I just tried compression for the 1st time

Eemo1 wrote:

the cosmic pimp wrote:

Coz wrote:There's no excuse for any bedroom producer to be leaving the engineering of a track to someone else, unless you have way too much money to burn or your best pal is an engineer!

How are you going to shape your own sound if you leave it to someone else to tidy up your ****?

^^^^ This is the proberly the most awarding practise to do with making music.

Defo the hardest thing to get ya head round but once it clicks it dont half make a difference.

Compression don't kill anything just a Multi band comp and Eq cuts one every track.

1. quote, maybe that someone else (professional engineer) has better listening environment and better equipment to do the job. not to mention the experience?

2. quote, "just a Multi band comp and Eq cuts one every track" - are you serious?

1.Coz is experienced.

2.Yeah am serious

My view on the subject :

- If you want to learn how to use compressors you should experiment with them. And do some reading about them.
Start with the basics !! If you can't pull off a level mix you should practice that first, before touching a compressor in mixing....

- Understanding how the envelope of a given sound changes when applying different types of compression is something you can only find out only by listening and experimentation.

- Compressors are available in many different circuit designs and are applied in a lot of different audio applications.
This goes for hardware as well as plugins. Understanding how they work doesn't necessarily translate into being able to use them practically in a mix / recording / master. This takes time and is something you need to practice on.

- Compression didn't start out as a creative tool for mixing, but as a automatic level control in telephone companies where there was signal level loss over long distances, to preserve this level compressors were used. As was EQ, because high freq's were also lost over long distances. These tools are taken for granted in this era and probably 2 of the most used processing tools in audio.... and misused

- To say that in this day and age there is no need for sending you're tracks out to places for mixing / mastering is simply not true in my opinion.
It really depends what your plans are with your music. If you want to release music on vinyl for instance I would advise you strongly to send it out to a mastering house that does mastering for vinyl before pressing. Because there is a mechanical process involved, incorrect mastering (and use of compression and eqing) can cause the needle to skip or you end up not being able to fit all your songs on the record...
This applies to mixing, recording, live mixing, mastering... there are people that have more experience with this and will do a better job than you with little or no knowledge and skill.
Of course this doesn't mean you can't learn this craft or try to do it yourself, it just means there's more involved than just knowing the theory or having all the waves plugins on your daw.
There is a big learning curve involved and a good amount of dedication to become good at it.....like anything else... But by all means TRY IT and EXPERIMENT...and with time you will learn to use compression in your mixes....it is just 1 of many tools used in music production....

Explaining and understanding the theory takes maybe a few hours, but using compression practically and knowing what to listen for and making use of the controls takes some more time !


Take care

yeah agree with above post.

people seem to be getting concerned with compression, like everything needs to be compressed, resulting in a really flat non dynamic track, because they've thrown a compressor on every track in there daw.

id much rather get my audio source perfect, and have a really well mixed track that sings, and has loads of dynamic range, it don't have to be loud! compression can be great for creative uses, but i tend to stay away from it and concentrate on mixing down my tracks.

its the same with eqing, if im struggling to get a sound to sit in my mix and its been eq'd heavily i'd rather change that sound for something that fits within that frequency range naturally, and obviously compliments the track.

if your wanting to learn mastering, learn it by all means, if you want to be a producer learn to mix your tracks down to absolute perfection, that way a mastering guy is going to get the best results from your track. some folk can wear both hats, but that takes a long time.

mixing down is hard enough for me, and seems to be an artform in itself that some people dont take seriously enough, they believe a mastering engineer will magically make a track amazing which isnt true, generally speaking a rubbish mix = rubbish master.

this is why i dont even bother with mastering my own stuff and rather leave that to someone who knows what they're doing, and just concentrate on mixing down

very helpful, thanks

gowansy wrote:
if your wanting to learn mastering, learn it by all means, if you want to be a producer learn to mix your tracks down to absolute perfection, that way a mastering guy is going to get the best results from your track. some folk can wear both hats, but that takes a long time.

one strong point about using a mastering service is the fresh new ears point. someone that is not biased, hears the material and gives feedback on it. it's not just about tweaking some knobs.

does anyone know how real compressors compare with software compressors? are software compressors as good?

guesswhosback wrote:does anyone know how real compressors compare with software compressors? are software compressors as good?

Just download the Oxford collection of a torrent.The Guy who produces The Dixie Chicks swears by it in the ads in Future Music.

take that as a yes then...

or no???

not quite sure

I think it's a subjective thing. It depends what you'd want from a compressor personally. Some hardware units will colour the audio, others won't. Again it's the whole hardware/software debate which is long and pointless.