Compressing Songs

[monkeysee]

Hey guys, i want to know how to properly compress a song to get it ready for a dj mix, ive heard that RMS is the best mode to keep a piece of audio at a consistent level, is this true? does anyone know any good tutorials i could check out?
I'd really appreciate any input cos im kinda stumped with this
thanks, shane

[andyb19844]

I wouldnt put the ratio up to hight other wise it has a squished sound to it. Maybe a ratio of 1:2 or tad higher. ITs all about personal prefernce

[simonlb]

Using the limiter with enough gain to get max peak level and a few dBs reduction maximum works for me for a quick-and-dirty mastering job (mastering is essentially what you're trying to accomplish...)

[Tarekith]

This might help:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

[monkeysee]

This might help:

http://tarekith.com/assets/mastering.html

Cheers dude, i read through that and your one about levelling and they were really interesting, gonna go through them again to fully grasp whats going on
you mentioned that the live compressor doesnt have good RMS capabilities, is this still true? i discovered the mix gel preset yesterday which seems to even out the tracks a bit, but would i be better off with the plug-ins you mentioned? ive already frozen a few tracks rms'd and eq'd etc...
its really confusing to know whether i should compress the tracks or limit them on the master track as simon mentioned. I mean maybe im crazy but i could see why you'd do both, compressor to even out the individual tracks, and limiter to make everything even... im sorry if that was a retarded thing to say