compressor question (newbie)

R

reeler78

New member
hi thinking of buying a compressor for my set up.i had in mind either the fmr rnc or the dbx 160a.would you reccomend any of these as they seem to have good reviews or is there any others you might reccomend instead on a small buget.i will be using it mainly on vocals and acoustic guitar.also would either of these be compatible and hook up to a m audio profire 610 audio interface.....cheers
 
reeler78 said:
hi thinking of buying a compressor for my set up.i had in mind either the fmr rnc or the dbx 160a.would you reccomend any of these as they seem to have good reviews or is there any others you might reccomend instead on a small buget.i will be using it mainly on vocals and acoustic guitar.also would either of these be compatible and hook up to a m audio profire 610 audio interface.....cheers
Click to expand...

No need to buy a compressor, You can save a hell of a lot of money just using your DAW. I did't realize how incredible some DAWs out there had compressor, EQ all that built in the DAW virtually (and you could never tell it was virtually mixed) Not only that but if you buy a compressor, you are only limited so much to your recordings, as opposed to recording it into a track in (for example) pro tools and editing the compressor and not have to re-record your vox or guit-fiddle because you might have messed up on the settings on the compressor.
 
The built in comps on Cubase, even Cubase LE, are very good to me.

I've used a few DBX compressors and they were good. I have a pair of Summits and love them. Summit makes some 1/2 rack (TLA-50) units that I haven't heard but trust Summit enough that I'd be very surprised if they weren't great.

I have heard that the Art VLA series of tub comps are good, although I wouldn't expect Summit quality from one. You might want to check one out.

Even if you can do everything with a DAW built in compressor there's something to be said for at least spending some time on a real one, for educational reasons if for nothing else.
 
My advice would be to look at a 'channel strip' that has a gate, compresser de esser and eq. I find that de essing in particular is useful at tracking for some vocalists, and a small bit of compression at tracking can be handy as well for some program material.
 
reeler78 said:
hi thinking of buying a compressor for my set up.i had in mind either the fmr rnc or the dbx 160a.would you reccomend any of these as they seem to have good reviews or is there any others you might reccomend instead on a small buget.i will be using it mainly on vocals and acoustic guitar.also would either of these be compatible and hook up to a m audio profire 610 audio interface.....cheers
Click to expand...

Anything a budget compressor can do can be done better in the DAW, and you get to tweak as needed without committing yourself to a setting.

Having a Drawmer to track through gives me an opportunity to add a little tone to the signal that is harder to get with plug ins, and years of experience give me the skill to get it right often enough. Otherwise I would stick to compressing ITB.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top