Built In Soundcard and speakers & Compression

[abluesky]

I've always like lots of compression in my music, from French house (Daft Punk, Para One) to Swedish Techno (Drumcode, SVEK), to LA style beats and Bass music (FlyLo) and everything in between.

I like the pump, side-chained, softknee, glued, NY Style, whatever word you want to use to describe various compression techniques.

First I develop my sound design using my sound card, to create the my sound, tone, and timbre using synthesis, sampling, EQ automation, and non-compression effects as much as possible.

Then dial in my compression "fx" using built in speakers and sound card of my laptop. The limited dynamic and frequency range actually helps me focus on the compression itself. I use lots of parrallel compression on indivudal tracks, often splitting sounds into different bands and compressing each band differently.

When I think I'm satisfied with the sound, I switch over to my external sound card, and fine tune the compression, and clean up frequencies I couldn't hear, usually by dialing back on the compression.

Then I'll switch back to built in sound, see how it sounds, tweak, go back to the external sound card, tweak, etc.

Final mixing is always done using the monitors and external sound card, with some very slight compression on the master, with a "demo master" using PSP Vintage Warmer mixed in with the dry signal in order to give a reference for the mastering engineer (gave up on mastering to focus on composition, sound design, and mixing in that order).

I stop when it sounds good to me on both crap built in speakers and nice monitors.

I thought I would share, in case anybody is in a rut or writers block and/or wants to play with compression as an effect.

If anyone feels inspired to discuss compression techniques and share their approach, I'd love to join in.

[Tarekith]

Interesting technique, thanks for sharing that, never heard of working like that with the built in speakers just for judging compression.

[abluesky]

Try it out sometime when you're in an experimental mood, you might be surprised!