Compressing during mix down...HELP!

W

William Fleischer

New member
I just bought an Alesis Nanocompressor to replace my crappy Presonus Bluemax 'Smart' (but noisey as heck)compressor. Anyway, I have never used compression during the mix-down and I have no clue on what settings to use. Can anyone give me some pointers?

I'm mixing rock/alt stuff (voc, bass, drum machine, heavey and accoustic guitars)down to a wav file from a Fostex FD-8 mult-tracker. I'd like to put the compressor in the loop but I don't know what settings are best for the Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release settings. I know some general settings for individual instruments, but no guidance as far as the mix-down.

Can anyone help?
 
I prefer to use next to no compression at mixdown. It also depends on the sound you want. I mixdown with sub mixed compression. Like stereo mix of drums submixed, re compress vox a little. maybe a touch where needed on bass guitar. THen instead of compression i run it through a tube preamp. It smoothes out the peaks a little with some punchy warmth. if you compress, try 1.2:1 ratio or 1.5 fast attack and release. Set the threshold so that there is about 8 db oc compression. Try to get a really good even mix first. You can change the world with a little eq or pan. They contribute to the final mix more than anything. You can make something seem more "there" without sending the vu over 0. That is if you are mixing to digital. If to analog, drive it a bit. Tape saturation works kind of like tube saturation in that it causes light compression and warm even harmonics. yup
 
I also have a nanocompressor and I have used it on mixdown. You have to be careful with this --- I would apply a subtle limiting (hard rather than soft), where only the loudest peaks cause the limiting to kick in (Judge this by the LED.). Use a pretty low ratio (about 9 or 10 AM on the knob). What this will allow you to do is to raise the input level of your mixdown device slightly higher --- and record a little louder level on mixdown. I find that the nanocompressor sounds pretty good in this limiting mode --- It never sounds distorted or artificial in any way. But if you go for a more over-the-top compression or limiting, then you'll find that it starts to sound very unnatural and you lose basic sound quality of the mix.
 
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