Compression/Limiting

[dacalion]

After listening to alot music in Sample Flips, Promos and Beat Contests... Im curious to know how you all determine your compression/limiter settings? Do you have a general setting or do you vary them depending on the song? What ratios do you use?

Personally, I use a preset setting for now but Waves has the option for customizing and saving your settings. Soon as I get it tweeked like I want Im gonna change over to it and just modify as needed.

 

[thedreampolice]

I usually start with a preset but then I tweak it from there. Hip-hop is a very overly compressed genre and usually a compressor is almost used as an effect. Most of the time you want to actually here it pumping.

Here is a great article on using compressors

http://gonzoft.tripod.com/articles/a4/a4.htm

 

[dacalion]

Very good article...pretty much textbook imo. I just see so many different ways that it blows my mind. It would seem like someone would do what I do in the lab... I have a starting point that I build on. First I shoot for the sound Im trying to achieve in my ear, then I shoot for a sound thats "multimedia friendly" trying not to sacrifice ear sound too much. I've noticed that alot of music I run into on ILL sounds great in headphones and monitors but if you make a CD out of it and take it to the car it sounds horrible!

 

[hanayalator]

A lot of stuff that's posted here is not mastered, and that will definitely affect the way you hear it (espeecially in your car, where you're probably used to hearing mastered CDs). Also, remember that most samples used in hip hop are already compressed. Its a fine line between getting the right amount of compression and adding too much.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I use compression to make a track more balanced its its output, for leveling off peaks and bring the rest of the sound up so its more uniform throughout. I try to aim for a track whose average RMS is around -12db.
With instrumentals sometimes i have an average RMS of -13db to -14db.
Compression is good for the odd kick that peaks, or the odd sound that is too loud, phase effects can cause these peaks, compression is just a good too to level off. Compression can thicken the sound.
The limiter is similar to compression in that it acts as a brick wall to peaks, at whichever level you set it at,
so its a good tool to bring a quiet track up to the right average RMS.

 

[gballin123]

Alot of people overuse compression.

That article was good. I think most people should avoid compression unless they are aware of what it does. I'm no expert so i tend to only compress my kicks, bass and the final product

 

[2GooD Productions]

Alot of people overuse compression.

That article was good. I think most people should avoid compression unless they are aware of what it does. I'm no expert so i tend to only compress my kicks, bass and the final product

Yes I agree. Over compression can totally ruin a well mixed track.
I always try to use the minimum amount of compression, if it starts to sound noticable then you have used too much IMO.
I dont really use compression on individual tracks, just the overall mix, and only after looking at the wave form to get a visual reference of peaks and volume levels.
I found using compression on the individual tracks and then trying to compress again on the final mix was sounding a bit shit, so I cut it out my process.
I try to use the mixing process with eq's and reverb and delay etc to get the most out of each element without the need for compression. Sometimes you just cant get away from needing to use compression, on basslines for example where if all the notes are not at the same loudness, you can use a compressor to stop the louder notes peaking and allowing the quieter notes to come up in loudness.
Ive been trying to learn the mixing mastering process for about 3-4 years, and I still have a long way to go. But from the feedback I get, Im getting there.

 

[thedreampolice]

Listen to Eminem'S "lose yourself" Even the guitars in the intro are so compressed you can hear it pumping. To me it sounds great. Over compression is the sound of hip-hop.

 

[Shonsteez]

Compression is an absolutely useful tool but its also used based upon taste.
I have friends that like to over-compress everything on purpose to get the effect that Chris is talkin about, whereas I prefer to use compression as well but often use it as sparingly as possible.

 

[2GooD Productions]

Compression is an absolutely useful tool but its also used based upon taste.

I couldnt agree more.

 

[gballin123]

This is a great thread. Everyone is giving great info!

Sites like this help me and others learn alot.

Most sites are bullshit and just gossip

Now back to compression

I learned from a pretty high up engineer that the key to a good mix is starting with levels. then processing. He said try and make your mix sound as good before adding anything. Helped my mixes alot.

I'm still working hard on them though

www.trakksounds.com

Any feedback is appreciated!

 

[thedreampolice]

For sure, proper gain staging is the key. Get that right first. But most of the mix's i do for other bands (usually really heavy rock and punk) and mix's I do for emcees or other producer I compress the shit out of almost everything. Read up on how Joe Meek worked. He was the first to really try and get that in your face sound.

 

[Shonsteez]

I appreciate that sound when its used tastefully but I think its definitely being overused these days to the point where peoples tracks are practically destroyed and too fatiguing to listen to even before mastering compression/limiting has been applied.

 

[thedreampolice]

I agree that done wrong it ruins things, but even Bjork used TONS of compression. After you have a few clients say "why doesn't my song sound like songs on the radio" you learn how to crank that up. hell I track most vocalist with compression and then add more later. You know who else does that? Craig anderton, Bruce sweeden and George massenberg. I know because they told me. And if you don't know who they are you have no business mixing anything.

Bottom line compression can be way overused but it is necessary to use lots of it in most mixs.

 

[LouBez]

You gotta use your ears...The computer has us thinking that there is is a perfect preset...its a mirage, on ANY processor, every song has a different sonic make up and needs different processing.

You have to figure out your values...what kind of sound are you chasing? study your effects processors and how they work, then EXECUTE. The best way to learn compression IMO is to buy one, you build a personal connection with something you pay for. I cant tell you how many dumbasses I've run across who blame their pirated plug ins for not being "good enough" to improve their sound when they dont take the time to learn them.

 

[thedreampolice]

Of course the waves SSL plugs do sound amazing!

 

[LilBro]

re

I do it different on every song but I have a special technique i use.
I take a compressor (FruityCompressor) and set the Treshold around -20.0 dB,
the ratio around 2.0 and the attack around 5 ms. Then I add the multiband compressor set the treshold and the ratio to zero on all bands and just adjust the gain for every band and the overall mix. I get pretty good results imo.

Edit:
When I mix the track (before Mastering) I make sure that nothing is hitting over -6.0 dB. This is very important! This will make sure that you won't overpush anything!

 

[2infamouz]

from the link thedream posted :"There have been red-faced moments for many engineers - including myself - when they have spent many minutes carefully adjusting the settings, proudly declaring them "perfect", and then realise that the compressor is in fact, switched off. Very embarrasing" Rofl i've done that a couple times =\

 

[Atom_Crewz]

Volume wars acomplish about as much as territory wars. Blame it on 1980's radio, which is dead, so we can stop sacrificing dynamics for perceived volume whenever we are ready to start listening.
-The key to proper compression is pre-weighting your uncompressed mix and then applying multi-pass compression. Never overwork a single compressor, unless you make glitch or techno, where this is used as an effect.

 

[daproduct]

i gotta agree with that part with people blaming their pirated waves for not being good enough... having the SSL, API, and CLA bundles leaves you feeling little need for anything more in the realm of eq/comp when you know what you're doing..