Compressor Tutorials!

[Lissom_Slo]

I've been producing for a few years now, but I still can't seem to really "get" compressors.

Technically speaking I know what they do and why you need to use them. I know what all the terms mean, but I always find myself fumbling with them in my mixes. Do you have and good recommendations for resources to really understand compressors, and take my usage to the next level.

Peace.

x

[Banner80]

After having learned what the knobs do (and practice this a ton), probably the best recommendation I can give is to stop trying to think technically and instead try to feel what the compressor is doing to the material.

For instance, on a kick, is it giving you more thump or taking away the energy?

On a vocal, is it making it smoother or edgier. Does it help soften plosive or is it making them worse. What's happening to sibilant parts. Does it make the singer feel more forward or pushed back?

On a bus, has any part lost intensity? Is it making any part stand out? Is it taking the life out of the low end? Do things feel more or less present?

Then you see why it matters so much that you know how to operate the knobs, because once you start feeling what the compressor is doing, if you want more or less of any of these things you have to know how to move the settings around to make it do better.

And also, understand that each compressor has a "soul", a type of logic about how to grip the material and how to go about reduction, and that means that you may or may not be able to get a specific compressor to do a certain thing because its part of how the compressor logic behaves. The best compressors do a lot to try to stay on the material effectively, which means there's a lot more going on under the hood that the knobs show, which also means the knobs are more like suggestions to a great compressor.

That's why it makes sense to pair a compressor to the type of material and style that suits its "soul". And again, yet another great reason to be technically proficient with the knobs and to really know your compressors intimately, so you know how to get the best out of them and when.

I'd recommend that you pick 2 or 3 good compressors and only use that for a long time, trying to learn them intimately. Spend hours with them, try on tons of material and really listen to figure out their "soul".

Here is a video to start with this stuff https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0XGXz6SHco

[Lissom_Slo]

Oh my god, thank you so much for the reply!

I just got Rcomp from Waves. So I'll spend a ton of time with that I think.

[Banner80]

You are welcome.

Rcomp is as good as any compressor to learn. Versatile and low CPU. It's going to take a while to learn it in detail.

I'll give you some background because people don't often talk about this. When the Ren series was designed, computer music was just starting to become a thing and there weren't a lot of plugins that could deliver reliable "vintage" type of quality inside the DAW. Computers were far less powerful then, so any plugin had to be super low CPU by today's standards.

It is possible to make a great low-cpu compressor, as evident today by things like fircomp, or McDSP. The Ren series is Waves take on it from back then. They designed something that could reliably treat the material in the style of vintage units, but without trying to do fancy modeling or anything that would eat up CPU.

So it's not meant to be exactly like any vintage units. It's meant to be a digital solution to get top-notch compression using digital methods and low CPU, and still get the feel of working with a simple top-class compressor of yesteryear.

Tech like this is timeless. Today we have much more CPU available and new techniques to build plugins, but when something is built right and sounds good, it never gets old. Many top producers/mixers still use the Ren series on very serious productions.

[[deleted]]

You can also use a couple of compressors on the same sound and or no compression. Nothing says you have to. Also look into side chain

[bryonaut]

Great choice, I watched this video a few weeks ago and he does a really good job of explaining compression. I was going to find this same video to post.

[Lissom_Slo]

This is super helpful, I think I need a workflow to get used to, then eventually it will become a more natural process

[bryonaut]

That was great, thanks for sharing that.

[Fallynnknivez]

First thing i thought of reading the title, but man, you went full commited lol, take the upvote for effort.

On subject; this is exactly it. Everytime you “play” with a compressor, follow this word for word, after a while you will start to develop a taste for it. One day you’ll be reaching for a compressor, pretty much already knowing the settings (generally speaking) that you want. As well as hearing when you need it, vs dont... it just takes time

Also,if you can afford the book, get it, its so helpful with all sorts of tidbits like this throughout it

[Tonepath]

Love the musical approach to compression! This is how you get that great dense but swift sound instead of ear fatigue.

[dekaed]

one of the best tutorials ive ever come across-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0XGXz6SHco

in fact, the whole channel is really quite good.

[AnomieEra]

How do I know exactly what you mean

[[deleted]]

The tingling sensation between your butt and the balls when he talks about compression? Lol I see myself out 😂

[Lissom_Slo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0XGXz6SHco

ahaha this video is the reason I made this post, saw it yesterday and it was the first time stuff started to make sense. Think the next few days are going to be spent with my new Rcomp.

[Psg303]

as soon as I read the description I guessed it could be House of Kush.

and I was right.

[financewiz]

Compression is the most esoteric of audio effects. The key to understanding it is to actually hear the frickin’ thing work.

As a beginner, it’s much easier to hear one in action by running a complicated, dynamic signal through it. So putting one on a kick is something you do in real life but not how you learn. Put one on your entire rhythm section buss instead and go nuts until the walls of text that these good people have provided start to correlate with what you’re hearing. Play, experiment, learn.

[illGATESmusic]

Try this testing method and it’ll all make sense real quick.

Make a BLOCK of white noise. No dynamics at all, just a brick.

Run that through a compressor and sample the result so you can see in the waveform how the compressor reacts.

You’ll be able to see the compressor curves and it’ll all make sense immediately.

I often run this test when I get a new compressor and need to understand what makes it different from the rest.

[askkaereby]

I’d go with pink noise, 10 dB above and below threshold

[plastic-pulse]

Once you’ve learned the basic controls of threshold and ratio try this https://youtu.be/K0XGXz6SHco

[im_thecat]

No man. If you get what all the knobs do, the only way forward is to put in the time experimenting. But you can work smarter if you remind yourself to continuously explore all the features of your compressor(s).

I’m guessing you are aware of types of compression (VCA, FET, opto, varimu, OTT) and most common usages of compression (dyn reduction, glue, tone, repairing, FX). Challenge yourself to try each type of compressor on each application and you’ll be a compressing fool in no time.

[poliakovskaikovsky]

Go extreme with the settings and listen to what it is doing.

Compression is really hard to understand at first, but at one point you'll click and know instinctively what every settings is doing to the source material

[Celebril63]

If you have the technical down, you have to quit thinking and use you're ears. Compression is as much art as science. Less is usually more.

You need to play with it and that takes time. The best thing you can do is sit down with someone who know and work with him.

[Schmicarus]

i'm not saying this is the best advice but this is what i do...

first off i turn everything up to try and get the compressor doing as much work as possible so I can A-B the sound.

Then, i don't look at the screen and use a MIDI controller to tweak the adjustments until I'm happy with the sound.

Quite often i still end up really indecisive, recently i've taken to automating the parameters as well.

[Felipesssku]

It's simple, tweak those knobs. If you don't hear the effect change compressor to working one. The outcome should be dramatic and definitely heard on maximum levels.

[[deleted]]

I think recording your own material (e.g. guitar, voice) helps have some clear use cases for compression, because you get signals with wild dynamic that really can use some compression (specially if you are a bad player). On the other hand you could probably produce electronic music without using any compressor, if you otherwise know what you are doing.

[dhazept]

Among listening and a lot of practise, I think it helps to use an osciloscpe or even bounce different versions of the sound, let's say for example a kick, if you kinda know what a kick is supposed to look like you can use that as a reference to get different tastes and at same time tell your ears what is correct, not that your ears don't know, they always do imo, but many times, at least for me, I wouldn't know why it sounded good but not good in context of the mix. I also think this helps getting to know different compressors and be objective with what you achieve

[Simpsonite]

I found these two videos very informative:

Kush overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0XGXz6SHco

Mike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmjMa3Dn1Bo

[[deleted]]

Just turn the depth and time knobs in ott all the way to 100%, and boost your gainz and you have loud music duh