production knowledge

Endevour wrote:i usually use a ratio of 4:1 or some times a 6:1 , anything 10:1 and up is a considered a limiter.

I must disagree here. There are many uses for ratio settings greater than 10:1, epecially if you doin hip-hop or club music. The ratio of a true limiter is Infinite:1. I have used compression ratios around 20:1 (with a nice fat attack time) many times to achieve a nice thumpin Kick or Bassline. They can be great for getting that "punchiness". BTW, does anyone else agree that the compressor on the MPC1000 (and all the other MPCs I've heard) sux? I think it's kinda useless.

and another thing about your "loudness" problem , when you add 2 waves together and they both have the same amplitude you wiill get double the output.so when you add the 2 of them together say ones at 85 db and the other ones at a litte more then hafe, then they should double so much and peak. its just the same as when your mixing, and oh well this snare is loud anuf,and you turn up the fader. it doesnt really get that much louder but they level on the meter goins up like crazy.its all about the signal you start with, the first thing you teach you in recording school is about bed tracks and maxium output and signal to noise ratio, when you record and samle and all the shit , you wana get the maxium level you can with out distortion. then when you mix you have a good strong siganl that you can turn down all you want.but if you have a weak signal and you try to turn it up , you not only turn up the signal you turn up the noise floor, then you end up getting an over all shity signal.every time i mix a song atmy school , when i first get it and nothing has been changed it sounds like shit everythings really loud and on even , thats cuase when you record its all about getting a good level, its like hey we just recorded this now lets mix it. record everything at good levels , then take everything later on and mix it compress what you need to and add effects , then bounce all the file to a l and r mono tracks. then master them and everything will come together perfectly . then just bounce as a stereo track and your done. theres obviously a little more to it then that , like mic tecs and recording tricks and all that shit, but then i might as right a book

shouldnt*

a limiter is 10:1 to infity
a limiter is defined when the compression ratio is over 10:1 or at 10:1
becuase when you start compressing with 10:1 your basically squashing the shit out of the dynamic rang, compresser compresses the dynamic rang a alimiter limits it , theres a big differnce


its still a compresser in the end, they just consider it limiting when you start use ratio excess of 10:1

from using like alesis 3060 compresser and every other one under the sun the compresser on the mpcs blow ass. nothing beats an good external compresser.

im not saying theres no uses , i use ratio settings over 10:1 all the time , some times a smaller ratio just wont get shit to stop peaking and you have limit the shit of it . or yah if you want a tight tigh sounding bass or somthing, you would compress the shit out of it, then you would get a solid bass cuase the bass basically no longer has a dynamic rang and all the freqs in the bass are now at equal amplitude,i will aggre with that for sure.

im just sayings usualy past 10:1 engineirs will consider it a limiter
cuase really a limiter is just a hardline compresser and a exspander is a hardline gate

Endevour wrote:a limiter is 10:1 to infity
its still a compresser in the end, they just consider it limiting when you start use ratio excess of 10:1

I guess it depends on who "they" is, but 10 years of engineering and mastering audio professionaly has taught me not to rule out compression settings greater than 10:1. To each his own i guess.

for the 10th time , whos saying to rule out compression settings greater then 10:1 , no one is. its simply known that settings greater then 10:1 are considered limiting. doesnt mean that settings greater then that are useless im simply saying that anything greater is known as limiting and as a said before a limiter is a hardline compresser, when you compress somting with a ratio of say 20:1, is consider is limiting, its still compression obviously but its now known as limiting. nobody said ratios in excess of 10:1 or useless, if you look on any external compresser slash limit, theyll be the compress ratios then past 10:1 there will be limiting ratios. and ona limiter theres no such things is attack ,cuase when your limiting somthing you want it to slowy kick in you want it to do its job right away. its all the same shit , its just got a differtn meaning when you start cranking of the ratio i never said ratios above 10:1 where useless

In a recording studio do they have a compressor for each channel? I know you use inserts on mixers but does that mean you have to track every instrument one at a time? (Because you don't want to use just one compressor setting for every instrument)

Do you understand what I'm asking?


*I'm talking about home studios. People like Dre can probably afford a great compressor on every channel.

YO I CANNOT THAT Ya`LL ENOUGH, SO MUCH INFO....IMMA GET ALL THOSE SUPLLIES AND TRY DIFFERENT THINGS!!!!!!!!!

but what hit me is that if imma spend money on all this ghetto shit, i might as well invest in some good bass absorbtion and noise damping shit....imma get some low grade bottleg material for now and test the levels and the whitenoise and all that, when when i move on up imma invest in the good ish and test it to seeif it was worth it....thanks for the help ya`lll....time to invest!!$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

hey thanx for the info man that crap drives me cray i can never get it perfict but i think im gonna take some classes also omega studios in rockville MD is one of the top studios in the country and they do alot of famous po=eoples recording and they offer good classes for a good price

skamgdi wrote:hey thanx for the info man that **** drives me cray i can never get it perfict but i think im gonna take some classes also omega studios in rockville MD is one of the top studios in the country and they do alot of famous po=eoples recording and they offer good classes for a good price

How much?

in a studio usually theyll have amulti channel compresser. the studio i usually work in has a 4 channel compresser/ limiter, same with the gate /exspander , cuase yah you obviously dont send them as a parrel effect there in insert sends

Maybe you're reading the wrong books. What school do you goto? I graduated from Full Sail in '03.

i goto cdis or now known as ai. witch is one of the best recording schools in north americ and is a wayyyyyyyy better school then "full sail"
we got people from all over the world at my school

so try me