compressor question

[warlock]

My last job was a metal band ... I needed LOTS of compressors

\m/ < That's the devils sign in case someone didn't know

Keijo

 

[Gargamel]

RNC from FMR Audio......the best $179.00 I ever spent. This compressor is sooo good. Just ask the guys at Mercenary Audio. Why they sell products by Aalon, Neve, API, Greatriver, Langevin....that cost over $2grand ..and yet carry a $200 compressor??? Why? Because it does the job.

 

[Xgrind]

hi guys,

I'm new in this discussion, and I'll like to ask a newbie question...

Well from the postings I understand that compressor is commonly used as a automatic volume fader cum gain booster. Well for settings, how will I determine the attack parameter without killing the transient response of the source? Say, I'm recording a vocal track and I'm gonna do compression on it, how would I judge the transient response of the vocal to determine the attack parameter? I'm the kind of guy who prefers to use as little compression as possible in the mix unless necessary and I've heard terms like transient responses from other good engineers out here and other places. Being a newbie, I'll hope you guys could shed some light on my following questions.

P.S. I've tried fiddling around with compression setting for a while but I feel I can do better compression on the signal if I understand the principle and related terms better. Thanks in advance guys ^_^

 

[Gargamel]

try a 20ms attack time with a .5 second release (semi fast attack with a relatively fast release)

 

[vox]

hi guys,

I'm new in this discussion, and I'll like to ask a newbie question...

Well from the postings I understand that compressor is commonly used as a automatic volume fader cum gain booster. Well for settings, how will I determine the attack parameter without killing the transient response of the source? Say, I'm recording a vocal track and I'm gonna do compression on it, how would I judge the transient response of the vocal to determine the attack parameter? I'm the kind of guy who prefers to use as little compression as possible in the mix unless necessary and I've heard terms like transient responses from other good engineers out here and other places. Being a newbie, I'll hope you guys could shed some light on my following questions.

P.S. I've tried fiddling around with compression setting for a while but I feel I can do better compression on the signal if I understand the principle and related terms better. Thanks in advance guys ^_^

The best way to comfortable with a compressor is to sit down and play around with it for a couple hours, load up a recorded kick drum, snare drum, bass track and vocal track and mess around with them one at a time. Using very extreme settings will make it easier to hear the effect that different controls have on the sounds. Start off by setting the ratio to it's highest setting, set the attack to it's shortest setting and the release to it's longest, crank the threshold right down and listen to how the sound changes, next slowly increase the attack time, you should start to hear a sharp click - the attack transient . As the attack time gets longer the click will start to sound less sharp, etc. Playing around with their attack times will let you add punch to different sounds.
Be careful about your monitoring volume.

Happy tweaking

 

[Xgrind]

The best way to comfortable with a compressor is to sit down and play around with it for a couple hours, load up a recorded kick drum, snare drum, bass track and vocal track and mess around with them one at a time. Using very extreme settings will make it easier to hear the effect that different controls have on the sounds. Start off by setting the ratio to it's highest setting, set the attack to it's shortest setting and the release to it's longest, crank the threshold right down and listen to how the sound changes, next slowly increase the attack time, you should start to hear a sharp click - the attack transient . As the attack time gets longer the click will start to sound less sharp, etc. Playing around with their attack times will let you add punch to different sounds.
Be careful about your monitoring volume.

Happy tweaking

Thanks Pal!