compress during tracking??

[jhag]

When cutting vocals, do most of you compress before going itb? I'm debating on purchasing a inexpensive comp for some light compression before the signal hits my a/d. Once its itb I have the UAD's LA2A for more compression.

Boxes I've looked at are:
RNLA
RNC
Pro VLA

What do you think?

 

[60's guy]

When I'm recording a vocal I use a minimal amount of compression while tracking if the dynamic range of the vocal performance is narrow.

Overall, I think it's advisable to perform a rehearsal track to determine what you need to do regarding compression before tracking.

 

[MadAudio]

Yeah, I generally throw some light compression on vox when tracking. I use a Composer for that task. It's about the only piece of Behringer gear that I think is useful!

 

[60's guy]

He said Behringer!

 

[Massive Master]

If you're compressing for "flavor" - when the unit is an integral part of the sound - Do it.

If you're compressing for level, you're recording too hot anyway. If you're using proper levels, there is no danger of even coming close to full scale.

 

[NL5]

If you're compressing for "flavor" - when the unit is an integral part of the sound - Do it.

If you're compressing for level, you're recording too hot anyway. If you're using proper levels, there is no danger of even coming close to full scale.

What he said

 

[ozraves]

If you're compressing for "flavor" - when the unit is an integral part of the sound - Do it.

If you're compressing for level, you're recording too hot anyway. If you're using proper levels, there is no danger of even coming close to full scale.

Very true.* Most people track way too hot.

*I think this is great advice. However, there are more than a few "singers" who can't decently control their levels. For these people, I just put a limiter on them as no matter how many dBs I'm leaving they still manage to find a way to clip.

 

[MadAudio]

You guys are sounding like all singers have the same level of experience, and that's really not the case, is it? Speaking for myself, I know what levels to track at, but some singers unfortunately do need outside "compensation" in the form of a compressor.

 

[sync]

If you're compressing for "flavor" - when the unit is an integral part of the sound - Do it.

If you're compressing for level, you're recording too hot anyway. If you're using proper levels, there is no danger of even coming close to full scale.

What about if you are compressing to even out the volume to make it sound more polished and consistent. Would that be considered compressing for 'flavor'?

 

[ryanformato]

No, that would be compressing to even out the sound. You want to do that in the mixing stage because once you do that, there is no going back (if you do it before you get in the box)

 

[Fishmed]

What about if you are compressing to even out the volume to make it sound more polished and consistent. Would that be considered compressing for 'flavor'?

That would be compressing for level, which you should do during mixdown.

 

[Fishmed]

No, that would be compressing to even out the sound. You want to do that in the mixing stage because once you do that, there is no going back (if you do it before you get in the box)

Your too quick on the enter key ryanformato.

 

[sync]

What is so bad about starting out with consistent sound levels? I would think it would give more confidence to the performer in their performance and in their recording engineer.

 

[xstatic]

I agree with massive on this completely. I compress often to tape, but only for flavor, not for gain riding. After hundreds of bands, I have yet to find a singer who can not stay within the usable boundaries of my converters, so I leave dynamic control for mixdown. I usually decide what type of compression I want on a voice for tonality purposes either on prior experience with the band, or based on scratch tracks, and even warm up. The comps in my rack that end up on vocals are either Distressor, Urei LA4, DBX 165a, or even the occasional Spectrasonics 610. If you really want that aggressive in your face vocal sound, something like the Distressor or the 610 does a killer job. If you want to just round out the voice a little and add a little warmth, the DBX and the Urei do well. If you need something inbetween, the Distressor or the DBX. Given the choices in the first post above, I would probably go with the ART Pro VLA. Granted I do not have any experience with the RNLA, but an RNC would not be my choice for tracking. The RNC is pretty neutral and does not really have a distinct sonic characteristic. It's only real use is for level control, and even then it only seems to do well at up to about 6 db of gain reduction and then it quickly seems to destroy signal after that (lots of comps don't do well with heavier reduction). For me, this type of compressor has no real use to me. However, if you are mixing in the analog domain, I could see owning 6 RNC's and finding them very useful at that point. If it were me having to make the choice above, I would not buy any of them. I would put my money into something else, or save it up for a compressor that will stay with me forever. I would rather stay in the digital domain with the best plugins I could find than risk tracking critical tracks through inexpensive gear that I am not absolutely sure of. It's too bad Distressors are so expensive. I wish everyone could own one so they could see what they are missing form all the cheaper comps, and so they could see what some of the more "extreme" compressors can bring to the plate.

 

[Massive Master]

What is so bad about starting out with consistent sound levels? I would think it would give more confidence to the performer in their performance and in their recording engineer.

IMO/E, there's no way to accurately assess the proper compression settings without hearing it in context with the rest of the mix. Trying to get consistent levels at the input (via compression) makes it impossible to change those settings later. If you stay very conservative, you might be able to tweak it after the fact as long as you were spot-on with your A&R settings. If not, they're going to argue later.

If you DON'T use conservative settings, who knows... It might be completely wrong for the rest of the mix later.

If it's for "confidence" you can always put compression on the aux to the vocalist's headphone mix. They're happy, and you have a clear palette to work from later.

 

[sync]

I've been reading Guerrilla Home Recording. His position is that acting like a big studio and recording everything dry is not advisable for someone just starting out with home recording. He also doesn't recommend using a plugin compressor for beginners. Has anyone here read the book?

 

[EDAN]

IMO/E, there's no way to accurately assess the proper compression settings without hearing it in context with the rest of the mix. Trying to get consistent levels at the input (via compression) makes it impossible to change those settings later. If you stay very conservative, you might be able to tweak it after the fact as long as you were spot-on with your A&R settings. If not, they're going to argue later.

If you DON'T use conservative settings, who knows... It might be completely wrong for the rest of the mix later.

If it's for "confidence" you can always put compression on the aux to the vocalist's headphone mix. They're happy, and you have a clear palette to work from later.

I'm going to refer to my fav book at the moment (Behind The Glass). In it just about every producer says they track vocals with light compression and later add more as/if needed.

 

[Fishmed]

I've been reading Guerrilla Home Recording. His position is that acting like a big studio and recording everything dry is not advisable for someone just starting out with home recording. He also doesn't recommend using a plugin compressor for beginners. Has anyone here read the book?

I've never heard of him, but he is crazy. I WOULD recomend begginers to record dry; thay way they can experiment with pure reocrdings to figure out how compression, EQ, and effects work the best. Once something is recorded with effect or dynamic processing, you can't undo it if it is not what you really wanted.

I suppose the exception would be if you were using a four-track recorder and were bouncing the tracks back and forth.

 

[sync]

I've never heard of him, but he is crazy.

There isn't much point in forming such an opinion about him based on my two sentence synopsis of a book I just started reading.

 

[Fishmed]

There isn't much point in forming such an opinion about him based on my two sentence synopsis of a book I just started reading.

True. I would be interested in his reasoning.