Compression/Gating - Pre/Post?

I

incursio

New member
Hi everyone - newbie engineer here.

I have a quick question regarding compression and gating.

Compression: Lets say I have a vocal track that peaks during one part - peaks with some slight distortion. At this point, if I compress this track during mixdown, all it will really do is lower the output level of the track during the 'peak', but the distortion still remains. Should compression be applied during recording, or should I just redo the track and work on getting a nominal/non-peak level?

Gating: Similar question - I have a lot of ambient noise in my home studio area. Should I apply a gate to a vocal track while recording it to help keep this stuff down, or will it work just the same if I gate during mixdown?

Sorry for the silly questions - but trying to get the beyond the bare basics ...

Cheers.
Scott
 
Gate during mixdown.

If the vocals vary widley then use some gentle compression during tracking. Just make sure the compressor goes into work at the problematic spot/s only.

You can retrack without but if your going to be aware that you have to controll your singing in order to compress and your not experienced with this better to compress gently as it will effect your performance to hold back a bit.
 
Thanks for the reply, Shailat!

Assuming I use some a slight amount of compression while tracking, and some gating during mixdown to kill the background noise (especially in areas of silence on the tune), I am finally left with the concept of "normalization".

A number of people have told me to use compression on the mixdown of my stereo tracks to help normalize the song. I don't understand quite how this works - if compression serves to restrain the levels from going over a certain mark, how in the world doesn it bring levels up on the low end? Doesn't make sense to me.

Any thoughts anyone? Thanks in advance!

Cheers.
Scott
 
Interesting read, Shailat - and great examples, BTW!

So, if I'm reading all of this correctly ...

Let's say I add some slight compression to a vocal track (while i'm recording). Let's say that it is 3:1, with a fast attack/release - basically, that is 1db for every 3db over my threshhold (whatever that happens to be at the time, depending on the vocalist). Now, that takes care of "squashing" any unwanted peaks. Then, I can make the overall track a bit louder by adding the gain reduction in my compressor (however many db I need).

Am I lost, or am I getting it? :D

Cheers.
Scott
 
A better way of saying it is that your compressor allows your vocals to increase 1dB only, for every time your signal goes over the Threshold by 3dB.
So if your vocals were 12dB over the threshold, your signal would increase 4dB only.

As for the atack and release setting you wrote.
It's dependent on the vocals and I can't write a setting like fast or slow but typicaly on vocals it's closer to a Med-fast attack and a Med-long release, and not as you wrote. But don't follow that as a bible !!!.

The gain part is correct. Only understand that you must feed your compressor a healthy sound level or else you will also bring all the noise in your signal (as well as possible noise comming from the compressor) up. Therfore you must gain stage before correctly and also make sure you are not using the gain button to raise your input level if it is weak.

Last - compression in theory sounds great and it is but carefull from over using it !
A 3:1 might not be needed on your vocals and the Threshold setting should be set to compress (in gentle compression) only when you need it.

Good Luck
 
I will add too that in the tracking stage, leveling amplifiers tend to sound much better than normal compression.

Believe it or not, the ART Levelar has recieved very good reviews by many in the know as a tracking level amplifier. For the money, it really offers a great sound behind your preamp.

It does not offer ratio (except for a switch to change from "compressor" to "limiter") or attack/release, but for up to 3dB MAXIMUM of compression while tracking, it works quite well.

The best vocal tracks I have ever heard and recorded myself used NO compression or limiting of any kind while tracking them. The proper mic, a decent quality mic preamp, a good mic placement, and a singer that has good control over their voice are going to yield the best results. After tracking, if it is tracked well, very slight compression will help tame the vocal a bit and make it possibly sit more comfortably in the mix.

It is really important to remember that in the low end of compressors, none are all that great. The Behringer Composer, the RNC, etc....are "decent" units, but are not going to bring your stuff into the big time league of things. GOOD TRACKING will go much farther towards improvement overall than lower end compressors no matter how well the compressor is set up.

Sorry, may sound like I am preaching to the choir a bit. I just think it is important to know what your limitations are going to be if a vocal track was not recorded well in the first place.

Good luck.

Ed
 
Thanks much for all the good info, guys. I know this is one of those subjects that gets beat to death, but I do appreciate all the help...

Cheers.
Scott
 
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