question about compressors?????????

voodoo101

New member
Heres my deal ..I'm a newbie to recording. I've recordied in studio but never with myself full at the wheel. Here is a brief desciption of my setup. MX-9000 board...to ADATS lots of mics and some effects units....Now the question. I have One Behringer compressor. How can I record a 4 or 5 peice band with just that one compressor. I will eventually buy a few more but for now I just want to practice on some local bands.
If the drums are 6 to 8 tracks do I compress them by way of one of the busses?

help!
 
Compress a couple of tracks going in, then use it again on other tracks during the mix. The only difference is, the ones you record compressed can't be undone. Personally, even with a bunch of compressors, I almost never compressed while tracking, finding instead, plenty of reasons to adjust things as the mix fills in.
Wayne
 
I only compress the snare when tracking and then if I need it later I can add it in the mix. Give it a shot and see if it suits you. Another alternative would be to not compress at all until after tracking, but I find that I like to get compression on that snare right away.
 
Great advice provided!

If you have budget concerns and require addtl comps, ck out
Beh's MultiCom which provides 4 channels of processing in one
unit. Unit provides decent, basic comping & limiting at a low price
of $109.00
 
Thanks everyone. You know there are alot of articles about what comps do but I have found none(so far) on how and when to use one. Anyone?

I think I'll try tracking without it and then add as needed.
 
Will you be recording the bands live (all at once) or strictly overdubs?
My experience is that usually bands that record live will always overdub the vocal anyway. So what I do (if needed) is to compress the bass drum and the bass guitar to tape just so the low end rythym section is as smooth as possible. You have to be very careful though because if you compress one instrument in a room with many other instruments playing and you don't have it properly isolated, you're gonna wind up making the other instruments more prominent in that mic too. Then when you mix down you can use it to smooth out some vocals (if needed) and one more channel. You can actually get very creative with one (two channel) compressor.
Just a thought!

RF
 
Voodoo...try these links

http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/dec00/articles/adcompression.htm
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jan01/articles/advanced.asp
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jun99/articles/mixcomp.htm
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jul00/articles/questions.htm
http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/1996-articles/apr96/compression.htm

These are all Sound on Sound articles found by search.
Search this site too.
Some of it may be more information than you're looking for but you can never have too much info available......well I suppose you could.

-mike
 
vvveeerrrrrrrryy coooolll link, man.

Thats a great link to articles WITH audio examples.

Thanks.

read and hear

hear and read.

good stuff

-mike
 
Oh...well I have some equipment but.....

I definitely couldnt call it a studio.

One step at a time....in a for-fun kind of way.

-mike
 
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