Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi Everybody, I am Giorgio from G&L Studios and today I am going to show you the 3 most
common approaches for compression when it comes to mixing.
Let’s get started, the 3 approaches I am showing you today for compression when it
comes to mixing are : 1 - Levelling an uneven performance
2 - Emphasising the transients 3- Emphasising the sustain
I am using as an example snare drum hits, so it’s easier for you to hear what’s
really happening, you can apply this to pretty much every instrument, take note of the concept
behind what we want to achieve rather than just taking precise settings into account,
because settings will vary from source to source.
1)Let’s get started with the first one, I will play to you a series of snare hits,
that are not even in volume.
Now the goal here is to even out every hit so that they play at a more consistent volume.
Let’s take a compressor (I am using the ProTools stock compressor for this but you
can use any compressor you have), here I set the compressor with a super fast attack so
that the compressor will be triggered almost instantly and clamp down the very start of
the hit, I set the release very slow so that the compressor will recover just in time for
the next hit, so that the envelope of the snare hit won’t change that much, only the
overall volume of the hit will change.
I set the threshold so that the compressor is triggering only on the loudest hits and
it’s not triggering on the softest hits.
Next, I used the make up gain to level match the before and after of the loudest hit, so
that I am making up for the gain loss, because the compressor is turning the loudest hits
down.
By doing this the loudest hit won’t change in volume but the softest hits will be brought
up to the level of the loudest hit therefore making it a more even performance.
Let’s hear the before and after.
As you can hear now the volume of the hits it’s much more consistent, you can see on
this track below what actually happened because I printed the track with the compressor on,
to give you a visual feedback of what the compressor has done.
If you compare the two waveforms, they speak by themselves, the compressor levelled each
hit to play at a consistent volume, in the waveform of the dry hits you can see that
they are very different in volume.
You can use this approach whenever you have a non consistant performance and you want
to control the dynamics more, remember settings will vary according to the source and the
settings I am showing you are very extreme, just to let you hear more clearly what’s
happening with the compressor.
Note that if you overdo it you will very easily suck out the life of your performance so don’t
overdo it.
2) Let’s talk now about the second approach which is using compression to emphasise the
transients and attenuating the sustain of a track.
I have the same snare hits, but this time are consistent in volume, let’s hear it.
Ok now let’s take a compressor, I set the attack to a slow attack because I don’t
want the compressor to bring down the transient I want it to be triggered after it, my release
is set to a medium/slow release, I want to make sure that the compressor recovers just
before the following hit so that I am not modifying the tail of the hit too much.
I set the threshold to achieve a very heavy compression, this is extreme but it’s just
to let you hear more clearly what the compressor is doing, in reality I won’t ever use such
heavy settings, I used the make up gain again to level the hit making sure that the input
and the output of the compressor are matched more or less.
Let’s hear the compression.
You can hear now how the attack of the snare really pops out and how the sustain of the
snare is pretty much gone.
This is because the transient isn’t compressed and the tail is, then by making up with the
output gain the result is that the transient now is much louder.
You can compare the two waveforms again the second one is the print of the compression.
You can see now how the sustain of the snare is pretty much gone and how the transient
is way louder.
You can use this whenever you feel that you want more transients and less sustain on your
tracks, this example again is extreme just to let you hear more clearly what we are trying
to achieve.
3) Let’s now have a look to the 3rd approach which is to emphasise the sustain while attenuating
the transient of a track, like the 2 previous examples let’s hear the dry snare drum.
Ok now let’s take a compressor, the attack is set to fast and the release is also fast,
the attack is fast because we want to compress the transient and the release is fast because
we want the compressor to immediately let release after the transient so that we are
not touching the sustain or tail of our snare drum.
I am level matching the input and output of the compressor again.
Let’s hear the compression.
You can hear how now the snare is more upfront and much fatter, you can’t hear much of
the transient but you are hearing a lot of sustain on the snare and even if the input
and output of the compressor are level matched we have more apparent loudness, but the level
is pretty much the same.
Let’s take a look to the waveforms and you see now in the second how loud the sustain
or tail of the snare drum has become comparing to the transient.
You can use this approach whenever you think that you have too much transient and you would
want more sustain on your material.
I like to use this approach on drum room tracks, to emphasise the sound of the room, sometimes
i use it on acoustic guitars if they are too transient heavy and on vocals to tame transients
that are too loud.
Now today I showed you some extreme setting, but it’s how we are using the compressor
to achieve what we want that counts, you can see now that we can use compression for a
lot of different purposes.
That’s all for today, I hope you really enjoyed the video and if you did please like
the video, subscribe to my channel and go over to my website and join the member’s
area to have access to a lot of free resources that will help you with your craft, thank
you for watching and see you on the next video!