og 404 vinyl sim compression...

[a.D.]

Would anybody happen to know or be able to make an educated guess of what the approximate theshhold setting,& attack/ release times of the vinyl sim comp turned all the way up? Thanks

[yo-yo crunch]

you should refer to that essay that was posted about sampler techniques used by shadow, madlib and flylo. the madlib chapter discussed specific mpc 4000 compressor settings (i would assume to mimic the 303)

[a.D.]

Guess I'll see if I can find that thanks ...oh yea , meant to ask about the ratio too,if anyone might have an idea.

[tape smoke]

hey just play with the compressor and eq till it sounds good, you can make any software compressor sound better then the 404, sorry for lack of technical info on this.

[a.D.]

Yea man I'm really just more curious than anything. For recording vocals thru the 404...pre amp to 404 to recorder. I really like the color the 404 can add to a vocal.

[yo-yo crunch]

this is pasted from the essay:

"By boosting the threshold of the compressor, as well as adjusting the ratio, attack, and release levels, Madlib overuses the internal compressor of the MPC 4000, giving the music an aggressively dynamic ebb and flow akin to Tricia Rose’s idea of “working in the red.” This technique is heard in full force on the second track of the Beat Konducta series, “The Payback”—as yet another homage to the godfather of soul—in which bass frequencies momentarily overshadow the rest of the mix upon their entrance. By setting the attack levels fairly low, with release high and threshold very high, the track possesses a wave-like quality as distinct timbres and frequencies gradually crescendo into the mix, sometimes—in the case of the harsh cymbal crashes on the “and” of beat four—to an extreme degree."

thread link: http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=4& ... us#p116092

[tape smoke]

Yea man I'm really just more curious than anything. For recording vocals thru the 404...pre amp to 404 to recorder. I really like the color the 404 can add to a vocal.

yo, i found that pre compressing vocals is a little bit dirty, it just picks up way to much, when i used the 404 as a mic pre, i got best results with chorus, reverb and eq, and then compress those clean signals after with a software compressor, after i chop the bad parts out, you dont want to pre compress all your breaths and leave them in the mix, type of thing.

[a.D.]

Yea I feel u,I might use the comp effect in the boss br...still I've done a couple joints using the 404 compression and really liked them.I also really like the way vocal samples sound on a heavilly compressed sp beat,like some dibiassi joints. So I figured I could achieve a simmilar sound running my own vocal thru vinyl sim. I'm not worried about breath sounds ,never had a producer that recorded me edit those out,actually. Thanks for posting that part of the essay..I understand how madlib uses compression on beats,but vox is different..you usually actually want your threshold in the -10 area..w a ratio from 4:1 to 8:1 ,fast attack w a slower release. I'm just wondering how the sound of vinyl sim compares to these numbers so I can adjust accordingly. Thanks man

[hseiken]

It's not just the level of compression on your audio but the level of the audio being compressed. The thing about the 404 is that the imprefections of the audio (aliasing, etc.) come through in quiet moments and likely isn't an artifact you would be willing to live with, but if you're looking for that vinyl compression sound, you can kinda get it by dropping the sample volumes down a tad and leaving all the knobs to the left. It's not as aggressive as the vinyl sim and I too really liked it's sound. It was definitely tweaked really nice. I think, though, there's some hidden EQ adjustments made on that sim, but I'm just speculating.

[a.D.]

Interesting stuff...but you're talking about for use w recording vocals right? And basically saing it might be better to use mfx comp w knobs hard left? Idk though,if any of u heard that "alive" joint from elhuanas " snow" album I used vinyl sim comp and it came out reasonably nice. Still felt like it and a couple rough versions of songs I've done maybe coulda been better,which is why I'm curious how sp compression compares to various settings w a regular hardware compressor. Recording vocals is kinda intimidating for me,since I've never been one for the technical aspects of all this shit..eq,compression settings,delay and verb settings,enhancers,limiters,etc,lol... But yea ill definitely check how that sounds. By the way man,I appreciate u going into details w how you did those drum breaks. Still can't get over how realistic that reverb sounds compared to old breaks,that's like the toughest thing to duplicate, that shots dope.