comp settings for various sources

[droid]

I would like some opinions from experienced recording engineers about settings on comps for various sources and any little tricks that you find interesting about comps.
I use a motu G4 rig with DP3 and record mostly acoustic music and currently have a few tube pres and various mics. I mainly use waves plug-ins, especially for the comp.

To be more specific, I am looking for attack, release, ratio, and reduction more than anything else on bass guitar, acoustic, and vocals male and female. You hear things like "I always slam the bass" well....is it 5:1 or 20:1 ...get my point? I do understand that this is completely open...it depends on the musicians dynamics etc...but I am just looking for a starting point on these things. thanks for your help and I hope this makes us all better at our passion

Andrew

[Middleman]

Wow, hard to just lay out some settings not knowing your type of music, and more importantly, each voice is different. Even if I put something down in writing it may not work for what your doing. I think if you understand what compression is doing; when you should limit and when to compress and understand the basic uses of these, it would help you more than just a bunch of settings that may or may not work. That said, slamming a bass means different things to different people.

In the book, "Mixing Engineers Handbook", you can read about two different engineers using the term "slamming the bass" and yet they are using different settings i.e. setting a limiter on a ratio of infinity:1 and a threshold of -2 is just going to smash the peaks, on the other hand setting the threshold to -24 and the ratio to 2:1 will also slam the bass. So slamming can be a relative term.

There have been numerous discussions on this board and elsewhere to give you a background on all this. Do a search on compression and limiting and you will find a college course on this site about it.

But, I won't send you away empty handed. In general, acoustic guitars and vocals go in at tracking with either none or lightly applied compression. This is just to control sudden unexpected peaks in volume. If you want to apply heavier compression later in the mix you then have the option to add or not add to taste. Examples of tracking compression or limiting would be:

Ratio very high, as high as you can get it. Threshold at -1 or -2, attack very fast, release moderate to fast. Makeup gain +1 or not at all. This will effectively stop any sudden transients.

Bass guitars and electric guitars can and sometimes should be compressed during tracking to save time if you know the sound you want. Compression levels can be higher for this.

That's about all I would want to taint your understanding. The bigger part of this is compression as an effect and it's use during mixing. Getting mix compression to pump with the drums and bass is something you must learn through experimentation and varies by the tempo of the music. Another aspect is compressing to acheive a certain effect in the music. Pure art on this one.

OK, one more tip. To really compress the bass just set the threshold up to -15, set the ratio on 10:1, attack fast, release slow, gain 0. See if that sounds any good. If not, back off the threshold until you like it. Or, increase the threshold if you like that sound. See....very subjective.

Hope this helps.

[acorec]

For the Bass, you want to set your comp to :
Attack Time: 20msc
Relase Time: .5-1ms
Ratio: 20:1

These settings give the bass real character. The "pluck" sound will be in tact and the sustain will be there. Don't be afraid to use ratios that are high. Play with these settings. I use a Rick bass and an Ashley SC-50. It makes the bass totally stand out with great bottom. Acoustic guitars need much less compression. They tend to sound really stretched out with high ratios. I use only peak compression on acoustic guitars. You really need a compressor that has these types of settings to get good results.

Good Luck!

[Adam J. wannabe]

20:1? I'll have to try that. Im using a conklin 7 string through a dbx 1066 im im going for really low threshold and like 6:1 ratio but i might try that. My bass need more consistancy and i would like more sustain.

[droid]

cool guys thanks for all the input....I got a lot of tests to do! lol

thanks again

Andrew