Dummy question but please...

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Chubs

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I know this s stupid question for you pro's but what is a compressor, what does it do and should i use one for recoridng a home EP??

If you can could you please answer in dummies terms
thanks :)

Matt

P.S wat are some good ones?
 
A compressor are used to "tame" the dynamics in different instrument/vocals.

Example: If you record a vocal you can sometimes hear that the vocal disapear on some places.
The compressor will make the vocal track more steady. (dynamic wise) And therefor easier to have it "sit" in the track.

I belive this gear are the most difficult to understand since you can't/shouldn't hear the compressor working. Unless that's what you want. (for effect on drums etc.)

there are a number of places to read about this.
Do a search on the web and you will find hundreds of it.

Shailat have a very nice site were he explains it with sound examples also, but I don't have the address to it.

It's difficult to give you a recommendation on a compressor since they have a price range between 100-4000$
The low budget compressors that are the best value for money is RNC by FMR.
 
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cheers sooo..

so basically it keeps everything in a recording the same volume?

I don't quite understand...

does anyone have an example where they have used one?

thanks
matt
 
On Bass guitar 99% of the time use a compressor. It smooths it out. Also with vocals, alot of this whisper to scream blah music now lives on compressors! It allows the whisper to be around the same volumes as the scream.
 
Go to that article in the link Bruce (BlueBearSound) mentioned...there are audio examples in it....
 
Btw, you may have to use Netscape to get those sound files....
 
Chubs said:
should i use one for recoridng a home EP??
Click to expand...
It's a very touchy subject, there are people who swear by it and there are people that say that compressing kills the dynamics of the song and don't use it. I've heard very strong opinions on both sides. I haven't used one yet so I can't say one way or the other but I think I could see myself using it on snare and bass drums, and on bass guitar. I don't think that I would us it on vocals too much (I think that the vocals should have a lot of dynamics), unLESS The sINGer SINgs LIke thISS and it really needs to be leveled out (but in which case I would just find a new singer that knows how to sing :D).

-tkr


PS Also, check out this site on compressors too

http://www.prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/articles/B425578C027460898625661000745390
 
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The key to using the compressor (and a few other things) is knowing when to use it, how much of it to use, and knowing when youve used toomuch.....dont just throw a compressor across a track because you heard thats what you are supposed to do....record a track...listen to it....if you can tell yourself why you need a compressor on it, then do it, and as little as possible to achieve the desired sound.....

Now that said, I LOVE OVERCOMPRESSING......
 
The oversimplified explanation is that a compressor is basically an automatic volume control, it simply turns down the volume briefly when things get too loud.

Everybody uses them all the time. Just about every recording you have ever heard has compression on it somewhere, a lot of them have compression on almost everything. The trick is with a really good compressor you don't hear it working (unless you know what to listen for).

You have probably heard a recording where the singer is whispering one part of the song and then screaming another part, if you think about that for a while you will realise that the whipered part and the screamed part seem to be at about the same volume level. Think about it, if the singer was singing into your ear the whispers would be softer and the screams would be unbearably loud. The thing which keeps the vocal at one volume level is a compressor.
 
vox said:
The trick is with a really good compressor you don't hear it working (unless you know what to listen for).
Click to expand...

So what, exactly, would you listen for?
 
if you've got Whats the story morning glory by oasis. listen to that. most of the drums are over compressed.

i love just compressing the overheads to f***.
 
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