Compression: during recording or during mixdown?

J

justicks

New member
Hi

I am trying to learn the proper techniques that make professional sounding recordings. I recently purchased a Alesis 3630 Limiter/Compressor, hoping that a good compressor would raise the quality level of my final mixdowns. My question is: Should I be running every track through it while I record, or should I just be using it during the Mastering phase to even everything out?

Also, doesanyone have any suggestions for ratio settings?

Will this device help thicken the sound and give it that professional "CD sounding" quality I desire (assuming of course that I use the proper recording techinques along the way)?

Thanks

Justice
 
You only have to run the tracks that need it through the compressor. For example distorted guitar is already compressed naturally, so don't bother. If the 3630 is the only compressor you have, don't let it go more than 3 -4 db of reduction. Those things get muddy really fast.
 
Try, try, try

For the beginning it may be right not to send distorted gits over the comp, but try it, in some mixes it may help you get a much more consistent sound. Dunno too much about the 3630, but not too many guys like this beast...

You can 'sharpen' tracks alot if you compress them with a higher attack (this is something that may help in giving distorted guitar a better attack definition)and 'soften' them with a slower one... Simply try out... Understanding compression takes LONG time to learn. Don't go with the "don't compress at all" attitude. You'll never learn how to use it, if you'll never try. (Same as with EQ...) If someone like e.g. BlueBear tells you not to use EQ and compression, and you listen to his mixes, you'll be very tempted to try it the same way. But you'll not get it that way as you don't have the experience...

aXel
 
The question was to compress during recording or mixdown. If you compress during recording, your stuck with it. If you get the part recorded cleanly, you can experiment with the compression without having to live with it for the rest of your life.
 
Farview said:
The question was to compress during recording or mixdown. If you compress during recording, your stuck with it. If you get the part recorded cleanly, you can experiment with the compression without having to live with it for the rest of your life.
Click to expand...

You can compress at any stage you feel comfortable at. If you KNOW what you are after, and will not change it, then go ahead and compress the track during the recording. If you don't know, then save compression 'till the mixdown. There is no "correct professional way". Either will do fine but compressing at the recording stage cannot be changed. The only benefit to compressing during recording (and this only applies to analog tape) is that you will get significantly less noise than at mixdown. In the analog domain, compressing at mixdown adds the tape hiss to the mix (remember:you are raising the noisefloor with compression and reducing the dynamic range). Therefore, I always tend to compress at the recording stage with analog and at the mixdown stage with digital.

YMMV, as always
Good Luck.
 
I got a question concerning this

Don't know if this is off topic, but how are the "plug ins" for programs like Pro Tools? There's plug ins for compression in Pro Tools FREE, and I was wondering if anyone thinks those are decent or if an "outboard device" for compression is better. Hope you know what I'm asking. Thanks....

Joe
 
Brother_N_t_ said:
Don't know if this is off topic, but how are the "plug ins" for programs like Pro Tools? There's plug ins for compression in Pro Tools FREE, and I was wondering if anyone thinks those are decent or if an "outboard device" for compression is better. Hope you know what I'm asking. Thanks....
Click to expand...

Better than an Alesis 3630. If you want decent low cost compression look at Dbx. The 3630 is kind of a nightmare.
 
acorec said:
You can compress at any stage you feel comfortable at. If you KNOW what you are after, and will not change it, then go ahead and compress the track during the recording. If you don't know, then save compression 'till the mixdown. There is no "correct professional way". Either will do fine but compressing at the recording stage cannot be changed. The only benefit to compressing during recording (and this only applies to analog tape) is that you will get significantly less noise than at mixdown. In the analog domain, compressing at mixdown adds the tape hiss to the mix (remember:you are raising the noisefloor with compression and reducing the dynamic range). Therefore, I always tend to compress at the recording stage with analog and at the mixdown stage with digital.

YMMV, as always
Good Luck.
Click to expand...

I was just figuring that because he asked the question, he wasn't confident enough to make these desisions. So I gave him safe advise. There is no generally accepted way to do ay of this. But there is good advise you can give someone without confusing them with what you do in situations that (at this rate) he may never see.
 
Farview said:
I was just figuring that because he asked the question, he wasn't confident enough to make these desisions. So I gave him safe advise. There is no generally accepted way to do ay of this. But there is good advise you can give someone without confusing them with what you do in situations that (at this rate) he may never see.
Click to expand...

I have no idea as to what he is recording to.......analog or digital........
I covered the bases for him. He can apply whichever to whatever. He did say that he wanted pro level recordings, no?
 
The 3630 is not a very good compressor. It's more of a glorified limiter cuz, as stated above, it muddies up the sound. For an affordable & decent sounding compressor, go after the dbx 1066 or 266XL, or the Behringer Autocom.

If you are using an analog drum kit, at least stick a compressor on the kick and one on the the snare.

It can also be used to tighten up guitars and smooth out bass tracks. It's almost a must on vocals.

this is a link to Compression 101 from dbx. It gives a really good analogy of what a compressor does and gives some generalized examples of setting one up. Don't take their settings as gospel though as that is something that changes application to application.

http://www.dbxpro.com/ftp_mirror/PDFs/WhitePapers/Compression 101.pdf

Hope this helps :)
 
Thanks everyone. I appreciate the feedback. I also appreciate, for the most part, everyone's restraint about the Alesis 3630. I realize it's a controversial unit. I'm hoping I may be one of the few people who actually likes the results it produces. If not, I'll dump it. At any rate, the replies were all helpful.
 
You'd be surprised that alot fo people around the net who bash them have never owned one, they just read a post by someone they liked lol.

I owned two when they first came out. I was also authorized Alesis warranty repair. As far as compressor, I gotta say I wasn't impressed at all. I won't go into 5 pages of technical jargon of why, but as you progress - you'll see why ;)
 
I bought a 3630 in March. I tried for a week straight to get anything out of it. I returned it and went for DBX. I'd advise you to do the same. It's $50 more for the DBX, but worth every penny doubled. I couldn't get any results from the 3630, let alone desirable ones. If I was limiting, maybe things would have been different....but as for a compressor, it's not even worth the rack space.
 
I try not to be a gear snob, but the alesis compressor is one of the few things that I encourage everyone to stay away from. Alesis has made some very usable gear, but the 3630 is not one. If you bought it new I would strongly recomend that you return it, when for just a bit more money you can get into an OK dbx or a quite good RNC compressor from FMR Audio.

I would rather have no compressor at all, if I could only get the Alesis.

I compress while I record most of the time, almost always if I am going to analog at 15 IPS. (but I know compression really well) If you are recording to digital its usually safe to compress only a bit or not at all and then you can see what you need to in the mix. The one advantage of compressing while you mix is that you can get away with only one or two compressors and compress a lot of the tracks. IF you have only one when you mix you can only compress one track.
 
Compress at recording stage only to make sure of no distorting of signal. Use very small compression though, maybe 2:1 ratio and threshold of around 4db maybe.
Compress at mix down to make certain tracks stand out or seem more punchy. Or use compression to put some tracks further back in the mix.
 
justicks said:
Hi

I am trying to learn the proper techniques that make professional sounding recordings. I recently purchased a Alesis 3630 Limiter/Compressor, hoping that a good compressor would raise the quality level of my final mixdowns. My question is: Should I be running every track through it while I record, or should I just be using it during the Mastering phase to even everything out?

Also, doesanyone have any suggestions for ratio settings?

Will this device help thicken the sound and give it that professional "CD sounding" quality I desire (assuming of course that I use the proper recording techinques along the way)?

Thanks

Justice
Click to expand...


Both.

Compression during tracking typically is used to improve signal to noise ratios to tape, and to generally insure that the dynamic range of the recording media is used efficiently.

Compression during the mix is usually done to help parts fit into the mix better, and to add "color."

These are, of course, very different purposes. The thing is, there is no reason you can not use "color" compression during the tracking. People have just gotten so used to the mind set of "fix it in the mix," that they don't want to do anything while tracking. Myself, I can't stand that frame of mind. I want to get the tracking as close as possible to the final product as possible. This gives my mind the ability to focus on the new issues which always show up during the mix.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
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