I got a compressor question. Help Please.

J

JesusFreak

New member
Hey All,

Been a while since I posted a thread but I finally finished my garage studio and have for the first time, started actually hooking up all my gear. So now the questions start:

We have a 4 piece band. Drums, bass, two guitars and of course, vocals. The most I'll probably be recording at a time will be the drums with either 3 or 4 mics. All others I'll be recording separately with no more than two mics at a time. I have two, two channel mic pres, and two, two channel compressors. Here is my scenario:

My signal chain right now is: Mic, mic-pre, compressor, D1600. My mic-pre's and compressors are two channels a piece for a total of 4 channels of each. Let's say that I record my drums with 4 mic's. Bypass the compressor during tracking. So now my tracks have no compression. Can I compress two channels at a time with one compressor, and then compress the other two tracks with the same compressor later and have it sound ok?? Or should I compress all 4 tracks at the same time through both compressors. The reason is that I want to see if I can take one of the compressors back and get some other things with the money.

I'll save the other questions for later. Thanks alot guys for helping me out.

God Bless!
 
That depends on your mixdown procedure. What recorder and mixer are you using?

FYI- there are two types of 2 channel compressors. Stereo and Dual Mono. Stereo compressors work off of one set of controls and both channels do exactly the same thing. That is only usefull on material where both channels are a stereo mix of the same type of source ie drum OH, backing vocals, rythm guitars, keys etc.

Dual Mono functions as 2 completely independant processors with seperate controls and each channel can work on any type of signal without worrying about what is on the other channel. They usually have a Link button if you want them to work as a true Stereo unit.

If your compressors are Stereo and not dual mono than you would still need 2 of them to work on 2 channels of completely different types of tracks at the same time.
 
Hey Tex,

Thanks for the reply...I have the DBX 166XL compressor/limiter/gate. I believe it can function as both as you said. I believe that it is mainly a dual mono but has a stereo couple button on it (I think).

Anyway, my real question is this. If I record my tracks dry. And I have 4 tracks of drums. Then I want to route my tracks through compression during mixdown. If I only have 1 two channel compressor, I would have to do two tracks at a time instead of all four at once. Would it sound like garbage to do the first two tracks (lets say two over heads doing cymbals), then after those are done, do the next two tracks (say kick, snare/hh). They wouldn't be done at the same time so I guess I'm just curious if you were to do them two tracks at a time, when you get them back together in the mix, is it going to sound choppy??

This probably doesn't make any sense at all and I'm sorry for not explaining it correctly and you probably answered my question in the first place and I was too lame to catch it. Sorry if that's the case. And I'm recording into a Korg D1600 all in one unit.

Thanks again and God Bless.
 
High!

I'm not fond at all of my OHs compressed. Somehow, there seems to be a loss of the 'silk' of the cymbals... I compress REALLY everything else, but not the overheads...

But I'm not sure how you can achieve to compress stereotracks with an outboard comp with the D1600.... I think it only has one aux out, or am I wrong? Is it possible to go out htrough the main out and into an input without it being fed out to the main out (and thus fed back)?

aXel
 
Axel is correct. You need to be able to send out those 2 tracks and record the output of the compressor onto 2 new tracks. Then you mute the original tracks when you mixdown.

I'm not sure what the capabilities are of the Korg but now you know what to look for.
 
Patch the compressor into the Kick and Snare mics as you are tracking, experiment and see if it sounds better. If not, try the compressor on the overheads and see if you can get them to sound better with or without.

Use compression because of what it does to the sound, not because

a) you own one
b) somebody else said you should use it
c) you're convinced that you're not as good as you could be

If the answer is a) then try the compressor and trust your ears.
If the answer is b) then try the compressor and trust your ears.
If the answer is c) then try the compressor and trust your ears.

These are lessons I've had to learn the hard way, maybe you'll benefit from my stupidity.

"Let him who has ears... HEAR!"

S. Cruz
Cruzified Music
Florida
 
volltreffer, Tex, screws,

Thanks for your reply's. I've decided to keep the other compressor so that I have 4 channels available to me. I mean I already had the thing, I was just wanting to get this cool mic package at GC that was on sale. So the mic will have to wait and I'll make do with what I have. It will probably be better in the long run anyway.

Thanks again you guys for your responses and hope you all had a great Thanksgiving....God Bless!
 
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