From: Mark Knecht (markknecht_at_attbi.com)
Date: 11/02/02 16:02 EST
From: "Mark Knecht" <markknecht@attbi.com> Subject: RE: [Ardour-users] compression Message-ID: <NCBBIAJIAJDLHEFAALBMAEDADHAA.markknecht@attbi.com> Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 13:02:06 -0800 Anthony, Ron's answer to your question is going to be far more fun and entertaining than I could write. He's in the trenches and what he talks about makes sense to me. A great site, if you or anyone else is into reading (not as much fun as Ron's post!) is here: http://www.studiocovers.com/articles.htm This place has more good articles than any other site I've spent time at. Lots of great info on using compressors. To be clear, I'm not doing recording for a living, although I have spent time in studios both as a musician and as an engineer. I'm just a home boy these days having fun making my own music and thinking about opening up a studio one of these days. (Next career...) ;-) I'm do not actually use compressors all that much during recording. Like Ron said, it's best never to print effects if possible. With that in mind, I try to do any recording completely raw and ride the faders if I need to not letting things clip but trying to get good levels. However, my experience is that when I do that, I can get good, open sounding mixes, but they are never as loud similar songs off of a commercial CD. This is basically because there is too much of a difference between the average energy in my mixes and the highest peaks that would be the first to clip. This is the main thing I use compressors to try to fix. When I'm done with my mix and thinking about burning a CD, I then take the mix through a program like Sound Forge from Sonic Foundry. That program is able to give me statistics on average energy and all sorts of stuff. From there I usually try adding just a little bit of compression to get the whole mix a bit louder without making it feel all squashed and radio sounding. This usually is maybe 3-6db of gain and doesn't kick in until the overall level gets pretty hot. In this situation my goal is for the compressor to not really be noticeable. IF you're not careful though it becomes VERY noticeable, so use it very sparingly. I also use *hardware* compressors with external mic preamps and do print the effect when recording live sometimes. The RFC is a good one, and not expensive. I've recorded some vocal groups that also have bands, and often the drummers have too much dynamic range. They are sort of quiet when they are usually playing, but then they'll hit a really loud notes and cause clipping. In this case I like the compressor to really squash the very loud stuff, but try and be out of the way most of the time. One of the things you want to watch out for with compressors is what's called 'pumping', which is where the attack/release times of the compressor actually match up to the music. You should read about that. I originally approached Steve on doing these compressors simply because we didn't have any to play with. I've compared his work with the Waves C1 and I find it comparable for the sort of things I use a compressor for, but I think that the Waves compressors use more CPU power and give you more adjustments over time. They have some very long release times, if I remember correctly. Steve and I talked about adding this, but decided not to until someone with ears better than mine, or a need, tells him it's really required. I hope one of these days we can get around to building then next level of compressor, which is a multi-band compressor. It allows you to compress specific areas of the sound, like high-frequencies, without effecting mid-range or low frequency. This would be like a Waves C4. Anyway, I'm way boring compared to Ron, like I said! ;-) Hope you enjoy the link though. It's very good. Cheers, Mark -----Original Message----- From: ardour-users-admin@lists.sourceforge.net [mailto:ardour-users-admin@lists.sourceforge.net]On Behalf Of Anthony Sent: Saturday, November 02, 2002 11:57 AM To: R Parker Cc: ardour-users@lists.sourceforge.net Subject: Re: [Ardour-users] compression * R Parker <rtp405@yahoo.com> [Nov 02 02 12:00]: > Hi, > > --- Anthony <avan@uwm.edu> wrote: > > > > Maybe this isn't the right place for this, but I'm > > wondering if one of > > the pro's could comment on how to use compression > > for vocals and > > acoustic guitar. Perhaps Steve or Mark have some > > comments. I've been > > exploring the new SC[1-3]. Maybe some useful > > presets? Or a link to > > some reading material? > > I've had two much coffee so I'll paint the whole > picture within which I'll describe some problems that > compression solves for me. > Wow, thanks. I wish my coffee to output ratio was so high. --ant ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: See the NEW Palm Tungsten T handheld. Power & Color in a compact size! http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?palm0001en _______________________________________________ Ardour-users mailing list Ardour-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ardour-users ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: See the NEW Palm Tungsten T handheld. Power & Color in a compact size! http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?palm0001en _______________________________________________ Ardour-users mailing list Ardour-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ardour-users
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