Compressing on the way in with a software compressor?

[Exocaster]

Dumb question, but I'm at work right now and can't experiment. Can I compress on the way in by having a compressor plugin active on the track I'm recording to in Logic, or would I need a hardware comp in line to do that? I've never tried, so...?

[Ethan Winer]

It's always better to defer effects for mixdown. If you compress too hard going in it's impossible to undo later.

 

--Ethan

[Phil O'Keefe]

I don't have a problem with compressing on the way in; I either tend to go without, go easy or go all out... If I'm going for transparency, I might go without. If I'm just taming things a bit, I might go easy... and if I'm going for a specific "sound", I might go all out. But Ethan's correct - you really have to think about it, know what you want, and know what you're doing if you're going to compress on the way in - if you over-squash something while tracking it, you can never really "undo" it.

[Music Calgary]

It's always better to defer effects for mixdown.

 

I disagree.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with compressing during tracking if required -- there's not a single accomplished engineer in the U.S. who hasn't/doesn't on successful projects.

 

"Undestructive" editing is the bane of this industry -- no question that having to make decisions and stick with them was a critical component of the great studio albums most of us hold in such high reverence.

 

If you know what sound you need/want and how to achieve it then it makes no sense not to get as close to that as you can prior to hitting your converter.

 

Imagine if painters deferred coloring their paintings until the last step? Or if Stephen King deferred character development until his novels were written? Or a chef who creates meals which have no flavor until the last step?

 

Good art evolves via a chain of decisions and the artist's method of molding the consequences of those decisions. Certainly it's not good to hunt for sounds during tracking where you absolutely need to get work done, but if you know what you need then there's no equity in recording anything but that.

[albiedamned]

I think we've all missed the key point in the OP's question: compressing on the way in with a SOFTWARE compressor. The answer is that this isn't possible. What will get recorded will be the raw track. You'll hear the results of the compression if you're doing real time monitoring, but it doesn't get printed to the track. You can always remove the compressor effect later.

 

So sure you can put a compressor plugin on a track while recording, but it won't affect what gets recorded.

[Eschatologist]

I think we've all missed the key point in the OP's question: compressing on the way in with a SOFTWARE compressor. The answer is that this isn't possible. What will get recorded will be the raw track. You'll hear the results of the compression if you're doing real time monitoring, but it doesn't get printed to the track. You can always remove the compressor effect later. So sure you can put a compressor plugin on a track while recording, but it won't affect what gets recorded.

 

You could always loop it back through another I/O and print to a track in real time that way...but why would you want to?

[nerol1st]

I haven't tried it in logic. It's possible in PT and cubase though, so my guess is there is a way to do it.

[Music Calgary]

 

I think we've all missed the key point in the OP's question: compressing on the way in with a SOFTWARE compressor. The answer is that this isn't possible.

 

 

Ahh, I see. yes, I would never do that. You can actually place inserts on an input channel in some DAWs though. Some EMU cards actually allow you to apply plug-ins via your interface, i.e. "pre-DAW".

[UstadKhanAli]

You could always loop it back through another I/O and print to a track in real time that way...but why would you want to?

 

Because he doesn't have a hardware compressor?

 

Read Phil's post, as I don't have time to "re-write" what he said...

 

But that's basically how I feel as well.

[UstadKhanAli]

It's always better to defer effects for mixdown. --Ethan

 

 

No, Ethan...commit, COMMIT!!!

[Zooey]

With no hardware compressor, I might play around with a compressor on the insert while tracking.

 

Then if I heard something I liked, I'd save a preset, uninstanciate the plug-in, and reapply it later. If you're input monitoring, you're not going to be able to monitor the effect while tracking anyway, so why fly blind?

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I think we've all missed the key point in the OP's question: compressing on the way in with a SOFTWARE compressor. The answer is that this isn't possible. What will get recorded will be the raw track. You'll hear the results of the compression if you're doing real time monitoring, but it doesn't get printed to the track. You can always remove the compressor effect later. So sure you can put a compressor plugin on a track while recording, but it won't affect what gets recorded.

 

 

In most cases, you are correct... but if you absolutely wanted something processed via a software plug-in, there are ways to do it. In PT HD, you can insert the plug-in on an insert on the track you're recording, then use an aux send to route it to another track; the recording on the second track would be processed, while the original track would not.

 

Of course, you can just as easily "apply" the compression to the track after you've recorded it - via Audiosuite processing (destructive, non-real time), by using a plug-in on an insert and routing it to a new track, routing the source track out of a hardware output on the interface and into a hardware compressor and then back into an input and recording the processed signal to a new track, etc. If you're using software for this, The question IMO is - why? IMO, it's more flexible to just use the plug-in for the processing without "printing" it. The only time I would recommend printing a plug-in compressor would be to process a clone of the track (so I could revert to the original, unprocessed track later, if desired) in an effort to reduce processor load on a complex session that was "pushing" the limits of the system's computational power. After "printing" the effects / processors, you could disable the plug-in and lower the CPU load.... but if your system has CPU power to spare, I personally do not see any real advantage to printing the effect. Of course, if you're planning on exporting the file to use it in another DAW, and want to retain the "sound" of the processing, then you'd want to print it before exporting it.

[Phil O'Keefe]

"Undestructive" editing is the bane of this industry -- no question that having to make decisions and stick with them was a critical component of the great studio albums most of us hold in such high reverence.

 

Back then, we had no choice - you printed the compressor going in, or you had to strap it across the board channel's insert, or patch it inline on the tape return to process a track in the mix - and since you rarely had a ton of hardware compressors available (or at least it seemed like there was never enough ) , printing the compression on the way in was one of your only options. Plus it also helped in terms of optimizing the S/N ratio of the recorded tracks when you were printing to tape.

 

However, time, technology, tools and techniques move on, and so there's no real way to say with certainty whether or not those engineers would have always taken the same approach if they had access to today's tools. I suspect that some would have, and some would not have done so, but that's pure speculation on my part.

 

"Bouncing" was similar in some respects... you had limited tracks, so you had to commit to a submix when you did a submix bounce to free up tracks on a analog multitrack - once you "burned" the source tracks by recording "over" them, there was no going back. If you got the balances wrong (and since you were not hearing all of the tracks yet, sometimes visualizing how the thing was going to work in the final mix could be tricky), you either had to live with it or start all over. I know of very few engineers from that "analog only" era (myself included) who miss that aspect of recording. However, it does teach you how to listen to the track and really think about what you're doing - which is partially why I still think there are advantages to learning to record on a track limited system.

 

Good art evolves via a chain of decisions and the artist's method of molding the consequences of those decisions. Certainly it's not good to hunt for sounds during tracking where you absolutely need to get work done, but if you know what you need then there's no equity in recording anything but that

 

I fully agree with you there. Too many decisions ARE often "put off until later" in modern recordings. In some cases, having the ability to "decide later" is beneficial and gives you options - but if you put off every decision until later, it can lead to "option overload". IMO, there's nothing wrong with (and a lot to be said for) committing to something whenever you are digging what you're hearing and know it's what you want.

[whitepapagold]

Thanks Phil... Everyone who said no is a complete idiot. No joke.

 

Its SOOOOOO easy its amazing, though I only track with hardware. Software is only worth doing if you have serious dsp limitations and no time.

 

How this turned into a mixing debate is beyond me...

[Music Calgary]

 

Everyone who said no is a complete idiot.

 

 

Never argue with an expert...

[albiedamned]

I cannot think of a single benefit to the arrangement where you put a compressor plugin on a channel insert while recording that channel, send it to an aux bus, and have the output of that bus record to a different channel. The compressor effect is happening after the preamp and A-D conversion. If your original signal clipped, then you've just compressed a clipped signal, and now you are the lucky owner of the original track with the clipping and the second track with the compressed clipping.

[Music Calgary]

 

I cannot think of a single benefit to the arrangement where you put a compressor plugin on a channel insert while recording that channel, send it to an aux bus, and have the output of that bus record to a different channel. The compressor effect is happening after the preamp and A-D conversion. If your original signal clipped, then you've just compressed a clipped signal, and now you are the lucky owner of the original track with the clipping and the second track with the compressed clipping.

 

 

I guess the idea would be adding color, not limiting.

[rsadasiv]

 

I cannot think of a single benefit to the arrangement where you put a compressor plugin on a channel insert while recording that channel, send it to an aux bus, and have the output of that bus record to a different channel. The compressor effect is happening after the preamp and A-D conversion. If your original signal clipped, then you've just compressed a clipped signal, and now you are the lucky owner of the original track with the clipping and the second track with the compressed clipping.

 

 

Totally agree.

[Phil O'Keefe]

 

I cannot think of a single benefit to the arrangement where you put a compressor plugin on a channel insert while recording that channel, send it to an aux bus, and have the output of that bus record to a different channel. The compressor effect is happening after the preamp and A-D conversion. If your original signal clipped, then you've just compressed a clipped signal, and now you are the lucky owner of the original track with the clipping and the second track with the compressed clipping.

 

 

If you clip going in, you'll be clipped on both tracks, as you pointed out. If you use compression in an effort to avoid clipping your A/D converters (which I normally don't), then outboard hardware is your only option - a compressor plug-in isn't going to benefit you at all. However, if you're going for a "sound", or if you're using the compressor for dynamics control, or envelope processing, then you can do that post A/D converter.

 

Why would you want to use an aux and print a non-compressed and compressed version simultaneously? Like I said earlier, I don't see much benefit from doing that (printing software compression) except when doing it later on to reduce CPU load.

[whitepapagold]

Never argue with an expert...

 

 

You have proved time and time again, an expert you are not! But I will say you are consistent in your ignorance, and I respect consistency!

[Music Calgary]

Everyone who said no is a complete idiot. You have proved time and time again, an expert you are not!

 

Alas. You've got me, my scanty grasp of the topic is nothing short of pitiable. I bow to your obvious superiority vis-a-vis idiocy and all its related disciplines. You're like the Tiger Woods... Completely dominant. I lose.

[MrJoshua]

So, to boil the thread down, if your goal is to prevent converter clipping, no, you can't do that with software plugins. If your goal is just to capture the compressed sound on the track, then yes, there are ways to do it, but the benefits of doing it are questionable.

[Ethan Winer]

Back then, we had no choice ... However, time, technology, tools and techniques move on

 

Excellent summary Phil. I can think of no reason to commit if you don't have to. At best you got lucky (not to discount your skill), but at worst you're hosed. To those who prefer to commit, go for it. But if you're ever sorry later, don't come crying to me!

 

--Ethan

[Music Calgary]

 

I can think of no reason to commit if you don't have to.

 

 

Art.

[MrJoshua]

Art.

 

If everybody made art the same way, art would be pretty boring.