Hardware compressor to comp setup?

[Leena]

Hello guys,

I record vocals and electric piano at home and collaborate with other musicians on the internet. In the beginning, everything was simple, I just had the following setup:

Budget Dynamic Microphone --> Lexicon Alpha USB mixer --> Computer

Product: Alpha | Lexicon Pro

This worked OK, but the problem was that the vocal track never really sat in the mix properly, because the waveform was much quieter than the instrument tracks. It always took a bit of work by the producer to get the vocal sounding loud.

We did a bit of research and realised that the problem was the budget microphone we are using. So, we got a better mic and had the following setup:

RØDE NT1-A 1 Condenser Microphone --> Phantom power --> Lexicon Alpha USB mixer --> Computer

This solved the loudness problem, now the vocal sits well in the mix. The next problem was that the vocal kept clipping on the louder parts of the recording, so we figured we needed a compressor. (We tried the software plugins in Mixcraft but it didn’t really work). So now our setup looks like this:

Microphone --> Phantom power --> Compressor --> Lexicon Alpha --> Computer

DBX 266xs - Soundcorp Pro Audio

This still doesn’t sound right though. We did a bit more research and found that the Compressor should be in the chain after the pre-amp, which is in the Lexicon Alpha. This obviously causes problems for us since the Lexicon is the interface to the computer. What I think we need is:

Microphone --> Phantom power --> Pre-amp --> Compressor --> Line in Lexicon Alpha --> Computer

I’m guessing that once the microphone signal has passed through the pre-amp it’s already converted to a line input, which means that the signal from the compressor should be patched into the line input on the Lexicon, bypassing the pre-amp built into the lexicon?

As you can probably see, we’re not really sure what the setup should be. What would you advise here?

Thanks for your help, it’s very much appreciated.

 

[bouldersoundguy]

What you need to do is turn your backing tracks down, record at a lower level to leave plenty of headroom and turn your headphone output up. Then, using a plugin, add compression to the vocal as needed in the mix to make it sound good (rather than prevent clipping). Then export (bounce, render) your mix to a stereo file. Then use a mastering limiter and/or other dynamics processing to make it as loud as you think it needs to be.

 

[Michael Mason]

strictly for the signal flow workout, i believe that's how you'd do it...and i see why you thought of doing it this way after looking at the specs of that Lexicon Alpha.

good choice on Mics... been using these at school with excellent results. although i have been getting some good sounds with the miss i have at home.

 

[Bobbsy]

A +1 for Bouldersoundguy. Simply turn down the levels at the time of recording to avoid clipping, then apply any compression you feel is necessary during the mix process so you can hear the effect in conjunction with all the other tracks. Compressing during tracking backs you into a corner since you're stuck with what you did and can't adjust it later.

However, in terms of the original query, yeah, you'd need a pre amp prior to the compressor since it's a line level device. Most mixers and some interfaces have a facility known as "inserts" which allow you to feed out from them after the mic pre then back into the chain but, looking at the spec for the Alpha, it doesn't provide that. I mention this because, rather than a extra pre, it might be worth looking at a change of interface if you still wish to go down the hardware route.