! Especially with de-essers that can do very very steep filters (72db/octave). You can pinpoint a resonance and completely obliterate it. Say your bass has a nasty resonance at 125, but that's right where the fundamental of your kick sits (or maybe the 2nd harmonic). Well, you don't want to lose your kick's nice fat low end, but you need to clean things up. Set the de-esser in time with the tempo of the tune and do some serious clean-up - like 6-12dB of reduction. It'll be like a nice surgical EQ, but the reduction will take place after the kick hits. Wham!

 

Thanks! That sounds great.

 

What Heil mics are you using? I got hooked on Coles 4038's over the summer for overheads, but where I'm at now doesn't have anything quite that dark. I have a sordid love affair with a dynamic/ribbon combo on drums
;)

 

I have a PR40, which I use for kicks and bass cabinets and various other things, and two PR30s, which I use for guitar cabinets and overheads on drums. I've still sadly never used ribbons for overheads or anything else, so I can't compare. I just started using PR30s after Lee Flier recommended them - and she also used ribbons for overheads and seemed to still think the PR30s were really good for this purpose.

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I've def done the whole "overcompression" phase. In all honestly may still do it some. Just wanted to mention how I tend to use compression (and eq) on kick. First off what sounds good in a mix may not sound as good soloed. So if it works in the mix don't worry if it doesn't sound so hot soloed. Just saying.

 

And now to slightly confuse the issue. I listen to the kick soloed and eq out anything I don't want. Is it too boomy, or too much bleed from the snare, hi-hat, ect? I try to tweak those out without taking out anything that makes the kick sound like a kick. If the snare's really bad I may use a gate after the eq, but try not to. Then I put up a compressor and set it to a fairly high ratio. 8:1 or so. Listen to it in the mix and tweak the threshold and attack until the the transient pops and sounds even. Then I play with the release and ratio to get it sounding more natural without losing the attack. So essentially I'm using the compressor to accentuate the attack/click of the BD. Finally, if necessary, I put on another eq if I need to add a touch more low end or snap. That said, the kick is usually my most "tweaked" channel as IMO it's one of the most important in a rock mix.

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