Elektron Musical Instruments

It\ufffds not "all about compression",
But compression is not a bad thing.

A good limiter can help reduce the peak noises,
and make the beat a lot louder while still keeping the same character.
Especially on Bassdrums the attack has often too much DB.
Just watch the recorded Waveform in Wavelab for example and you
will see that the volume range is maybe consumed by a peak noise
that you don\ufffdt consider the main thing of the sound.

Also on Snares it can give you more punch.
Just set a slow attack, and a high ratio and
try to change the treshold and gain.
The "pumping effect" of a single band analogue compressor
could be what you are looking for.


Flo





Mati wrote:
>>When you tell me it's all about compression, it really sounds like
>>compression is more important than sound itself. I guess the
>>compression  matters some, but after the sound is right and the
>>balance is right. But lets say it's all about compression, then I'm
>>not going to believe that it is some magical process, that can't be
>>explained. I'm not talking about how-compressor-works, but what is it
>>that we are trying to achieve through it. What way should people try
>>to manipulate dynamics of drums with it. An example, is this what
>>should be done with compressor to get thick beefy beats:
>>
>>Let's take the kick and smash it in compressor really hard, but so
>>that compressor reacts to kick a little late, so that it leaves a hard
>>attack to kick and lowers dynamics only after that. So the attack is
>>fairly slow and release is long.
>>
>>After this we could route the kick to eq and emphasis the frequency we
>>want to punch after attack.
>>
>>So much for the example. What I mean to say, if somebody says is all
>>about to compression, it needs to be clarified somehow. What people
>>are exatcly doing with compressors, since they are so important. I've
>>found that people can't really answer to this, but they can answer
>>what should be done with eq, verbs and stuff like that.
>>
>>I'm not trying to rant here, I just want to hear if someone can offer
>>some explanation of this compression stuff, like you Mati or anyone
>>else. And I'm not speaking of ratios, Gain reduction or anything that
>>releates to compressor knobs.
>>
>>As for the books, Ive read couple of them like:
>>
>>Behind the Glass: Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft the Hits
>>(there are top-hit prodicers that don't use compression on bass or
>>kick at all.)
>>The Art of Mixing (Mix Pro Audio Series)
>>
>>I've been looking the Waves book, it has example projects (nuendo for
>>example) with waves-plugs on a cd. Might be usefull to see how they
>>have crafted the mixes.
>>
>>Toni.
> 
> 
> Sure - a compressor is not going to make a shit sound anything other than a
> compressed, maybe a bit more warm shit sound. But here is what my process is
> with compression on drums.
> 
> When tracking - I usually run my kicks through a DBX 165 or 266XL with light
> settings- the DBX stuff does a really good job of shaping the front of a
> kick to add a little bit to soften or harden the preceived punch, while not
> totally destroying the force of the drum over all. The DBX also adds a bit
> of warmth and roundness to the sound, even though it is not tube. Really
> depends on the kick, but this is what I do most of the time. Sometimes I
> will run the kick through an ADL Tube DI with no compression if I just want
> to warm it up and deal with dynamics in Protools or Logic.
> 
> With snares, depending on how they sit in the mix, sometimes I don't
> compress them at all. Sometimes I slam them. If for example, I have a snare
> in the MD, layered with something else, and a bit of reverb on it, a
> compressor can bring out interesting "breath" type effects on the tail and
> add a little bit of movement to the drum track.
> 
> Where I use compression the most in on a drum buss. Normally, my Joe Meek
> SC2.2 if the drums are not super bass heavy. Or if they are really bassy,
> then I will buss the entire drum mix through Vintage Warmer in Protools.
> Usually, after bussing through the compression, I have to relevel the whole
> drum mix as it will pull or push the hats and or percussion, but it really
> give a good seperation from the rest of the mix and polishes up the drum
> mix. As an effect - Vintage Warmer can really make a drum track rough and
> gritty and less "straight out of a drum machine" if you hit it hard and play
> with the drive and high and low frequency settings.
> 
> /m
> 
> 
> 
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>  
> Yahoo! Groups Links
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