I compressed some vocals wrong and need help.....

[purplepeople]

I made a song about a year ago. It's probably my favorite song I've ever made. I mixed half the track one day and the other other half on the next day.
The first day I compressed my vocals 4:1. On the second day I compressed my vocals "accidentally" 2:1.
I didn't realize I had done this until after I had saved and closed my project.
Because of this the second half of the track doesn't match the first. How can I fix it?
Please realize I know little about compression and I've just always mixed my vocals 4:1. What can I do to get them to match up better?
2:1 is actually compressing the vocals less right? So in theory I would just need to compress them more right? What ratio would I need to use?
Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Thanks!

 

[mixedbymatty]

Try compression it again 2:1. You could also try some expanding on the more compressed file to bring back some of the dynamics. It shouldn't be too hard to get these close together. Just play with the compressor and use your ear. Don't worry to much about the ratios.

 

[andrushkiwt]

...I've just always mixed my vocals 4:1.

That's the first problem. You should get in the habit of compressing them the amount they need compression, not some arbitrary number. Getting into habits like "always doing x" isn't going to accelerate your abilities - it's going to hinder them.

If you ARE going to think in those terms, however, you'll probably find that achieving a certain amount of gain reduction is more beneficial to the sounds than setting a certain ratio. So, aiming to achieve 5-6 db of reduction on rock/pop vocals is probably going to achieve a more pleasant result than just setting it at 4:1 and calling it a day. Really, that 4:1 setting could be achieving no reduction at all, depending how your other parameters are set up. Get it? Aim for reduction, if you're going to aim for anything in particular.

As for your current issue, sure, you could set the new compressor at 2:1, but what does that matter? How does it sound? Give it what it needs, that's all.

 

[rob aylestone]

Do you not keep the original audio files? Or incremental progress files? Whenever I've had a problem I've just gone back taken the source files and brought them back into the project as a new track and then applied the processing again. If I have a severely comped track made up of loads of chunks, I usually save this comped track as a single audio file for exactly this reason. If you've not squashed the hell out of it could you try some expansion? It does need some dynamic range to work, but might save you having to over compress what is left?