Compression

i978 · Post by **i978** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:31 pm

We all need a good bit of compression on a track every now and then.

So what's the best plugin to do the job?

For the hell of it, lets divide this into two categories
1. Free
2. Money no object

Also, does anyone have any advice on sidechaining?

foamo · Post by **foamo** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:05 am

Also, does anyone have any advice on sidechaining?

what program are you using? if your using reason i know good way of sidechaining to get the 'ducking' effect

i978 · Post by **i978** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:43 am

I'm using Ableton. I already know how to get the extreme "Ducking" effect - it can be useful on occasions but to my ears it's the aural equivalent of a woman wearing too much make-up (I love cliche). What I'm really after is tips on using it without sounding like a sonic whore.

narcossist · Post by **narcossist** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 10:59 am

for free the "sidekick" vst seems to work and is the easiest way of getting a sidechain in my experience.

for the best compresion i like the waves vsts, RCL from the renaisance pack is real nice an warm if a bit soggy at times. can't sidechain that but the c1 will do the trick. c4 is good as a master compressor as it seems to keep some depth and not flatten mixes too much.

re the sonic whoring just set the ratio lower and the attack longer and trim the release and you should be right.

chaoticpulse · Post by **chaoticpulse** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:28 am

if you use cubase, the tc compresser is the easiest way to set up sidechaing(thanks to the sidechainer plug in) you can do that with the waves too but it's a little more tricky
generally speaking my favourite compressor is the kraehjus golden compressor, voxengo marquis is nice too

slow riot · Post by **slow riot** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:35 am

sidechaining is fucking spectacular I think. I use it on pretty much everything these days... maybe one day I'll decide that I'm overusing it, but for the moment I route pretty much everything apart from the kick into my sidechain, it gets everything grooving pretty nicely.

I have seperate kick in my sequencer specifically to triggger the side chain, which can make some cool arsed rhythms if I play around with different kick/side kick variations.

plus you can chuck almost anything into the sidechain for more rhythmic experimentation. I'm still mostly just using a kick, but I have plans to try some reversed and ultra delayed hits to see what happens. you could even use something at a different time signiture for some polyrhythmic madness.

for sidechaining I use the elemental audio neodynium which is great, but unfortunately it got whored out to some guy called Roger Nichols who changed the name and upped the price.

for normal compression I just use the ableton ones, though I've been meaning to try some others. blockfish is supposed to be pretty grimey.

rickdias · Post by **rickdias** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 2:02 pm

Voxengo Polysquasher gives some nice mastering compression

foamo · Post by **foamo** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 2:58 pm

the aural equivalent of a woman wearing too much make-up (I love cliche).

i quite like girls wearing too much make-up.. maybe its just me.. or maybe i jus get with girls who have no natural beauty

dvnt · Post by **dvnt** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 9:19 am

what are u actually doing with compression then? other than compression. what purpose does it serve.

also can someone explain to me what sidechaining is doing and its purpose.

I am proper new to all this so excuse the stupid questions.

My system is Ableton Live5, Logic Express. Although I am getting on easier with Live, Logic is just annoying me and is harder to get stuff down.

holycen · Post by **holycen** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:37 am

1.PSP MasterComp, best compressor i know ... http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/mastercomp.html
2.Maybe that can help ... PSP VintageMeter
http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/vmeter.html

ps. im not psp saleman

ekstrak · Post by **ekstrak** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 11:56 am

what are u actually doing with compression then? other than compression. what purpose does it serve.

The simplest way i can describe compression is such:

If you think of 'what you hear' as a metre ruler covering the entire dynamic range of what the human ear can process, and importantly, what a PA is capable of reproducing.

So then your job as mix engineer (which most of us end up being within genres like this along with composer, producer etc) is to try and fit all of your various sounds/instruments into this one metre stretch. One of your tools will be compression. (EQ is probably the other most useful and relevant process you should investigate).

Consider that your bassline might potentially be 70cm of your ruler because its such a fat (dynamically rich) sound.

What you are doing with compression (unless using it as an effect) is to try and squash that bassline into more like 20cm so that there is still room for the rest of your sounds. Being able to do this without actually taking too much from the sound itself is where experience and good quality processors come in.

Now replace the metre ruler with 'Bandwidth' and you have the basics of why you want to be using compression.

--

Sidechain compression, in its simplest form, is a bit like 'remote controlled' compression, ie you can use another signal to control the compressor. It is very useful for creating those 'pumping' mixes you'll hear alot in things like electro.

dvnt · Post by **dvnt** » Fri Sep 29, 2006 1:33 pm

ekstrak wrote:
what are u actually doing with compression then? other than compression. what purpose does it serve.
The simplest way i can describe compression is such:

If you think of 'what you hear' as a metre ruler covering the entire dynamic range of what the human ear can process, and importantly, what a PA is capable of reproducing.

So then your job as mix engineer (which most of us end up being within genres like this along with composer, producer etc) is to try and fit all of your various sounds/instruments into this one metre stretch. One of your tools will be compression. (EQ is probably the other most useful and relevant process you should investigate).

Consider that your bassline might potentially be 70cm of your ruler because its such a fat (dynamically rich) sound.

What you are doing with compression (unless using it as an effect) is to try and squash that bassline into more like 20cm so that there is still room for the rest of your sounds. Being able to do this without actually taking too much from the sound itself is where experience and good quality processors come in.

Now replace the metre ruler with 'Bandwidth' and you have the basics of why you want to be using compression.

--

Sidechain compression, in its simplest form, is a bit like 'remote controlled' compression, ie you can use another signal to control the compressor. It is very useful for creating those 'pumping' mixes you'll hear alot in things like electro.

wow. Yes I understand that. thank you explaining it.

antilynd · Post by **antilynd** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 10:44 am

"Generally, I dislike the sound of a compressor working more than I dislike the little bit of extra effort it takes to balance things without it." -- Steve Albini

ekaj · Post by **ekaj** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:19 pm

Never really use compression

diverse · Post by **diverse** » Mon Oct 02, 2006 1:54 am

compression is bad fucking ass if used right.

struggle · Post by **struggle** » Wed Nov 15, 2006 9:35 am

Foamo wrote:
Also, does anyone have any advice on sidechaining?
what program are you using? if your using reason i know good way of sidechaining to get the 'ducking' effect

i'm using reason. fill me in please.

Compression

Compression

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