Initial Compressor Settings

Ellis11

New member
Well I've been going all through the threads here looking for information on a good starting point for setting a compressor. Lots of links have been posted but everyone I've tried is a dead link.

I'm looking for a compressor starting point for recording vocals and acoustic guitar. I will be using an Oktava MC 012 or a MK 319 mic into a Spirit Folio mixer or an ART Tube MP pre which goes into a Behringer Composer Pro. All this feeds into an Akai DPS 12 HD recorder.

Since I have no Idea of where to start with the settings I really need a starting point for a guide otherwise I could end up spending months trying different combinations until I get it right.
 
What you are requesting is simply impossible and wont get you any futher. The next time you'll need to use it you'll be standing in the same place.

It is so dependent on your song and style and playing that any advice givin to you is like pissing in the wind.....

Do you need compression?
Do you need more attack on your strum?
Do you need a duller sound?
Do you want defenition with clearness on your sound?

What would it help if I told you to use a ratio of 5:1 if I never heard your song........If I have no idea what style it is?
If I have no idea what kind of sound you want?!?!?......
Who can give you an attack time with out hearing the track and knowing what you are loking for?
Like I said....pissing in the wind........

What you can do is to learn how every movment of any knob on the compressor will effect your sound by experimenting and reading up as much as you can. Slowly with error you will get the hang of it.
 
I sort of figured I would get the answer you gave. Thats why I tried looking throught the posts trying to better understand the effect of different settings. Unfortunately every link I tried that was posted was a dead link. So if anyone has a link pointing to that kind of information I would appreciate it. If you want to hear the kind of things I'm trying to do you can find it at

http://www.ampcast.com/johnellis

I'm neither a great guitarist or singer but want to get the most out of what I am capable of. Very fun but expensive hobby isn't it.
 
Shailat wrote an excellent article about compressors a while back. He is being modest by not posting a link to it...:) I will solve that problem for now though....;)

IF the damn server is working (hint hint Shailat, you need to talk to your friend about this servers reliability!!!) the link is:

http://24.61.136.253/

Oh, and check out the article I wrote about compressors too.


Ed
 
sonusman said:
Shailat wrote an excellent article about compressors a while back. He is being modest by not posting a link to it...:) I will solve that problem for now though....;)

IF the damn server is working (hint hint Shailat, you need to talk to your friend about this servers reliability!!!) the link is:

http://24.61.136.253/

Oh, and check out the article I wrote about compressors too.


Ed

That's one I tried to get but the link does not work.
 
sonusman said:
IF the damn server is working (hint hint Shailat, you need to talk to your friend about this servers reliability!!!) the link is:

http://24.61.136.253/

Oh, and check out the article I wrote about compressors too.
Ed

Yeh...the server has been down for 3 days now.....:(
Something about a power failure....:rolleyes:

Check the link in a day or two and if I cant get it to work I'll send you a copy of both mine and eds article.

In the meanwhile check this out at home......
This is only so you get to learn the compressor and has nothing to do with compressing a acoustic guitar in a song.


* Record your guitar with a pick
* Lower the threshold so you see a gain reduction of about 7dB
on the louder parts
* Set your ration to a 5:1
* Now start to play with your attack time.
* Listen to what the attack does to the sound of the pick striking the guitar...

When the attack is set to a fast time, the strike sounds________
When the attack is slower the strike sounds ______________

The sound is duller when the attack is set to a _____ time
The sound is more articulate and clear when the attack is set to a ______ time.


Fill in those blanks after playing around with it for a few days.
And come back for more..........
 
Thanks. I'll try exactly what you suggest. In the meantime I'm starting to learn about mic's also. I'm asking questions about differences and you can see my last post on this thread.
https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?postid=331255#post331255
Very interesting. I only wish I could afford to buy a bunch of mic's and return the ones that didn't live up to my expectations. I'm tempted to buy a MC-319 from the Sound Room when I can afford it to find out if mine is a bad one.
 
That post is only a starting point and not a setting per say.

Tweak tweak and tweak the knobs until you drop....
 
sonusman said:
Shailat wrote an excellent article about compressors a while back.

Oh, and check out the article I wrote about compressors too.


Ed

Right on. Thank you both. I printed them out a few weeks back :cool:
 
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