Does anybody here know how to work a compressor?

[Taialin 217]

Relative newcomer to both the forums and music production, here, and I have a question that may be trivial to some of you. I guess all I have to ask is in the title; does anybody here know how to work a compressor/limiter with respect to what it means in digital music production?

 

Compression has always been something that's confused me terribly. I'm not talking about the parameters/technical details: threshold, ratio, gain, knee, attack, release . . . I already know how all those work (mechanically speaking). But I don't know why one would use a compressor (other than the fight the loudness wars) nor how. Sure, I know that a compressor can be used to smooth abrupt changes in amplitude and is generally used to make things louder, but beyond that, I don't know much.

 

All my usual attempts to use a compressor are generally met with failure, and in the end, I just end up nixing them mostly because the music sounds better without them. At the same time, I know most people make significant use of compressors and—gasp—multiband compressors.

 

I must learn the dark art of the compressor, if only to understand why and when I should/shouldn't use one. 

[SynBassilicious Pony 322]

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Edited January 30, 2023 by SynBassilicious Pony

[Taialin 217]

 

 

I don't really use any compression on rhythm guitars, with the exception of a multiband compressor to reduce only the low frequencies from boomy mutes.  On the bass, it is to make it consistent so that it fits in a mix without going wobbly or uneven.  Compression on drums to make them stick out, and more on the entire music to squash it together a little and give it a bit of loudness

Ooh, that is pretty useful! Though in the interests of controlling frequencies, wouldn't you just use parametric equalizer? At least, that's what I use it for. And can you elaborate on how you mean by helping drums "stick out?" The nature of drums being exceptionally fast attack instruments makes them seem kind of uncompressible (unless you use 0ms attack or something).

 

And yeah, I've ran into pumping and overcompression more times than I can count. I know what compression artifacts sound like very well.  :okiedokielokie:

[SynBassilicious Pony 322]

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Edited January 30, 2023 by SynBassilicious Pony

[Taialin 217]

 

 

Drums do have a fast attack, but they're still going to need compression to stand out in a heavy metal mix.  Without any processing, they'll probably sound like flip flop compared to the rest of the music.  Compression can emphasize their thwack and keep them sounding powerful in the mix.

 

Ah. Then this is more of a matter of interest than anything else, but what sort of settings do you use to give drums their "thwack"? Do you capture it all or let some transients through? Not sure how much help this'll be to me, but I'd like to ask, anyway. I'm not really one to make heavy metal compositions very often, after all.

[SynBassilicious Pony 322]

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Edited January 30, 2023 by SynBassilicious Pony

[Aurelleah 894]

Relative newcomer to both the forums and music production, here, and I have a question that may be trivial to some of you. I guess all I have to ask is in the title; does anybody here know how to work a compressor/limiter with respect to what it means in digital music production?

 

Compression has always been something that's confused me terribly. I'm not talking about the parameters/technical details: threshold, ratio, gain, knee, attack, release . . . I already know how all those work (mechanically speaking). But I don't know why one would use a compressor (other than the fight the loudness wars) nor how. Sure, I know that a compressor can be used to smooth abrupt changes in amplitude and is generally used to make things louder, but beyond that, I don't know much.

 

All my usual attempts to use a compressor are generally met with failure, and in the end, I just end up nixing them mostly because the music sounds better without them. At the same time, I know most people make significant use of compressors and—gasp—multiband compressors.

 

I must learn the dark art of the compressor, if only to understand why and when I should/shouldn't use one. 

 

 

A compressor is used to reduce the dynamic range of a song. 

 

Lets take a singer for example. Check out this song here as an example, My Wings Aria. 

 

When the singer was singing, there were parts that were really quiet and parts where she belted it out. Having such a huge range is actually unpleasant in a song, a compressor is used to gently bring the lows and highs to a closer level so they sit better in the song. It also makes a song feel more glued together since all sounds have a common sort of peak-to-valley ratio. That's actually its primary function, overall average percieved volume (RMS) is just a side effect

[Kithop 19]

One fun thing I like doing is Parallel Compression, particularly on drum submixes (usually two separate paths for the shells with a couple more stacked in, and much less on the overheads/cymbals).

 

You take your dry drum mix, put it into a bus in your DAW, then set up 2-5~ish Aux in tracks that are reading in that bus, push them down to say, -14dB or so and slap on fairly heavy compression, say from an all-buttons-in 1176.  If you solo that aux track with the compressor, it should sound just on the threshold of being really annoyingly squashed.  Dupe that setting across the rest of the buses, group them together so you can adjust their faders together, and then bring them up and down (or alternately, try muting/unmuting individual aux tracks to alter the number of parallel compressors) relative to the original dry track that you want to leave at 0dB.

 

What this does is rather than just making loud things quieter, it alters the curve to try and make quiet things louder, without boosting the noise floor too much.  I'll usually run 3 or 4 compressors on the dry drum shells and one or two on the cymbals.

 

My first attempt at doing this from a live situation (too much on the cymbals, but it fits the style): http://88miletrip.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-the-dtes

 

Bit better mix of my other friends' doom metal band - all live off the floor in a really noisy room with 15+ mics: https://oldeworldenudists.bandcamp.com/releases