I'm New Here Don't Get Too Harsh.......

MOFO Pro said:
Compression will actually bring these levels up in the track... unless you're talking about gating... Close the window... and save the laundry for after the "session"
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the window does get closed, it's just that i live around the corner from a highway, and it's alot of truck traffic and construction going on, thats why honestly i havent even been recording as often from home as usual...... it's possible i may have been getting gating and compressing mixed up, but if so whatever i was doing with the analog compression was taking away the initial noise, i gate during post-recording though

quick question regarding this though..... so if i was to slightly compress and lower the gain during pre-recording, would that possibly be why the extra noises weren't dominant...... because thats something i find myself doing quite often as well, tweaking the gain and slight compression.....
 
Sinistah said:
so if i was to slightly compress and lower the gain during pre-recording, would that possibly be why the extra noises weren't dominant...... because thats something i find myself doing quite often as well, tweaking the gain and slight compression.....
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Uh ... no. :D


You wouldn't happen to be doing rap, by any chance, would you?

If so, then that would explain a lot.

.
 
Sinistah said:
quick question regarding this though..... so if i was to slightly compress and lower the gain during pre-recording, would that possibly be why the extra noises weren't dominant...... because thats something i find myself doing quite often as well, tweaking the gain and slight compression.....
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If you want to get rid of the background noise you should probably take the compressor out of the chain, switch to a dynamic mic, and "sing??" about an inch off of the mic.

The condensor is going to pick up a ton of room noise, the better the mic, the more of the room you're going to capture. If you compress on the way in, your just compressing the peaks, which would be your vocals, which just brings them down closer to the background noise, essentially bringing the background noise up. You could use the compressor exclusively as a gate, but it would sound fairly obvious on a vocal track, unless that's your "Style".
 
MOFO Pro said:
If you want to get rid of the background noise you should probably take the compressor out of the chain, switch to a dynamic mic, and "sing??" about an inch off of the mic.

The condensor is going to pick up a ton of room noise, the better the mic, the more of the room you're going to capture. If you compress on the way in, your just compressing the peaks, which would be your vocals, which just brings them down closer to the background noise, essentially bringing the background noise up. You could use the compressor exclusively as a gate, but it would sound fairly obvious on a vocal track, unless that's your "Style".
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hmmm, this is something i'll look into, and yeah when i used to just listen to my recording environment thru the headphones before recording to fool around with settings i'd notice it has a tremendous "pick-up" of noises, but i don't like using dynamic mics anymore unless its in a live situation where my voice would need to be reflected as strong as possible amongst the track and other noises.....

so perhaps the -10dB attenuation the mic comes with was taking the place of a gate in terms of minimizing the extra noise because fooling around with that switch alone displayed a significant difference in terms of sound atmosphere...

but hey ya'll the pro's i'm still learnin daily..... i can't wait to actually start putting this knowledge back to use if i didnt lose all my individual session tracks to a virus that swept out my song folder i would've been did this, but all i have is the finished wav's and/or mp3's and the instrumental tracks of the songs i did to go back and do some remixing of things...

i guess i'll start recording again by the weekend, hey it's gettin cold out, gotta do somethin to enjoy time passing, well recording and finding a potential wife to annoy at random for kicks......
 
I agree with MOFO, I think you're trying to solve the problem by treating the symptom with the wrong tools.

In general, anything you do with a gate going in can be done with a gate afterwards.

In general, anything you do with a compressor going in can be done with a compressor afterwards.

Notice a pattern here?

I would argue that there is NO reason to use these tools going in other than the one I already stated. There are too many benefits to be had from tracking clean and processing afterwards.
 
Sinistah said:
...i compress before hand to eliminate spare audio that may perhaps seep into the mic and "redline" it, like traffic from outside my window...
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A compressor definitely ain't gonna do that.

I use a little compression on the way in for kick and a little less for snare. I'll record bass guitar direct with compression.

I'll do those things because I'm sure how that will sound and because that's the sound I'm trying to get.

Adding compression later will allow you, as was mentioned earlier, to audition settings and (more fun and more importantly) try wacky settings just to see what you can make the damn thing do. You may discover something nobody else has even thought of.

Your voice is unique and your room is unique and your situation is unique.


Experiment and keep having fun is the best advice I can give you.



Have you access to an LA2A plugin? I have a feeling you'll like it.
 
Supercreep said:
A compressor definitely ain't gonna do that.

I use a little compression on the way in for kick and a little less for snare. I'll record bass guitar direct with compression.

I'll do those things because I'm sure how that will sound and because that's the sound I'm trying to get.

Adding compression later will allow you, as was mentioned earlier, to audition settings and (more fun and more importantly) try wacky settings just to see what you can make the damn thing do. You may discover something nobody else has even thought of.

Your voice is unique and your room is unique and your situation is unique.


Experiment and keep having fun is the best advice I can give you.



Have you access to an LA2A plugin? I have a feeling you'll like it.
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no i don't have an LA2A plug-in, i just did some research on it, seems like a "must have" for vocal compressing, i might see if i can get my hands on it by any means, lol!!!!

but i compress going in, because i like the way it makes my vocals sound in a fresh state from the box, so regardless if i need to do it first or not, i do it cause i like it and it works for me....
 
Sinistah said:
no i don't have an LA2A plug-in, i just did some research on it, seems like a "must have" for vocal compressing, i might see if i can get my hands on it by any means, lol!!!!

but i compress going in, because i like the way it makes my vocals sound in a fresh state from the box, so regardless if i need to do it first or not, i do it cause i like it and it works for me....
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lol, i just read the comment via the rep-points u gave me...... i still havent found it yet!
 
Sinistah said:
no i don't have an LA2A plug-in, i just did some research on it, seems like a "must have" for vocal compressing, i might see if i can get my hands on it by any means, lol!!!!

but i compress going in, because i like the way it makes my vocals sound in a fresh state from the box, so regardless if i need to do it first or not, i do it cause i like it and it works for me....
Click to expand...

So you mean it has nothing to do with a noisy environment, but rather a 'sonic' preference that you use a comp going in? (A comp will certainly not be the tool for the job of tackling the former, as has already been said a few times.)

And the 24-bit comment is true also - compressing/EQ'ing on the way in was more a 16-bit or tape folk thing, wasn't it?
 
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