BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 Even though it was less than a decade ago that I was at college, I learned how to record using good ol' 2" magnetic tape. So I got into the habit of lightly compressing to tape, especially on vocals and bass, to keep the signal comfortably above the tape noise. Now I'm getting back into the recording thang, but this time with (at the moment) a purely ITB, Logic-and-plugins setup. Given that I've got 24 bits of (largely noiseless) dynamic range to play with, is there any point compressing to tape any more? Is it even possible in Logic without an outboard compressor? Is everyone doing dynamic control in the mix now? I feel way behind the times all of a sudden. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184698' date='Apr 1 2011, 01:43 PM']Even though it was less than a decade ago that I was at college, I learned how to record using good ol' 2" magnetic tape. So I got into the habit of lightly compressing to tape, especially on vocals and bass, to keep the signal comfortably above the tape noise. Now I'm getting back into the recording thang, but this time with (at the moment) a purely ITB, Logic-and-plugins setup. Given that I've got 24 bits of (largely noiseless) dynamic range to play with, is there any point compressing to tape any more? Is it even possible in Logic without an outboard compressor? Is everyone doing dynamic control in the mix now? I feel way behind the times all of a sudden. [/quote] Can of worms really. It depends what you want your recordings to sound like, but if you want to compete with commercial stuff, you'll need to compress. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='Beedster' post='1184715' date='Apr 1 2011, 01:54 PM']Can of worms really. It depends what you want your recordings to sound like, but if you want to compete with commercial stuff, you'll need to compress.[/quote] Check out 'loudness war' or similar on Google, especially the forum discussions around Californication. Very interesting stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 Ah, I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. Indeed, I'd almost always compress stuff for the mix... but while recording? So the compression's permanently part of that recorded take? I get the impression that in the digital domain, there's little point. On tape, I would have lightly compressed a vocal while recording (so there's compression on the recorded signal), and then usually added some more in the mix... not to mention compression across the master bus. It seems that I could get the same effect digitally by just applying two compressors on the vocal track, one after the other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 With 24 bit there is no need to compress to tape, you can happily record with 6-12dB of head room, which pretty much guarantees there will be no transient lost. However that doesnt mean that you might not like to use some analogue (real) compression on the way into the digita domain, it may be a unit that you like the osund of even if the compression is very very light, or whatever. Whatever sounds better to you really. I routinely compress bass on the way in for instance, and use limiters when tracking drums to ensure that clipping wont occur, even with 6-12dB of headroom (especially hard to guarantee you wont get overs on drums, just ask Cheddatom!). However, the only thing to bear in mind is that if you compress it down to tape, you cant undo it later, so less is generally more... One other thing, a lot of nastier compressors add a tonne of noise (yes even rack ones, I had an LA Audio one that was utterly useless, so I sent that back), worse than well sorted tape by far! Multiple chained compression is a complettely reasonable thing to do, as is parallel compression, group and buss compression, all at the same time if need be to get the mix to work 'right'. Again remember that ratios are multipliers, so a 4:1 ratio followed by a 6:1 ratio is a 24:1 ratio (given the same threshold), so the more compressor stages you use the more careful you need to be not to crush the life out of the source material. Some gentle 'glue' compression on the 2-buss is a must for a good mix for me, and that is regardless of limiting and maximising and all that nonsense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184752' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:15 PM']Ah, I think we're talking at cross-purposes here. Indeed, I'd almost always compress stuff for the mix... but while recording? So the compression's permanently part of that recorded take? I get the impression that in the digital domain, there's little point. On tape, I would have lightly compressed a vocal while recording (so there's compression on the recorded signal), and then usually added some more in the mix... not to mention compression across the master bus. It seems that I could get the same effect digitally by just applying two compressors on the vocal track, one after the other.[/quote] Ah, sorry. What 51m0n said then! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='51m0n' post='1184760' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:23 PM']With 24 bit there is no need to compress to tape, you can happily record with 6-12dB of head room, which pretty much guarantees there will be no transient lost. However that doesnt mean that you might not like to use some analogue (real) compression on the way into the digita domain, it may be a unit that you like the osund of even if the compression is very very light, or whatever. Whatever sounds better to you really. I routinely compress bass on the way in for instance, and use limiters when tracking drums to ensure that clipping wont occur, even with 6-12dB of headroom (especially hard to guarantee you wont get overs on drums, just ask Cheddatom!). <snip>[/quote] Thanks for that. Much as I expected... and kind of good to hear, because I've got no spare wedge for any outboard now! I'd be tempted to stick a smidgeon of my TC Nova Dynamics pedal on my bass if I was desperate to capture "full" bass notes along with high harmonics (something it seems to do really nicely in multiband mode). It doesn't have the flexibility I'd really like it to... but it sounds class. Another thing I've noticed, coming back to the recording end of things after a while away... I've been playing with BFD to generate drums (and bloody great it is too). The thing is, I'm so used to hearing bleed on drum tracks that I'm mixing it in from BFD, only to gate it out again in the mix, just like I used to. Talk about making it hard for myself... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='Beedster' post='1184785' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:33 PM']Ah, sorry. What 51m0n said then![/quote] No worries! I think "What 51m0n said" should become the motto of the Recording sub-forum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ras52 Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 I've just finished reading this [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Reco...d/dp/1423454464[/url] as a prelude to getting back into the recording thang. The author generally advocates applying effects up front and "mixing as you go", principally because although you theoretically [i]can [/i]do it all later, in practice you'll be limited by CPU power etc. And of course you may prefer the sound of your outboard gear. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184808' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:42 PM']Thanks for that. Much as I expected... and kind of good to hear, because I've got no spare wedge for any outboard now! I'd be tempted to stick a smidgeon of my TC Nova Dynamics pedal on my bass if I was desperate to capture "full" bass notes along with high harmonics (something it seems to do really nicely in multiband mode). It doesn't have the flexibility I'd really like it to... but it sounds class. Another thing I've noticed, coming back to the recording end of things after a while away... I've been playing with BFD to generate drums (and bloody great it is too). The thing is, I'm so used to hearing bleed on drum tracks that I'm mixing it in from BFD, only to gate it out again in the mix, just like I used to. Talk about making it hard for myself... [/quote] I know what you mean, but bleed makes drums sound real, I (being a very very cheap son of a #@~{) use [url="http://www.bluenoise.no/mydrumset.html"]BlueNoise MyDrumSet[/url] precisely because there is bleed on the tracks (its a nicely done free VSTi too). It can really help. It wasnt until I did some work with a pro drummer who ran his own pro studio that I learnt the importance of a bit of bleed, especially the way the kick 'activates' the snares on the snare drum, adds some top end to the kick too, you see. He has a beautiful Yamha Maple Custom, and its tuned absolutely bang on, incredibly easy to mix, bleed and all. Rather than gating hard I just try and knock 4 or 5 dB off with gates, maybe mopre if there will be a lot of compression on the kit after the fact. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='ras52' post='1184823' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:53 PM']I've just finished reading this [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Reco...d/dp/1423454464[/url] as a prelude to getting back into the recording thang. The author generally advocates applying effects up front and "mixing as you go", principally because although you theoretically [i]can [/i]do it all later, in practice you'll be limited by CPU power etc. And of course you may prefer the sound of your outboard gear.[/quote] I'd disagree with that if you have a remotely modern PC. Even my rather antiquated work PC can run a 24+ track mixdown, and I use a lot eq's and dynamic processing and a couple of really full on reverbs and a killer delay as a minimum, add in tape saturation and gates, and so on and thats a lot of load by anyone's standars, yet I can do it all ITB with that machine. Furthermore, its trivial to run off some stems of heavy groups to work against and lighten the load whilst you are concentrating in a specific other area, and then switch everything back on for the big final render. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='51m0n' post='1184843' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:03 PM']I'd disagree with that if you have a remotely modern PC.[/quote] Yeah, I think I should be fine. Just picked up one of the new MacBook Pro quad-core line (hence the lack of money for outboard ). I saw someone on Gearslutz post that they'd tested one by having over 100 tracks running in Logic, with heavy processing on nearly all of them and several instances of big NI instruments (Kontakt, Battery, that sort of thing)... and the machine was quite happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='ras52' post='1184823' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:53 PM']I've just finished reading this [url="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Recording-Studio-Leonard/dp/1423454464"]http://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerilla-Home-Reco...d/dp/1423454464[/url] as a prelude to getting back into the recording thang. The author generally advocates applying effects up front and "mixing as you go", principally because although you theoretically [i]can [/i]do it all later, in practice you'll be limited by CPU power etc. And of course you may prefer the sound of your outboard gear.[/quote] I read that book when I was putting my studio together. There are some useful sections but in terms of the question above I think it's a bit outdated now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beedster Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184810' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:44 PM']No worries! I think "What 51m0n said" should become the motto of the Recording sub-forum.[/quote] 51m0nchatt, the new recording forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='Beedster' post='1184860' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:12 PM']51m0nchatt, the new recording forum [/quote] 51m0n5h4tt talking out of his 4r5e for anyone who'll care to listen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted April 1, 2011 Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1184857' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:11 PM']Yeah, I think I should be fine. Just picked up one of the new MacBook Pro quad-core line (hence the lack of money for outboard ). I saw someone on Gearslutz post that they'd tested one by having over 100 tracks running in Logic, with heavy processing on nearly all of them and several instances of big NI instruments (Kontakt, Battery, that sort of thing)... and the machine was quite happy.[/quote] I need a new machine, that sounds fantastic! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 1, 2011 Author Share Posted April 1, 2011 [quote name='51m0n' post='1184868' date='Apr 1 2011, 03:15 PM']I need a new machine, that sounds fantastic![/quote] It's absolutely glorious. The first time I switched it on (after the initial setup boot), it booted so fast I thought something must be wrong! Looking forward to seeing what they do with the Thunderbolt interface too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted April 2, 2011 Author Share Posted April 2, 2011 [quote name='51m0n' post='1184835' date='Apr 1 2011, 02:58 PM']He has a beautiful Yamha Maple Custom[/quote] Ooh, I've got one of those too! [url="http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=125"]Have a look[/url]. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
51m0n Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 [quote name='BottomEndian' post='1185601' date='Apr 2 2011, 10:03 AM']Ooh, I've got one of those too! [url="http://www.fxpansion.com/index.php?page=125"]Have a look[/url]. [/quote] Dayummmn that shure is purdy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BottomEndian Posted June 1, 2011 Author Share Posted June 1, 2011 [quote name='51m0n' post='1252480' date='Jun 1 2011, 11:06 AM']Dayummmn that shure is purdy![/quote] And only £35 too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MacDaddy Posted June 1, 2011 Share Posted June 1, 2011 nothing constructive to add, but just to reminisce, back in the day we used to mix down on to a Betamax video master. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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