Compression!

[drewzle]

i've lately started to understand the essential requirement of decent compression ...

you can really make drums alot crispier and avoid interference between kick drums and bass notes (this shit has muddied up many a track of mine), plus get snares snapping nicely.


The 404's Vinyl Sim has a very simple yet effective compression paramter (remember to turn the other 2 knobs down if you're using this solely for compression) as well a dedicated Compressor effect which packs a fair bit of punch (remember you can change the Attack paramter (Ctrl 2) to Release by turning the Effects Limit On). I'll often compress drum tracks within the 404's hardware before recording them into my PC for further manipulation.

In terms of software compression i've been mainly using the M-Class Compressor in Reason, and a VST called SideKick (this is free and simple to use) in Ableton Live to sidechain the kick into the bassline, as well as Ableton's 2 internal compressors.


so i'm just wondering how you guys typically use compression, what Attack and Release settings you find good for drum/bass parts etc...
basically if anyone has any compression tips drop them here

[Dj Frantic]

I mostly use the vinyl sim compressor myself. It works great and is mad simple. I use a nice compressor plugin from digitalfishphones.com called the blockfish. I like it alot.

[Nation]

I have found that the COMP effect on the 404 is actually just a ADSR envelope effect rather than a feed forward or feed back compressor like the vinyl sim effect.

Example:

I record a 2 bar drum loop into a sample bank. I set the loop enable on the sample. I apply the COMP effect. The result is that the COMP effect is only heard on the first drum hit of the loop when the sample is triggered.

Can someone confirm if I am right about this?

[hurlingdervish]

blockfish is real nice

if im not running the whole song through the lofi comp i may just run some drums through it, however, i have bad experiences with compressing stuff before the song is completed

wait till the last stage if you can, because the only way to "uncompress" something is by using paralell compression which is just a fancy way of saying a dry/wet overlapping with the knob mostly towards dry. but that will still be noticed

best to only compress the snare if you need to hear the compression before the song is done.

some more things to try:
-compress a drumloop with the mid isolated out and overlap the original with it, sounds beefy and crisp without the mud
-if you accidentally peaked on a sample save it by compressing it slightly to match the peak to the rest of the volume
-if you have separate samples of the same thing with different eq or fx, compressing can sometimes "glue" them together. but this is mostly for doing synth type stuff

[Nation]

Damn it Dervish !

I asked a simple yes/no question and you respond with something long and complicated.

[hurlingdervish]

oh honestly i didnt see you post, haha i was just giving tips on compression for the sake of the thread

but to answer you query...
i dont know because i dont have a 404

but the 555's is just a atack and release envelope

maybe the reason you dont hear it is because its actually working too much?

[Nation]

Sweet! it's just an envelope effect like I thought. Just needed a second opinion.

Thanks

[Rhua]

I think I know next to nothing about compression, I only use the vinyl-sim comp effect on samples when they're not loud enough compared to the other elements in the mix.

[Øyenstikker]

compression is basicly a way to flatten dynamics, why do you want to do it? because if you get to reduce the peak of a audiotrack by 3db, and you got 16 tracks, you will improve headroom in your mix, beeing able to play louder

in theory, you really want to compress all audio, when doing contemporary generes. compression used this way is not audible, exept for the increased gain.

there are also a few ways to use the compressor to enhance sounds in ways that make them change character.

1. compressing percussive sounds

if you want more attack in percussive sounds, you may compress quite hard, but set the attack to somewhere around 80ms. this will make the transient stand out, making the sample punchier. this works best with single hits on single instruments. the kick, snare, toms are obvious candidates.

2. compressing entire kits.
when running an entire drum kit thru a compressor, try to compress quite hard, get the ratio quite high, 4-12, and turn the treshold untill you really hear the cymbals crumble when the kick drum bangs. this creates a great pumping effect on the drums, most noticable used by portishead on their two first albums. especially effective when kick, snare and ride is played.

on my 606, the sustain button is probably similar to the ratio knob, the attack is obviously attack, release is obviously automatic, and level is probably the treshold knob.

id really love for roland to add more dynamic tools, with proper naming of the knobs, but then again, its not a top of the line model.

[Øyenstikker]

correction: the level knob is actually just level, you could use it to gain up the sample to normal level if compressing hard, but its actually a level knob.

the compression button, if turned fully to the left, its probably compressing 1:1 ,when turned clockwise the compression increases. so does a buzz sound, when the knob is set at 12, its almost to much of the buzz sound to even get a useful effect out of it.

id probably do some proper external dynamic treatment of my samples, if doing an album

is it possible to resample thru an external processor?

[hurlingdervish]

is it possible to resample thru an external processor?

why wouldnt it be? it may be an extra step but i suppose you could do it

its real easy with the 555's usb inout if i need to do something to the sample i drop it in ableton and send it back after.


it might be worth sending roland an email to find out exactly what the compressor is doing

[Rhua]

Hey, thanks for the good explanation Øyenstikker!