Ableton Forum

Grappadura wrote:Personally I don´t get all the rant about compression and limiting. Once you´re able to hear what it does, its up to you to use it in a way that suits you.

there is some truth in what you just said.

I think the main issue is just that a lot of people new to producing CAN'T hear what it does, or don't understand the concept and see it only as a tool to make things louder. So they end up over doing it or doing it poorly, and then can't understand why their songs don't sound "professional".

Otherwise yes, I'm in agreement with you 100%.

Its true, but often you hear the people give the advice: "hands off the compressor". How you gonna learn it if you keep your hands off it.

Grappadura wrote:Its true, but often you hear the people give the advice: "hands off the compressor". How you gonna learn it if you keep your hands off it.

true. there goes a saying for a compressor and learning it, given you have the possibility to properly hear, hence own good monitoring.

"start slow and low"

and listen to what it does.

and i agree that the biggest misconception is that it is a tool to just make things louder... therefor most people just ram it up until it's loud but mostly ugly.

+1

most noobs look for the 'loud' or 'volume maximize' presets. Or they make the attack 1ms or less and set the release fast, with a high ratio and pull the threshold all the way down.

There are times when this could be appropriate, but things like snares, acoustic guitars and on the master buss you will kill them with settings like that.

You have to learn how to make the compressor breathe with the music. This means getting the attack and release times in sync. Do this and you get a beautiful 'suck' sound when the snare is hit, get it wrong and you hear pumping artifacts degrading the sound. Auto-release functions can help here, but it's a good idea to learn how to do it manually.

'The Glue' is actually quite a nice buss compressor. I don't like it as much as the UAD plugins, but for it's money it is awesome. The Sonalksis bundle still rules for me, especially as I have been working on some real drum tracks so was able to t put the gate to especially good use, but the EQ is the best around and the compressor is solid gold too, and so versatile. There are times when I use others and if I ever get the UAD 2 as I dream on having, it will get less use but for a native compressor, it does a fine job.

waves Rcompressor is great on too many things. Kind of the dbx160 of plugin world.

leedsquietman wrote:
Anyway, as another Sonalksis Essentials devotee, I agree wholeheartedly with you on the SV315, it's my most used compressor on drums, electric guitars and bass, and for group busses or on the master buss, set the attack almost all the way fast, set the release almost all the way slow, ratio of about 2:1 up to 3:1, threshold down so you are taking 1.5-3dB gain reduction max, no crush or limiter, type II, and it's almost like an SSL G master buss. Glues very nicely and has a great sound, close to an SSL G. Very versatile compressor. It does subtle well, but can also blow your head off with the crush parameter esp. with the limiter set in too.

hmm,nice tip!
thanks!

will definitely check that out!

SubFunk wrote:

Grappadura wrote:Its true, but often you hear the people give the advice: "hands off the compressor". How you gonna learn it if you keep your hands off it.

true. there goes a saying for a compressor and learning it, given you have the possibility to properly hear, hence own good monitoring.

"start slow and low"

and listen to what it does.

and i agree that the biggest misconception is that it is a tool to just make things louder... therefor most people just ram it up until it's loud but mostly ugly.

uff, i was yesterday at a party where an real oldskool berlin techno DJ played, i liked his style / set but jeez.. he played some tracks they where just over compression pure... it was so ugly sounding, that you sometimes had the feeling all the compression is sucking your ears in like a vacuum or something... totally spoiled it for me. there was sometimes no music left at all, it was just the sound of Outboard / Plugs you could hear. ugly, ugly, ugly.

I got the attack and release mixed up in my bus compressor suggestion for the Sonalksis SV315 -

What I meant to say was attack almost all the way SLOW (say 45-50 ms), release almost all the way FAST (say 70-80ms). Choose one of the mastering presets and tweak it from there. No limiter, crush at minimal. type II, and threshold only down to where it's pulling 2-3dB gain reduction MAX. Type II. You will need to vary these setting a bit according to the material, but shouldn't need major tweaking and it's very close to an SSL-G buss compressor sound.

The price/quality ratio of Voxengo is excellent. I think most plug-ins are overpriced comparatively but they're worth every penny.

I use the vintagewarmer2 a lot from PSP. It can handle alot of audio without squashing it.
And If you have some old drum loops that needs some magic. just push the gain all the way up on this mofo. You get some wierd sounding stuff!
check it out man

http://www.pspaudioware.com/