downward expanders - yay or nay

[Chris Tondreau]

Hey there;

I've been doing some reading in some older threads. One started to head in this direction, and then veered off somewhere else, so I thought I would ask it as a separate question.

Do you use downward expanders? I have one built into my Behringer Composer Pro, and find that, if set with a small amount of care, that it does a great job of eliminating background noise while recording, and does not noticeably affect the source that you are recording... unless of course you are singing/playing at a lower volume than the threshold that you have chosen, but then you really haven't set it all that carefully! I read a lot of other threads about people going nuts with mattresses, heavy blankets, etc. To me, with my limited knowledge, this seems like much ado about not much. Am I missing something?

Chris

[mixsit]

There generally more reasons to not use it that way, and maybe even not at all.
If it needs noise reduction, it's still safer to us it after in the mix.
And it doesn't eliminate the need for good clean signal to begin with. It's another piece in the signal chain that may be avoided. If the track is that noisy, that noise will still be 'on' with the track.
As your track's signal quality goes up, the reason for gating mostly go way down, (though I still admit to doing clean-up on them in the DAW )
wayne

[Smokepole]

Hey Chris,
That may have even been my thread you are talking about that got sidetracked. I've got a composer also. The dude at the store told me the downward compressor\gate was a must have. I must admit I was impressed with how simple it made things but I haven't got much positive feedback from the gurus. I'm curious to see where your thread goes. The responses I got on preamp and compressor questions were right on the money.

[littledog]

I'm not a fan of using gates or their cousins, expanders, while tracking. You are permanently altering or cutting off the natural decay of the instrument. In some cases this may not be that critical, but in other cases you may find, when either mixing or, perhaps, listening on a higher quality monitoring system, that your "perfect" expander settings maybe weren't so perfect after all! And then it's too late.

There's no compelling reason to apply them while tracking, since it is destructive to the sound. If you need to gate or expand, do it during the mix process, where anything you try can be undone or redone.

[Smokepole]

Chris, I ended up returning my ComposerPro today. Not that I feel it was inferior or anything, I just wasn't positive I needed it. I can always replace it if I really miss it but needed to return it to stay within my 30-day return deadline.

These guys got me thinking and I like the thought of going DMP3 to FMR RNC to deck. It's brief and to the point as far as signal goes. I can see the logic.

I should say that my house is fairly quiet. The amount of noise it seemed to remove during silent spots sounded much more significant when listening to the unit start to gate during testing then it did when I compared actual tracks. Keep in mind that I am a total rookie but I think I'm on the right track anyway.

[Chris Tondreau]

I've heard lots about the RNC, and almost bought one. For the difference in $, though, I like the features that the Composer Pro offered, and the fact that it was 2 channel.

Although I don't use it a great deal when I'm recording myself, I figure that there will be situations (particularly when recording other singers, drums, etc.) where I will be very glad I bought it.

Chris