crosstudio
New member
on the recording i'm currently mixing, the rapper has vocal sections that sound great, and would be even better with a little compression, then out of nowhere, he'll get really-loud and then soft again.
there were probably 20 spots where this really-loud and then soft again occurs.
if i set the compressor to keep an even keel on the vocals that are just outside of my exceptable dynamic range, i would squash the crap out of the 20 spots and the plug-in compressor would not be at its best, so i decided to use Sonar's clip gain envelope.
for each clip you can set a gain envelope and add nodes to the gain envelope which surround the offending section (2 nodes in front, and 2 nodes behind), then just pull down a couple of DB on the 2 internal nodes.
after performing this non-destructive vocal surgery, the vocal dynamic range is in a workable range where a little compression (if any) can really help the volume stay even throughout the track.
the peak level of the vocals were mostly between -12 to -20 db, with the RSM level at about -18db when the peak is at -12. so i set my compressor threshold to -18 with a 3:1 ratio and 3db gain, so that the -12 peak remains, but the -18 RSM would become -15db and the gap between peak level and RSM would be 3db instead of 6db; however, the really loud sections were screwing everything up... until i rode the faders (virtually speaking).
there were probably 20 spots where this really-loud and then soft again occurs.
if i set the compressor to keep an even keel on the vocals that are just outside of my exceptable dynamic range, i would squash the crap out of the 20 spots and the plug-in compressor would not be at its best, so i decided to use Sonar's clip gain envelope.
for each clip you can set a gain envelope and add nodes to the gain envelope which surround the offending section (2 nodes in front, and 2 nodes behind), then just pull down a couple of DB on the 2 internal nodes.
after performing this non-destructive vocal surgery, the vocal dynamic range is in a workable range where a little compression (if any) can really help the volume stay even throughout the track.
the peak level of the vocals were mostly between -12 to -20 db, with the RSM level at about -18db when the peak is at -12. so i set my compressor threshold to -18 with a 3:1 ratio and 3db gain, so that the -12 peak remains, but the -18 RSM would become -15db and the gap between peak level and RSM would be 3db instead of 6db; however, the really loud sections were screwing everything up... until i rode the faders (virtually speaking).
