Vocal Compressor (Great!)

[Joan]

I really like Vocal Compressor (Great!) in Cool Edit but it's just a tad too loud/echoey. Can someone give me precise directions to take it down just a little. I'm having a hard time getting the 'in your face' sound I want and this seems to be the answer. Keep the explanation simple, please. Thanks. Joan

[Jeyan]

Never use a preset .......When it says Vocal compressor Grrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaat!, it need not be really great. Your vocal track may be a little different than what the preset expects, so tweak it a little bit in the graph till you get your satisfied sound. Some say 8:1 is good , some say 4:1 is good, but as far as I've seen it all depends on the audio track you are dealing with. If you don't prefer the loud/echoey sound better use a limiter to boost your vocals.

[Joan]

Never use a preset .......When it says Vocal compressor Grrrrreeeeeeeeaaaaaaaat!, it need not be really great. Your vocal track may be a little different than what the preset expects, so tweak it a little bit in the graph till you get your satisfied sound. Some say 8:1 is good , some say 4:1 is good, but as far as I've seen it all depends on the audio track you are dealing with. If you don't prefer the loud/echoey sound better use a limiter to boost your vocals.

Just wanted you to know I'm not very technical, so can you tell me (name?) where I would change to 8:1- 4:1 etc..

[roman]

Joan,

Like everything, get to know your stuff. find out what a compressor is what it does and how you can use it.
Seems like you don't know what purpose it has, just that you think it's cool. No offence, but learn what you need to learn.
After that, you won't have to ask questions like these no mor.

Like said; compressors and presets are like not done.
(or atleast use it for basic settings and alter the parameters to your likings)

there are lotsa articles on the net, enjoy
(you'd check www.prorec.com for nice docs!)

[dobro]

Yeah, and not only that, but Cool's compressor is obscure and difficult to understand and use.

But if you insist on using it, here's an approach that will get you inside it:

1 Transform>Amplitude>Dynamics Processing

2 Attack/Release Tab

3 Ignore the bottom half (trust the defaults) and concentrate on the top half, especially the attack and release time. Start with 15 ms attack time, and watch what happens to the wave when you apply it. You don't want to squash it, you just want to tame it a bit most times. Try longer attack times and listen to it for a comparison. Try shorter times, and watch Cool squish the hell out of the track. Release Time will be longer than the attack time - try 5 times as much as the attack time to start with, and play around with variations and listen to them. I always find attack time to impact the sound much more than the release time.

But like roman was saying, you have to know *why* you're compressing a track = you have to know what you're trying to accomplish.

[Joan]

So now I'm just recording, using 'bypass' and normalizing. It sounds fine. I won't live long enough to learn all that other stuff. Not my thing, definitely. So I'll leave it alone. Thanks, everyone. Joan

[Jeyan]

Oh Come on Joan, don't give up!!!!!!!!! Compression is the most fun part, play with the graph in your CEP and you will figure out your needs.