elephantgrey Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1424692465' post='2699132'] Parallel compression is the best of both worlds, IMHO. [/quote] Parallel compression on drums is almost a must for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Do love a bit of parallel compression on drums, as well as smashing the knackers out of room mics or core mics and blending a bit of that signal into the kit as a whole, can really bring out some extra life and energy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 [quote name='Iain' timestamp='1417261581' post='2618623'] I generally have a little all the time. I use a rack mount fx unit (Eleven Rack) and have just a little dialled in early in the chain. Usually ~4:1, slow attack, fast release. Generally not too strong or intrusive... just levels things out a little. [/quote] I've had a tweak on most of my setting since I posted this and removed the compression entirely. Change of bass and I found the lack of expression to be annoying - it was more noticeable on the new bass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discreet Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 (edited) [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1424712524' post='2699482'] Do love a bit of parallel compression on drums, as well as smashing the knackers out of room mics or core mics and blending a bit of that signal into the kit as a whole, can really bring out some extra life and energy [/quote] In my case I think 'parallel compression' is probably too grand a term for it... ...what I really mean is 'a compressor with a blend control'. Edited February 23, 2015 by discreet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Sausage Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 I wonder what musicians sounded like before compressors and limiters etc were invented. How did they get by with all those peaks and troughs. You can imagine audiences at gigs saying "well i'm not enjoying this, there isn't enough fatness to that bass", or "can you believe his upstrokes are slightly louder than his downstrokes". Or even "i came to really enjoy the vibe and the music but all i'm bothered about is what the bass player is or isn't doing with his tone". "I wish this pesky human ear was better equipped to notice audible volumes" I think sometimes we think to much! Never used one by the way, live. I do when mixing songs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elephantgrey Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 (edited) [quote name='discreet' timestamp='1424730394' post='2699893'] In my case I think 'parallel compression' is probably too grand a term for it... ...what I really mean is 'a compressor with a blend control'. [/quote] Well parallel compression is compression with 50/50 wet/dry. heres a good diagram i found explaining it (mainly just cause im a geek and like this sort of thing) Edited February 24, 2015 by elephantgrey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 [quote name='Iain' timestamp='1424729851' post='2699878'] I've had a tweak on most of my setting since I posted this and removed the compression entirely. Change of bass and I found the lack of expression to be annoying - it was more noticeable on the new bass. [/quote] Is the new bass a bit louder or quieter? If so, maybe re-setting the threshold would have helped Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discreet Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 [quote name='elephantgrey' timestamp='1424754689' post='2700015'] [/quote] Thanks for that, now it's all crystal clear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 [quote name='Lord Sausage' timestamp='1424733322' post='2699944'] I wonder what musicians sounded like before compressors and limiters etc were invented. How did they get by with all those peaks and troughs. You can imagine audiences at gigs saying "well i'm not enjoying this, there isn't enough fatness to that bass", or "can you believe his upstrokes are slightly louder than his downstrokes". Or even "i came to really enjoy the vibe and the music but all i'm bothered about is what the bass player is or isn't doing with his tone". "I wish this pesky human ear was better equipped to notice audible volumes" I think sometimes we think to much! Never used one by the way, live. I do when mixing songs [/quote] Well to be honest you have to go back to the fifties to get to a time when some form of auto levelling (or compression or limiting) wasn't in use on recorded output as pretty much the norm. By the sixties it was very very common, Motown, Abbey Road, Joe Meek, all [i]big [/i]exponents of the use of compressors and limiters. In order to cut a decent level to disc you need to manage low end significantly, in fact the low end is eq'ed out of the signal before it hits the disc and then eq'ed back as best as possible by the record deck on playback (just one of many reasons that vinyl is not as accurate as digital is that the eq curve on the record deck is often not the same as that on the record pressing, and adding bass like this adds noise, but I digress). Proper use of compression doesnt get rid of all the peaks and troughs at all either, yet another common misconception, but it will change the envelope of the signal, preferrably for the better, if you know what you are doing Its a tool, its also a tool that people are very very used to hearing without even knowing it. Use one if you want to and you know how, or dont if you are against the dreaded compressors that have infiltrated the purity of music for more than 50 years.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iain Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1424775130' post='2700220'] Is the new bass a bit louder or quieter? If so, maybe re-setting the threshold would have helped [/quote] Not significantly different - both active. Very different to play though - old Thumb 5 vs Dingwall Z3, different active circuit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VTypeV4 Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 I've found good results can be had even with cheap compressors. For many years I used Behringer rack units in various models and all seemed to work well with their simple but comprehensive layout and metering. I'm not entirely sure the labels on the front panels were always telling the truth but they were often my first 'go-to' point of sonic manipulation as and when needed. Today I use digital consoles with dynamics processors built into each channel so the Behringers sit in the rack dormant but tricks used on them often translate well. On a slightly geeky note (and I don't know if it's just in my head) I find the compressors in my 02R to be much better sounding than those in an LS9. Might be in my head but I'm sure there's a difference even with the same settings. Compressors are one of the most useful things from an engineering perspective, probably only second to comprehensive EQ. IME at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='VTypeV4' timestamp='1424827243' post='2700989'] Compressors are one of the most useful things from an engineering perspective, probably only second to comprehensive EQ. IME at least. [/quote] Agree 100% The only thing more useful than eq and compressors are the faders.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1424783299' post='2700380'] Well to be honest you have to go back to the fifties to get to a time when some form of auto levelling (or compression or limiting) wasn't in use on recorded output as pretty much the norm.[/quote] You'll probably find that any signal that has passed through valves or been recorded onto magnetic tape has had some degree of compression applied to it even though it didn't pass through an actual compressor, simply because of the nature of the electronics and the way audio signals behave when recorded onto magnetic tape. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 (edited) [quote name='BigRedX' timestamp='1424864667' post='2701263'] You'll probably find that any signal that has passed through valves or been recorded onto magnetic tape has had some degree of compression applied to it even though it didn't pass through an actual compressor, simply because of the nature of the electronics and the way audio signals behave when recorded onto magnetic tape. [/quote] Very very good point, well said. Pushing tape hard especially for drums and bass is a classic way to get some lovely fatness from the inherent nature of tape compression and saturation. Sounds fantastic, and its why so many companies and people spent so long trying to get a great emulation of the effect. Not sure how prevalent tape compression was in the fifties but I would be surprised if no one tried pushing tape as hard as they could back in the day, even recording to mono, the hotter you record to tape before distortion the better the signal to noise ratio. So its all good.... Edited February 25, 2015 by 51m0n Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No lust in Jazz Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1424868264' post='2701322'] Pushing tape hard .. [/quote] Please could you explain this? its a term that I've never come across. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 (edited) Sure, when you record to tape you set the recording level, just like in digital recording. The difference is that whereas with digital you have a hard and absolute maximum level (0dBFs) which you cannot capture anything louder than at all (you just clip the input which sounds like arse) tape is truly analogue. As you raise the level on tape the peaks will encroach into an area above that which the tape can reproduce accurately, that is the maximum clean headroom of the medium. Instead of just crapping out at this point though you can keep pushing a bit more and rather tan sounding like arse the tape will saturate, there will be some distortion and a compression effect that sounds very very cool on a lot of sources, drums recorded hard onto tape is about as clasic a rock sound as you can imagine, but everyone in all pop genres used this technique. There wasn't a compressor for every channel in and some more for groups, and yet more for the 2 buss back in the day, but everything went to tape and you could use that to help you out both when tracking and when mixing down to 2 track, in both cases pushing the tape a little (effectively recording too hot for the cleanest reproduction) sounded better than clean did, more exciting, fatter with more impact and punch. Recording digitally you can not replicate this except with fx, unless you literally run your capture to tape and then run it back into your DAW (and yes there are studios that will do this for you if you send them your project file and wavs, its not cheap though because they'll be using big 2" 24 track machines and they cost a lot to maintain, not to mention the tape cost). If you want to get close there are several tape saturation plugins out there to play with, none of them is exactly like any specific brand of tape on any specific machine, but many of them can still give a reasonable facsimile. You can also roll your own if you want by chaining good saturation and compression plugins with the right settings, but its still not ever quite as nice as that fat tape sound (the grass was always greener over yonder blah blah). Of course tape has a tonne of issues that make it less good than digital (crosstalk, wow, flutter, head wear, tape wear, frequency response, dynamic range, sheer cost) but that sound of a great kit being pushed hard into tape is glorious Edited February 25, 2015 by 51m0n Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 Back when I used to get Tape Op (no idea why that stopped!) they reviewed a VST tape sim next to a struder tape machine, and reckoned it was spot on. I wish I could remember the name of the plug-in now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1424878298' post='2701493']...I wish I could remember the name of the plug-in now! [/quote] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 It must have been the UAD one I think, which isn't VST and you need a UAD card. Oh well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No lust in Jazz Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1424877889' post='2701484'] Sure, when you record to tape you set the recording level, just like in digital recording... being pushed hard into tape is glorious [/quote] Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VTypeV4 Posted February 25, 2015 Share Posted February 25, 2015 [quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1424857236' post='2701127'] Agree 100% The only thing more useful than eq and compressors are the faders.... [/quote] Ha, brilliant! So true.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr911 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Compression still baffles me after 4 pages I have a Behringer stomp box. All I need is something subtle to sort out my tekkers when playing at a beer festival (with no FOH) and we're being paid in free beer. I do always try to have a bit of grit in my sound as we play indie/rock. Tell me where to put the knobs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheddatom Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 If you have a bit of grit then that would already be taming any peaks, except with distortion instead of compression What's the problem you're trying to solve? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
discreet Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1424878298' post='2701493'] Back when I used to get Tape Op (no idea why that stopped!) they reviewed a VST tape sim next to a struder tape machine, and reckoned it was spot on. I wish I could remember the name of the plug-in now! [/quote] I use Vintage Warmer 2 from PSP. It has various tape saturation and classic compressor settings. Use it for mastering all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njr911 Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 [quote name='cheddatom' timestamp='1425985415' post='2712993'] If you have a bit of grit then that would already be taming any peaks, except with distortion instead of compression What's the problem you're trying to solve? [/quote] I think the underlying issue is peddle GAS with a paranoia around crap bass sound in the mix (Jazz with flats) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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