sidechain compression

[thehitman2375]

I don't want to speak for him, but the uses are pretty pedestrian...
1) This would emulate an old opto-compressor. It's great for vocals, bass, or anything that needs to be compressed pretty hard without stepping on the transients too hard.

B) This is like the ducker on the radio. When you talk, the background music gets quiet. But you don't actually want the music to pump along to how loud the person is talking. You want it to go down to a certain level and stay there.

III) This one is kind of the opposite of #1. This gives the effect of starting off compressing at a lower ratio on lower signals and ramping up to a higher ratio as the signal gets hotter. This makes the compression seem more transparent.

not sure what u mean by pedestrian.

using the sidechain to emulate an old opto compressor just seems like a lot more work to me than using an old opto style compressor. i can't think of any situation where i'd prefer to set up and program a sidechain to emulate something, instead of actually just using the thing i'm emulating. i also can't think of any compressors that i would ever want to use that offer a sidechain path that didn't have soft knee style compression. i'm curios what the names of them are. regardless, if i wanted soft knee compression, using an external compressor on the sidechain signal path to emulate soft knee style compression on a hard knee compressor is a whole lot of work that could be avoided by just using a soft knee compressor.

in theory, these things make sense, but i can't imagine that anyone would find them more practical than actually using the right tool for the job. if you genuinely have a hard knee compressor, with a side chain, that doesn't have a soft knee, and u want soft knee compression, then it's not the tool your looking for. you wouldn't drive from philly to NYC by traveling through nebraska unless you had a real reason to go to nebraska. if that reason is for you to get directions to NYC from philly, then wow, just...wow. thanks out of my league. that's some advanced stuff that i've never encountered in all the times i've driven to NYC from Philly. the same for all the songs i've ever worked on. if you encounter a situation where that technique works best, sounds best, or in any way fits the situation, then it's perfect for that. just because i've never encountered it doesn't mean that it's not something worth trying, but in order for me to understand what makes it a practical thing to do, i'd need a practical reason to do it. really, how many compressors, and i'd like names here, don't have soft knee that have sidechains? if you can give me a name, then also, give me an instrument/vocal/fx/sound/other where you would want to use that method with that compressor INSTEAD of just using a different (soft knee) compressor. if i had compressors that didn't do what i wanted them to do, then that wouldn't be the tool to pick. there's a lot of great compressors out there. all kinds of them. just pick the right one instead of picking the wrong one and then trying to fake it.

what you guys are talking about is an intellectual exercise. there's no crime in that. it's actually kinda neat. but so far, i gave 7 very good examples of what, when, where, why, and how, and now you're telling me this idea of dynamically processing the sidechain of a dynamics processor and that's it's such a wonderful and useful thing, but you haven't given any examples of what you would use it on, and how it can help the mix. so far the justification has been: well if you don't have a compressor with a sidechain that isn't soft knee, and well because i like old style compressors but instead of actually using one, we'll fake it. how does that make sense in any practical way? my applications could be used with anybody's dynamics processors, and you're giving me this in return: "well in the event you want to use a compressor that doesn't have the right sound" technique. seriously, that's what you are actually using as an example. it's kinda blowing my mind. no matter how correct your numbers are, or how many different ways you can do something, is it really helping anybody to point out that it can be done but not even cite an actual (real life) example?

i'm sorry guys, i don't get it at all. please, forgive me for being so blunt. it's like to me you want to hold a mallet with a wrench to drive a nail, instead of using an actual hammer. at this point, i simply have to just straight up admit, that i'm not advanced enough at this to get what you are talking about. i'd like to, and a real life application would help me out here fellas. i fully endorse that what you have written is a good theory worth exploring as an academic exercise. if you want to write a thesis on this and turn it into your teacher for a letter grade, i'd give you props for thinking this through. but beyond that, my understanding is too limited to see the genius of it.

 

[Farview]

not sure what u mean by pedestrian.

Not very exciting.

using the sidechain to emulate an old opto compressor just seems like a lot more work to me than using an old opto style compressor. i can't think of any situation where i'd prefer to set up and program a sidechain to emulate something, instead of actually just using the thing i'm emulating. i also can't think of any compressors that i would ever want to use that offer a sidechain path that didn't have soft knee style compression. i'm curios what the names of them are. regardless, if i wanted soft knee compression, using an external compressor on the sidechain signal path to emulate soft knee style compression on a hard knee compressor is a whole lot of work that could be avoided by just using a soft knee compressor.

If you don't have access to an opto, this is what you would have to do to get that effect. The opto thing is completely different than the soft knee.

in theory, these things make sense, but i can't imagine that anyone would find them more practical than actually using the right tool for the job. if you genuinely have a hard knee compressor, with a side chain, that doesn't have a soft knee, and u want soft knee compression, then it's not the tool your looking for. you wouldn't drive from philly to NYC by traveling through nebraska unless you had a real reason to go to nebraska. if that reason is for you to get directions to NYC from philly, then wow, just...wow. thanks out of my league. that's some advanced stuff that i've never encountered in all the times i've driven to NYC from Philly. the same for all the songs i've ever worked on. if you encounter a situation where that technique works best, sounds best, or in any way fits the situation, then it's perfect for that. just because i've never encountered it doesn't mean that it's not something worth trying, but in order for me to understand what makes it a practical thing to do, i'd need a practical reason to do it. really, how many compressors, and i'd like names here, don't have soft knee that have sidechains? if you can give me a name, then also, give me an instrument/vocal/fx/sound/other where you would want to use that method with that compressor INSTEAD of just using a different (soft knee) compressor. if i had compressors that didn't do what i wanted them to do, then that wouldn't be the tool to pick. there's a lot of great compressors out there. all kinds of them. just pick the right one instead of picking the wrong one and then trying to fake it.

Again, this is more along the lines of gorilla compression tactics. Nothing about this is more convenient than having the actual tool for the job. This is what you can do if you don't have access to the appropriate thing. If you are never in a situation where you need to cobble together some stuff to create something you don't have handy, awesome! That's great for you.

I'm not sure any of this is an awesome idea (other than the ducking thing), it's simply a possibility. You can obviously dispute anything said here by asking "why don't you just get the thing that does that?" But you could say that about a de-esser as well, no need to EQ the sideschain of a compressor when you can simply pull a de-esser out and plug it in...

what you guys are talking about is an intellectual exercise. there's no crime in that. it's actually kinda neat. but so far, i gave 7 very good examples of what, when, where, why, and how, and now you're telling me this idea of dynamically processing the sidechain of a dynamics processor and that's it's such a wonderful and useful thing, but you haven't given any examples of what you would use it on, and how it can help the mix. so far the justification has been: well if you don't have a compressor with a sidechain that isn't soft knee, and well because i like old style compressors but instead of actually using one, we'll fake it. how does that make sense in any practical way? my applications could be used with anybody's dynamics processors, and you're giving me this in return: "well in the event you want to use a compressor that doesn't have the right sound" technique. seriously, that's what you are actually using as an example. it's kinda blowing my mind. no matter how correct your numbers are, or how many different ways you can do something, is it really helping anybody to point out that it can be done but not even cite an actual (real life) example?

You keep comparing your examples to these as if these are meant to take the place of yours. These are in addition to, not in place of.

i'm sorry guys, i don't get it at all. please, forgive me for being so blunt. it's like to me you want to hold a mallet with a wrench to drive a nail, instead of using an actual hammer. at this point, i simply have to just straight up admit, that i'm not advanced enough at this to get what you are talking about. i'd like to, and a real life application would help me out here fellas. i fully endorse that what you have written is a good theory worth exploring as an academic exercise. if you want to write a thesis on this and turn it into your teacher for a letter grade, i'd give you props for thinking this through. but beyond that, my understanding is too limited to see the genius of it.

Have you really never wanted to change the behavior of the knee on a compressor? Have you always had the perfect tool for the job at hand? I'm really not understanding what you don't get.

 

[BroKen_H]

Personally, I'm never sure of the tools. I need more experience, and that's why I prefer to experiment. Shoot, I play with the soft knee on my C1 all the time and the difference is so subtle it's difficult to tell what sounds "best". Exaggerating the signal is the only way I know to "hear" what's going on, and then it's exaggerated...I don't have the experience to tell what will sound "best" when I shut it back down. There's a lot of things I find frustrating with compressors, because they do such a subtle thing to the music and it is REALLY easy to overdo it.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Foof! I'm not sure I want to continue this conversation. Farview made some good points and covered about half the reasons I threw these out here.

To that point, and to answer a specific question: Alesis 3630. Why am I trying to mix with only a 3630? Well, I did for a few years, back before you could get a decent emulation of any compressor you can think of for free. This is a world-wide community and there are still folks out here for which "Go buy this" or "Go download that" are not viable options.

But there's this other thing that's almost the opposite. I've always wanted as much access to as many parameters as possible. Some of these specialty comps like this opto thing only have two knobs. You pull it up, turn the knobs, it does what it does. If you don't like exactly the way it does what it does then maybe you try another similar and hope.

Or you could build your own. That's what the guys in the trenches did back in the "golden era" when there was nowhere to go to buy what they wanted. The techniques I've outlined give you access to parameters that nobody else will give you. It gives you the ability to tailor the response to the actual sound you're working in a way you really can't get any other way. It allows all kinds of complex curves that can and likely will be more appropriate for your real-world applications than whatever presets are built into your favorite shiny box.

I know that's not for everyone. It's definitely not for noobs. We're not in the noob forum here though. This is Mixing Techniques. I completely do not understand how this thing got so heated. I'm just sharing ideas, and maybe trying to get some folks to think, to illustrate some points about the way these things work. Use it or don't. We talk about series compression on occassional, and parallel compression fairly often. I might argue that with the right compressors those techniques are redundant.

I'm not going to cite any specific uses for any of these because they are simple variations of pretty well-known techniques. There are plenty of "What compressor for this" threads out there. If you try that compressor for that, and it's close but not exactly what you want, try this.

 

[thehitman2375]

i don't think i implied that these ideas were better or worse or instead of mine, i'm genuinely interested in finding out how the idea can be applied to MUSIC. the thing that is so frustrating to me is that their is no mention of music, instrument, style, performance, or circumstances that relate to using the ideas in any musical way. it feels like you are writing a book called: When A Tree Falls In The Woods: An Engineer's Guide To Making "Nothing" Sound Great! gear by itself has NO sound. (uh ohh, now i've done it..lol) sidechains are actually useful for working on music. your ideas can't be applied by anyone because you haven't stated a case for something like: i'm using a 3630 on a bass sound for an R & B track and i want it to have characteristics of an 1176 or LA2A, therefore this is what i did to achieve that sound.... you spouting numbers and types of gear that exists isn't helpful in a practical way without context. have YOU even used these techniques? if so, where and on what to achieve what. it's still a great theoretical exercise. i still advise people to experiment with your ideas. how they decide to use them is up to them, but can you please at least give us some direction? is that asking too much? if i take these posts out of context of the thread and let a person read it that knew nothing of music or dynamics processing, would they even be able to figure out you are talking about music? reading my original post, is there any doubt whatsoever about where or when or on what any of the things i listed would be? would there be any doubt as to how these things could be useful in a musical situation? you mention being disappointed with my post because you thought it could have been more creative, but i've asked how many times what to do with your ideas and you haven't come up with any. (lack of creativity maybe? idk...) you have an answer and no question. u state u don't know where it would be applied, therefore making it useless to anyone who can't think of a reason to use it. the moral here is never buy from a salesman who tells you how great something is but has never used the thing they are selling.

i understand why you wouldn't be sure of the tools BroKen_H. it is hard to figure it out by one's self, and when you can get good practical advice, it can get you on track to figuring it out much faster. sounds like you want to know how the tools affect the sound and when to use them and why. if someone doesn't actually give you a real world answer, you will likely be left confused with even more questions and nowhere closer to benefiting your music. if i tell you: well if the soft knee has a slope less than the square root of the threshold minus the ratio inversely proportional to the style of opto-chop-to mumbly bumbly, then it's gonna sound good. just understand that the attack has to be A$T$#%^983254 times the transient properties of water at a height of 300 ft above sea level. wouldn't it be better if someone just said: for a smoother and fatter overall sound on a bass in an R & B song, try starting with an opto compressor with a fast attack and medium release. for more punch, increase the attack time or change the knee. i mean which of those things is useful? mumbly bumbly? or smoother, fatter, bass in an R & B song? idk u be the judge

every DAW, mobile audio workstation and digital mixer i have ever used has a continuously variable control for adjusting the "Knee". Protools, Logic Po X, Digital Performer, Cubase, Nuendo, & Cakewalk all have stock dynamics processors that have continuously variable "knees". "stock" meaning it comes with the program, FREE OF CHARGE. you say that you are outlining parameters that nobody else will give you. i can tell you the combination to my bike lock. nobody else can tell you those parameters and they are about as useful to others as your's. maybe if i tell you where my bike is, and what kind of bike and what it looks like, then maybe, just maybe, my parameters would be more useful. but thanks though. i'm very grateful that you shared your exclusive parameters.

hey man, i wouldn't bother responding if there wasn't some merit to what you are saying. thing is, you want to think outside the box, yet you let the gear keep you in the box. outside the box is in the application of your ideas. talking about gear and settings is about as inside the box as you can be. give me an actual musical application, using language that describes sounds and musical ideas. that would be outside the box. i know i can't give you the answer. so at the very least, it's outside my box. right now, you are all about statistics and probabilities. lets talk about music please.

use the right tools for the job. if you lack tools, work with what you have, and get the most out of it. at the end of the day, all i really care about is the music, whatever you use to make music, is fine by me.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Yup I'm done. Have fun.

 

[Farview]

You must really like to type.

Even though most compressors in daws and digital mixers have a variable knee, not everyone uses daws and digital mixers. Some people have hardware which isn't variable. The ones that do have variable knee still don't have a variation that gives it an "S" type curve, meaning that it's soft knee to a certain point, then clamps down, but after it clamps down so much it softens up again. This can be useful for a lot of things, but what comes to mind is slap bass. The compressor will ride the overall volume without squashing the transeints. (assuming you set the threshold so the transients are past the point that it clamps down hard.

It might also be useful for snare drum, to level off the level of the hits without clamping on the transient. It will also allow you to bring up the ghost notes too.

How exactly would I imagine that anything I say here would benefit your music? I've never heard your music. Terms like 'smoother', 'fatter', 'warmer', 'browner', etc... mean different things to different people. That makes them pretty useless when describing how a piece of equipment is reacting to something. Take the snare drum example above, would it have made more sense if I said it would make the snare fatter with more snap? That wouldn't even be true if the snare was tuned low, it would make it slushier with more pop.

There are way too many variables in what instruments sound like and what people want to hear in order to say something like "This will make your R&B bass super-tight, yo!" BTW, when you say R&B, are you talking about Issac Hayes, Micheal Jackson, Beyonce? All of that sounds completely different.

Besides, there is a lot more to be recorded than just music. The ducking thing would be awesome for podcasting...

 

[RFR]

Well I'm happy to say after reading this whole thread with massive amounts of verbiage, I understand compression much less now.

I think I'll go back to the ways I have always done it....... after taking some asprin for this mysterious headache I now have.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Well I'm happy to say after reading this whole thread with massive amounts of verbiage, I understand compression much less now.

I think I'll go back to the ways I have always done it....... after taking some asprin for this mysterious headache I now have.

I pretty much just skip over giant blocks of lower case text.

 

[thehitman2375]

You must really like to type.

typing as a tool for communicating, well, yeah. typing for typing's sake, not so much. there's a difference.

Even though most compressors in daws and digital mixers have a variable knee, not everyone uses daws and digital mixers. Some people have hardware which isn't variable. The ones that do have variable knee still don't have a variation that gives it an "S" type curve, meaning that it's soft knee to a certain point, then clamps down, but after it clamps down so much it softens up again. This can be useful for a lot of things, but what comes to mind is slap bass. The compressor will ride the overall volume without squashing the transeints. (assuming you set the threshold so the transients are past the point that it clamps down hard.

It might also be useful for snare drum, to level off the level of the hits without clamping on the transient. It will also allow you to bring up the ghost notes too.

you give a good example, but how that relates to using dynamic processors on dynamic sidechains, isn't clear. if you are refering to using compression without a sidechain, you are actually making my point exactly, because you are suggesting using the correct tools to do the job you are looking for it to do.

How exactly would I imagine that anything I say here would benefit your music? I've never heard your music.

ELECTRO - ISOMETRIC by Bill TheHitman | Free Listening on SoundCloud REIGNITION by Bill TheHitman | Free Listening on SoundCloud this is some of my own music. i also have 18 years worth of client's songs that i recorded/mixed/mastered of all styles of music. these 2 would best describe my music though

Terms like 'smoother', 'fatter', 'warmer', 'browner', etc... mean different things to different people. That makes them pretty useless when describing how a piece of equipment is reacting to something. Take the snare drum example above, would it have made more sense if I said it would make the snare fatter with more snap? That wouldn't even be true if the snare was tuned low, it would make it slushier with more pop.

true, but even if there's a difference, it would be my preference to hear or read these kind of adjectives to at least give some ballpark idea to myself or (someone else) that would otherwise get nothing from the technical terminology alone. what's a soft knee to someone that doesn't have a basic understanding of the characteristics that they are looking for or what they are able to achieve with their instruments or sounds? you have to start somewhere, regardless of the fact that everyone views things differently. characteristics can communicate a better understanding of what's trying to be done, even when people may not agree on the result, at least they are aiming at the same target instead of firing blindly hoping to hit what they want; simply because someone explains what you can use to shoot with.

There are way too many variables in what instruments sound like and what people want to hear in order to say something like "This will make your R&B bass super-tight, yo!" BTW, when you say R&B, are you talking about Issac Hayes, Micheal Jackson, Beyonce? All of that sounds completely different.

agreed, that's why i was asking for the basic variables of the situation for wanting to use the tools as he suggested to begin with. as for the difference in sounds of r&b, that's why i'm askiing for the relevance. you are saying exactly what i was saying, which was, what is the purpose of using the tool and on what and why. you understand that the style is relevant, which was my point. well said!

Besides, there is a lot more to be recorded than just music. The ducking thing would be awesome for podcasting...

once again, you make my point. one of my examples was for creating an automatic talkback switch. ducking in podcasting is typical. it is also typical in radio, tv, movies, and many other spoken word situations not related to music. there's a purpose to using the tools there. the reason isn't "because it's creative". it's the right tool for the job.

using dynamics processing on a dynamic processor's sidechain signal path without any other context or variable, is simply a theoretical exercise. it's not an insult, but again, limited in it's usefulness. it's worth experimenting with. but if you want to use the tools for something practical, you are saying the same thing i said and that's: you need to know what it will be used for and why. making one compressor sound like another, is not relevant unless you know what you are running through it and how it fits the overall sound of the source material (music/other)

it's just interesting that the person who feels my post wasn't creative enough can't give even 1 example for using his own ideas. but i did notice that he likes to talk about the gear and the settings. for what that's worth, the quantity and quality of his "statistical ballistics" may be great, but the value of the numbers alone isn't as helpful to most people without context as he might want to believe. just my opinion.

i'm not claiming to be better, all i'm saying is, it's worthwhile to offer practical and useful ideas that relate to the real world of audio. the technical schematics can be found and read to one's heart content, but using the (correct) tools is another story.

 

[Farview]

you give a good example, but how that relates to using dynamic processors on dynamic sidechains, isn't clear. if you are refering to using compression without a sidechain, you are actually making my point exactly, because you are suggesting using the correct tools to do the job you are looking for it to do.

This is exactly what I'm saying. You would use a compressor on the sidechain of another compressor in order to create the 'S' shaped knee. If you set the compressor in the sidechain of the other to be a limiter, what will happen to the sound is it will get compressed in the center of its dynamic range with its transients untouched.

ELECTRO - ISOMETRIC by Bill TheHitman | Free Listening on SoundCloud REIGNITION by Bill TheHitman | Free Listening on SoundCloud this is some of my own music. i also have 18 years worth of client's songs that i recorded/mixed/mastered of all styles of music. these 2 would best describe my music though

The only things I could think of for either of these would be to use the technique to smash the drum buss a bit and maybe get a little more spank on the bass part. Assuming you have the cymbals separate from the kit, I would run all the drum tracks to a buss, compress the buss hard. Using the compressor in the sidechain at a high ratio, so that the hardest hits don't get compressed any more than the medium hits do. That will keep the drums from sounding squashed, but give them enough girth to compete with the rest of the track. They are getting swallowed up a bit.

true, but even if there's a difference, it would be my preference to hear or read these kind of adjectives to at least give some ballpark idea to myself or (someone else) that would otherwise get nothing from the technical terminology alone. what's a soft knee to someone that doesn't have a basic understanding of the characteristics that they are looking for or what they are able to achieve with their instruments or sounds? you have to start somewhere, regardless of the fact that everyone views things differently. characteristics can communicate a better understanding of what's trying to be done, even when people may not agree on the result, at least they are aiming at the same target instead of firing blindly hoping to hit what they want; simply because someone explains what you can use to shoot with.

I disagree. Bleed is ambience that you don't want and ambience is bleed that you do. You can use the word 'clear' and 'sterile' to describe the same thing, but the words have different connotations. It simply isn't an effective way of communicating anything.

using dynamics processing on a dynamic processor's sidechain signal path without any other context or variable, is simply a theoretical exercise. it's not an insult, but again, limited in it's usefulness. it's worth experimenting with. but if you want to use the tools for something practical, you are saying the same thing i said and that's: you need to know what it will be used for and why. making one compressor sound like another, is not relevant unless you know what you are running through it and how it fits the overall sound of the source material (music/other)

Of course it's limited in its usefulness. Most things are. Frankly, if it was the most useful thing you could do with a compressor, most compressors would come with it as an option.

Unfortunately, if you don't understand how changing the compression ratio dynamically can affect the audio, you probably aren't ready to experiment with it. It won't make something warmer, sharper, punchier, etc... unless you can wrap your head around what you need to do to the signal to get that effect. You have to go through the theoretical exercise first, in order to have a hope in hell of setting it up correctly to do what you want.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Ahem. Practical application.

It occurred to me in that thread that if you've got a couple guitars that you want to push out of the way of a vocal, you might actually not want them to get quieter as the vocal gets louder, because then the vocal gets louderer than the guitars. By limiting the vocal on the way to the sidechain, the guitars go down so far and then sit there. In fact, we might want the guitars to get quieter when the vocals come in, but get louder when the vocals get louder so that they maintain a bit of a consistent proportion between them. I think that almost requires a negative compression ratio on the way to the sidechain. Good luck finding a negative compressor! You can sort of fake THAT by expanding a copy of the vocal in the sidechain of the compressor that is going to the sidechain of the compressor that is doing the ducking on the guitars.


Did we ever mention the thing about sending a pre-delayed copy of the signal to the side-chain as on old-school hack to get lookahead on a gate or compressor that doesn't have one, like in this thread?

 

[Farview]

In fact, we might want the guitars to get quieter when the vocals come in, but get louder when the vocals get louder so that they maintain a bit of a consistent proportion between them. I think that almost requires a negative compression ratio on the way to the sidechain. Good luck finding a negative compressor!

Well, you could either put a compressor into the sidechain of the compressor in the sidechain of the original compressor and possibly make that happen.

OR, you could have a compressor and expander in parallel in the sidechain of the original compressor. Set the compressor to limit at a certain point and set the expander to open a few db after that point.

or you could just use some automation...

 

[thehitman2375]

Ahem. Practical application.

It occurred to me in that thread that if you've got a couple guitars that you want to push out of the way of a vocal, you might actually not want them to get quieter as the vocal gets louder, because then the vocal gets louderer than the guitars. By limiting the vocal on the way to the sidechain, the guitars go down so far and then sit there. In fact, we might want the guitars to get quieter when the vocals come in, but get louder when the vocals get louder so that they maintain a bit of a consistent proportion between them. I think that almost requires a negative compression ratio on the way to the sidechain. Good luck finding a negative compressor! You can sort of fake THAT by expanding a copy of the vocal in the sidechain of the compressor that is going to the sidechain of the compressor that is doing the ducking on the guitars.


Did we ever mention the thing about sending a pre-delayed copy of the signal to the side-chain as on old-school hack to get lookahead on a gate or compressor that doesn't have one, like in this thread?

excellent points! now you are talking music. that's all i was looking for. thanks and great idea btw.

i have numerous compressors in my DAW that do a negative ratio. not hard to find at all.

 

[thehitman2375]

i actually wasn't looking for suggestions for the 2 songs i listed by i am open to hearing people's thoughts. the separate drums are being sent to a stereo submix bus for compression. it's just very light. this isn't music for radio play, so i'm not worried about how they are hitting compared to anything else. my music has it's own sound. the drums have compression on all the individual tracks, stillwell major tom on each track, and waves kramer pie and L2 on the stereo submix bus. no gates or expanders. all ratios are 2:1 or below. the compressors are more for character and flavor. the stillwell major tom compressor is the closest thing i've heard to a dbx 160x in the computer. if this music was for a client, i'd do more with it like you said to refine the sound. i'm happy with it as it is for myself and am moving on.

the points you made about differing ideas on communicating the sounds through adjectives is certainly valid. this is an area where neither of us are right and neither of us are wrong. i work with a lot of people who basically expect me to read their mind and understand what they want because they aren't knowledgeable in terminology, and i've gotten used to it. when they say: "make that joint sound crazy" i kinda have good instincts as to what they are asking me to do. so when people do use terms like warm, smooth, etc., i can make a fairly educated guess as to what that means to them, and not be far off. i guess not everyone has those kind of musical instincts, so maybe i take it for granted.

these last couple posts i've read have been well thought out. i appreciate what you guys are sharing, and it has definitely given me food for thought and a better appreciation for how these ideas can be used in practical ways.

 

[Farview]

I've found that I have to interview them to get to the root of what the clients mean. Everyone seems to use the same 3-4 terms, but mean wildly different things. Usually, I have them compare what they want to something that I can hear. Eventually, I will get them to say something like "I want a lot of low end, like a Pantera album". Then I will think, "Pantera really doesn't have a lot of low end", but realize that they don't want lower mids. Stuff like that has been my life since the early 80's.

Talking about sound is like dancing about architecture.

 

[ashcat_lt]

i have numerous compressors in my DAW that do a negative ratio. not hard to find at all.

Not to be that guy, but if ya got a line on a free one or two...

 

[ashcat_lt]

or you could just use some automation...

The "right" way to deal with this hypothetical issue is via arrangement and responsible use of dynamics in the performances.

Next best is probably automation, though I kind of think that if a couple minutes tweaking a couple dynamics processors accomplishes the same effect as an hour of drawing envelopes...

 

[thehitman2375]

I've found that I have to interview them to get to the root of what the clients mean. Everyone seems to use the same 3-4 terms, but mean wildly different things. Usually, I have them compare what they want to something that I can hear. Eventually, I will get them to say something like "I want a lot of low end, like a Pantera album". Then I will think, "Pantera really doesn't have a lot of low end", but realize that they don't want lower mids. Stuff like that has been my life since the early 80's.

Talking about sound is like dancing about architecture.

whenever there is any doubt about what someone wants, i ask for a reference track. something that has the sound they are looking for that has a similar sound and style. if i am mixing or mastering for someone where i don't have them actually in the studio, i absolutely require at least 2 reference tracks. at minimum 1 for vocals and 1 for bass/guitar/drums/etc. having reference tracks is like having the answers to the test with you during the test. it helps to getting to the target without much guesswork. i stress this because no matter how good something sounds to me, it's not about what sounds good to me, it's about what they want.

i can relate to what you are saying in that what they say and what they mean are different things, but like i said, i have good instincts. it didn't take long to figure out that when someone asks for their vocals "sped up", they really mean pitch change up, or when they want "chop and screw", it means pitch change down. when someone says make it "sound crazy", they usually want (ducked) echos and/or some automated frequency cutoff filters or modulation fx. when they want more "ass on that", turning up the bass and kick or using a subharmonic synthesizer or multiband compression to bring out the low end is usually what they want. if they want something to "hit", they want the drums louder (obviously). if they want T-pain, then they want autotune.

---------- Update ----------

Not to be that guy, but if ya got a line on a free one or two...

which DAW do u use and is it for PC (windows) or Mac (OS X)?

 

[ashcat_lt]

which DAW do u use and is it for PC (windows) or Mac (OS X)?

I'm using Reaper (32 bit) on PC