SouthSIDE Glen
independentrecording.net
Because, quite frankly, they don't exist. This is a concept that is one of the very hardest for many people to grasp. There are so many variables involved, that the starting position of the knobs is irrelevant; the chances are infintesimal one is going to wind up sticking with those settings.mattkw80 said:
Well, you say, at least I could start out close, which makes it easier to zoom in on the ideal setting. There are at least two rebuttals to that idea:
- First, depending on the actual nature of the actual content one is processing, the difference between (just example numbers here) 2:1/50ms @ 10dB aand 3:1/70ms @ 12dB is HUGE. The numbers may seem close, in the same ballpark you might say; but the results are night and day. Someone could pick the first group of settings and it will sound like crap; just as much as if they picked some random setting (or left the compressor out altogether, FTM.) They'll think they are way off target and have the wrong recipe.
- Second, once they dial in the first "recipe", if they don't have an understanding of what each control actually does - and more importantly, about how changes in those settings will actually affect what they're hearing - they'll be swinging a stick in the dark hoping to hit a pinata they know is *somehwere*, but have no idea where. And when you have three controls like gain reduction (ratio), attack and threshold, you're working in three dimensions just like you are with a piniata. However this is more difficult because you are only working in one dimension at a time; i.e. you are only turning one knob at a time. It's not like you can swing wildly about in all three dimensions at once. And in fact, it's even harder than that because I'm ignoring the 4th dimension; release. In such a case it's no better to start out at some "preset" or "recipe" than it is to start at some random location. The only reason presets exist on compressors is because they help sell them to those that don't otherwise know how to use them, not because they have much actual intrinsic value.
What needs to be conveyed over and over again is deciding whether or not to compress, how much to compress, at what threshold to compress, how fast to compress depends only partly on what kind of music or effect one is shooting for. The fact that someone wants to make a Hip Hop recording or an Alternative Country recording is - at the very best - only one third of the equation.
The second thrid (and usually more) is the actual nature of the voice or instrument being recorded or mixed. That is the key variable that affects the values of everything else right down the line. Without that information (in the form of an actual recording to look at and listen to), all other values are arbitrary.
And the final third is the rest of the mix. Compression decisions for any given track have to (or at least should) be made in the context of how to best get that track to sit in the rest of the mix. The "best" way to compress an a capella vocal is rarely the "best" way to compress the same vocal mixed with a half-dozen other instruments. And in-between those extremes it further depends upon the intended arrangement of said vocals and instruments.
Matt, you're right that "handbook" book is a great read, as are all of the books in that series. I've read and taken notes from all three of them myself. You're also right that those books contain a lot of snippets from a lot of big name engineers where they say "I'll start with 4:1 compresssion on the widget and a 2kHz boost on the frenzel." What they're not telling you is where they wind up, and that they wind up in a different location virtually every time. They are just used to starting at a certain point in certain situations because that's how their ears and hands are best trained to work the gear they use, not because it's necessarily a better place than any other to start. If one has an untrained ear and is inexperienced on a given type of gear, however, those starting points are no more advantageous than picking halfway up on all controls as a "preset" starting point.
I know this is a huge downer for a lot of people to hear. But it is the way it is. The fact is that the use of compression is something that has to be learned in the same way that riding a bike or driving a car needs to be learned. People are going to compressors much too early in the learning process, asking how to use them as if they're asking how to drive a race car.
You can read all you want about how Dale Earnhardt Jr. likes to downshift from 6th to 4th when going into the 3rd corner at Talladega, but chances are if any of us tried to do that the first time we hopped in a car like Dale's that we'd break the gearbox and send the car into the wall.
G.
Last edited:
