Compressor I --> Saturator settings for DJing electro?

lunarhostility · Post by **lunarhostility** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 5:51 am

So I've been looking for a quality limiter that can also maintain the things I like about Compressor I (i.e. making my tracks hit harder over big systems) and happened upon the post on here about putting Saturator with default settings afterward. Problem is, I don't really know how best to tweak the compressor settings when using this trick. Do I just turn the attack all the way up to 1.00s? Do I turn the output up until it clips? Ratio? Threshold? Thanks in advance for any help...

a1studmuffin · Post by **a1studmuffin** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:35 am

Sorry, there are no rules to guide you - it's 100% dependent on the source material. The best advice I can give - tweak the values until it sounds good to your ears. Click + hold with the mouse on a parameter, then close your eyes/look away from the screen while you tweak.

lunarhostility · Post by **lunarhostility** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 6:54 am

Cool, thanks anyway - I guess I'll just MIDI map all those parameters then adjust for every track, but I'd hoped someone could give me some guidelines based on past experience DJing this type of music in Ableton (Crookers, Shinichi Osawa, Proxy etc.)

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Fri Aug 01, 2008 8:38 am

i wouldnt use compressor I, it makes things too clicky..

Compressor II is pretty decent and i dont think u wanna be compressing stuff too much.. maybe just use the limiter preset and adjust the threshold according to how much dynamics/headroom the track has.

Pepehouse · Post by **Pepehouse** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 12:40 am

Try this, it's free: http://www.yohng.com/w1limit.html
My settings are: Ceiling=-0.2dB Threshold=-6.0dB Release=40ms.

SimonPHC · Post by **SimonPHC** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 1:07 am

why would you want to compress an already compressed track?

if you want to hit harder, just ask the sound guy to turn the system up. he should be experienced with the club he's working in. ask him nicely, explaining you don't want to kill the life out of your tracks by compressing already compressed tracks. if your social skills are any good, most sound guys do it right away.

the only thing you might need, is a limiter, to stop you from hitting digital zero on your sound card.

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

lunarhostility · Post by **lunarhostility** » Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:04 am

Thanks for the pointer to W1, working a treat with those settings. Cheers all!