Do VST compressors actually work properly?

Farview said:
One of the reasons the Fairchild is desirable is because it can compress the crap out of something without actually sounding compressed. It also has a nice color to it.

If you were using an 1176, you would actually hear it doing something, because that compressor does something different that is more apparent than the fairchild.
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And that is a wonderful thing!

Sorry to continually jack this thread. I should know better...but.

I am thinking now and have been for a while of getting a couple Distressors. I have had great experience with them in much better studios than my simple cave. They too had the ability of compressing shit to oblivion without actually hearing it.

Anyway, a free UAD1 card is up for grabs. :)


Sorry for taking your thread off track again Spottydog10.
 
spottydog10 said:
Unfortunately not, I wish it was that simple that I was doing everything the opposite way round.
There's only really 2 controls to worry about on the Fairchild as the attack and release are set (in 5 options on a dial)
There's an input and a threshold control and that's it.
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.....and you have the Threshold set really high. Basically turned off! You will need a hell of a lot of input to hit that Threshold. If nothing happens when you turn down the Threshold then you either don't have you FX enabled somehow or you have other issues that are beyond my realm of advice.

Watch this video of the Scarlett Comp. (From 5m53s)

 
I was about ready to say what Mr Clean said. I think you have your threshold set so high you're not getting much of any gain reduction. I also thought that, in listening to the uncompressed version, it didn't need much (or any) compression.

Anyway if you want to hear the compressor working just for the learning experience, set the threshold low. How low depends on the level of the recorded track (and only you will be able to determine that). And, again just for learning sake, set your attack to 0 or as small as it goes. You should be able then to hear the compressor working. It might not sound good, but you'll hear a difference.

And if you decide you hate those UAD plugins you can send 'em to me.
 
spottydog10 said:
Unfortunately not, I wish it was that simple that I was doing everything the opposite way round.
There's only really 2 controls to worry about on the Fairchild as the attack and release are set (in 5 options on a dial)
There's an input and a threshold control and that's it.
Click to expand...

No, not true. Sorry. Going back and looking at your images, you are doing everything opposite. You've got Input Gain cranked, Threshold cranked, Output Gain cranked. No one does that!! Does the GR needle move when a signal is present?

On the Fairchild. Start with Input, Threshold and Output at about the 12 o'clock position. Because of the AGC circuit, compression ratio is a function of the Input to Output gain. Threshold sets the point where the compressor kicks in.

Turn the output to get the volume you want. Adjust Threshold to so the needle starts moving. Adjust the input to get the compression you want. Then listen to it. Do you want to just knock off the peaks? Dial the threshold higher and maybe turn down the input. Do you want to get a big beefy sound? Lower the threshold and turn the input up a bit. Adjust the output as necessary.

This isn't exactly the correct way to use the compressor, but it'll get you started and show you how it affects the signal. From there, you experiment and learn.
 
Chili said:
No, not true. Sorry. Going back and looking at your images, you are doing everything opposite. You've got Input Gain cranked, Threshold cranked, Output Gain cranked. No one does that!! Does the GR needle move when a signal is present?

On the Fairchild. Start with Input, Threshold and Output at about the 12 o'clock position. Because of the AGC circuit, compression ratio is a function of the Input to Output gain. Threshold sets the point where the compressor kicks in.

Turn the output to get the volume you want. Adjust Threshold to so the needle starts moving. Adjust the input to get the compression you want. Then listen to it. Do you want to just knock off the peaks? Dial the threshold higher and maybe turn down the input. Do you want to get a big beefy sound? Lower the threshold and turn the input up a bit. Adjust the output as necessary.

This isn't exactly the correct way to use the compressor, but it'll get you started and show you how it affects the signal. From there, you experiment and learn.
Click to expand...
This is good advice, but I'd keep it even simpler than that. Put your input and output at unity (AKA=O), and then bring down the threshold until you hear (or even see for that matter) some gain reduction. The way you have it set now, it's no wonder you don't think compressors work. Forget the pre-sets. Play with the thing and learn how it works. Pre-sets are generally useless, but they're even more useless on a compressor because the genius that put together the pre-sets had no idea what level the signal you're trying to compress is coming in at.
 
...I'm just happy nobody used the words "Make-up gain". We'd be here for another 12 pages discussing the grammatical nuances of the 3rd letter of the second word, depending on whether it's sunny on a Tuesday afternoon in a leap year. :eek:
 
When I used to teach - you'd be amazed how many people could not hear compression, and with VST, how many applied it to their mixes, but had forgotten to turn them on!
 
I really think the Fairchild is not the best compressor to learn on. Even set to the extreme, it's effect is subtle. I'm not familiar with the other one, but maybe that would make more sense to learn on.
 
Chili said:
No, not true. Sorry. Going back and looking at your images, you are doing everything opposite. You've got Input Gain cranked, Threshold cranked, Output Gain cranked. No one does that!! Does the GR needle move when a signal is present?
Click to expand...
Gotta eat some crow and correct myself a little. The threshold setting is backwards from most other compressors. Turning it up to 10 lowers the threshold. So, with those settings, it should be slamming pretty hard. I would think, in regard to farview's opinion, the compressor should still be audible even though the Fairchild is transparent.

So, not sure why it doesn't sound any different than the non compressed track. Might be something else going on.
 
RAMI said:
Bypass????
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If the pix are actual screenshots from the OP, then the VST's are powered on and not bypassed.

That is not to say they are used as inserts and not sent to a FX channel which could be routed incorrectly.
 
I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the OP, but what the hell...

There is a certain class of these classic compressors which are only really capable of so much gain reduction so that if you go far enough over the threshold, they actually open back up and compress less than you might think. It seems like the Fairchild was one of those, but I can't seem to find a set of search terms to get that information from google.
 
Hi Chili,
Thanks for that I thought I was going nuts.
The Fairchild is on an insert, not a send.
I've also tried it on electric guitar at the same settings, and you should really be able to hear it on that but no, same result.
What might be that Something Else going on?
Ta,
Mie
 
If you're using the UAD stuff, try replacing the Fairchild with an 1176. If you don't hear that working then something is definitely wrong. Not sure what else to suggest.
 
Now I am trying to remember how we fixed this, but I reinstalled windows and my software a long while back and some of my plugins were not working. You could see them and they looked like they were Ok but not working. Some other brands were. I booted a different software and they all worked.

I tried for ages before I got my tech to have a look and it worked out that a wrong audio driver (or something) was selected in the preferences for that particular software. Sorry for the vagueness but it was a while ago.
Alan.
 
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