..sound quality/compression questions...

[Druphit]

i just have a few questions i hope people can help me with a little.i feel like i'm not getting my shit as tight sonically as it should be..first-to me it seems that when i make a beat the sounds don't really mesh together well unless i at least use the compression on on vinyl sim,the knob turned at least to the mid point..but i'd really prefer to not do that to everything.has anyone else noticed this,and is there some things i need to be doing that i'm not?i mean my setup is limited-its just a portable turntable directly into the sp-but would a mixer/receiver with an eq make a really noticeable difference?
and also-for anyone that does anything with the main compression effect applied to all pads-do you want the attack and sustain at equal levels,or one greater than the other?
these might be kinda elementary questions for some,but ive still only had the sp for a few months,and i wanna get as good a sound out of it as i can.not neccesarily a clean sound obviously-just better.....i'd appreciate any advice,peace

[balazs]

resampling all drumhits or certain drumhits in lofi mode can make things mesh together better. Like you said, heavy vinyl compression applied to more than one pad can work good. Also make sure you dont have the volume set too high on any pads.

[Huph]

and also-for anyone that does anything with the main compression effect applied to all pads-do you want the attack and sustain at equal levels,or one greater than the other?

Well, technically you can't have the attack and sustain at equal levels, because they're doing pretty different things. The processes can't be "equal." You could however end up with the knobs in identical positions, which is what I'm assuming you meant, but that's simply a superficial side effect of the 404's physical build.

Compressors watch for a peak to go over a certain level, when a sound crosses that threshold, the compressor kicks in and turns the gain down, so that louder passages are kept closer in relative volume to the quieter passages.

"Attack" parameters simply set how long the delay will wait to kick in after a sound crosses the threshold. If it's set short, then any sound that crosses will be "turned down" pretty close to immediately or at least very quickly. If it's set long, then once a sound crosses the threshold, the compressor will wait several milliseconds before kicking in to operation. How long it waits is determined by the knob's placement. There's usually a "Release" setting on most compressors, but I assume the 404's release is also being controlled by the attack setting.

"Sustain", is a somewhat convoluted way of setting the "Ratio", which in turn means "how much" compression is happening. A few examples of different ratios looks something like this: 1.5:1 4:1 6:1 10:1 Inf:1. It's kind of hard to explain clearly what this means. I'll try. Take 4:1. What this means is that when a sound goes 4db over the threshold on the way in, it will come out of the compressor (what you will hear) as only 1db over the threshold. If it were to go 8db over the thresh, you'd end up hearing the sound as only 2db over. It's referred to as "sustain" because when certain sounds are compressed the initial attack and quick decay of the sound have been smoothed over, sounds seem to be "fuller" for longer. It's because the initial loud part has been compressed to the same volume as the resulting 'decay' of the sound, making it seem to stay louder longer. In reality the difference is that it's loud part is actually staying quiet, allowing you to turn the whole sound up without it clipping.

[wax inspektor]

good explaination! since the last battle I figured out how important a good compression can be; especially on drums!!!

[Druphit]

thanks for the replies...i appreciate it..1