Compression

When I started reading about compressors, I was hopelessly lost. The terminology was technical in an almost mean-spirited way and I couldn’t understand what I was writing. To keep things simple, I think of compression as a way to balance the loud and soft parts of any voice or instrument so that their behavior is a bit more predictable. In other words, compression brings out the really soft spots and tames the really loud spots so you’re not constantly reaching for the volume fader on your mixer (or the virtual mixer in your DAW). In its simplest form, a compressor, either a hardware unit or a plug-in, will squeeze the audio so that its treble and bass are less pronounced. This allows you to do things like lower the volume level of the compressed track without fear of losing the softer parts, or turn the volume level up without fear of the loud parts being skipped. It can help to think of all the compression settings—Attack, Release, Ratio, and Threshold—as ways to squeeze your audio more or less aggressively. Insufficient compression will leave tracks jumping out of a mix at inappropriate times or getting lost in the sound of other instruments; however, too much compression can make a track sound lifeless or uninspired. My rule of thumb is to be less aggressive with compressing audio on the way to your DAW (because you’re stuck with whatever it is you do) and more aggressive with my plug-in compression (because you can always dial it back).

equalizer

While it’s a wonderful (and essential) tool, EQ is also possibly the fastest way to mess up the sound of a mix. Excessive use of EQ is second only to excessive use of reverb as the hallmark of an inexperienced mix engineer. The EQ should be used to subtly (or not so subtly) color the sound of the particular track you’re working on so that it sits well with the other tracks in a mix and allows room for them. My experience has been that it’s what you put out and not what you put in that makes EQ work best. For example, even when looking for a boost in the high frequencies of a track, it’s often more effective to extract a few dB’s of a lower frequency which, in turn, brightens the sound.

voice Vocal compression in the driveway

Since the voice (despite what your guitarist friends may tell you) is the most important element of any popular music mix, let’s start here. Getting a voice to fit well in a mix is ​​a combination of compression, EQ, and often volume fader automation. It’s quite common practice to compress a voice a bit on its way into your DAW. This shouldn’t be an aggressive type of compression, but just enough to tame some of the louder points of a voice so that your overall recording volume can be louder.

An approach to the vocal chain in my studio is this: mic into hardware preamp/compressor and then directly into my DAW. To get into the nitty-gritty, I usually set my hardware compressor’s attack setting to around 30ms and release setting to around 1 second and my compression ratio to 3:1. Then I play with the threshold making sure that in the hottest parts of the vocal, the gain reduction is a maximum of -3dB. This leaves me room in the mix to compress further using a software compression plugin. The danger of compressing too aggressively on input is that you’ll end up stuck with the overly compressed sound of the vocal with no way to change it later.

Vocal compression in the mix

Once the vocals are in the mix, I go to a compressor plug-in to further help keep the vocals present in the mix without jumping too much in loud places. My recommendation would be to find a compressor that has a smooth, transparent sound that allows you to squeeze a little more out of the voice (about -3dB gain reduction at the loudest points) so that the voice maintains its presence. I set my attack to 26ms and my release to around 300ms. For more details, take a look at my general vocal setup in the screenshots to the right. If the mix is ​​particularly full where the vocal needs to cut a bit more and show a bit more brightness, I’ll use a frequency specific compressor (like the Waves C4 in its “pop voice” setting) that is a bit more specific in terms of which frequencies it chooses to compress. In this case, 40hz, 500hz, 6khz and 16khz. To see exactly how the attack and release settings are configured for each frequency, take a look at the screenshot below.

vocal equalizer

I rarely, if ever, equalize my voice going in. I prefer to get a good uncolored vocal so that when it comes time to mix with the final instrumentation, I have the flexibility to work with the un-EQed vocal audio. This is particularly useful when you start out by tracking a voice against a single instrument like acoustic guitar but end up mixing it with a full band. EQ decisions should not be made in a vacuum. Ultimately, it is the relationship of the voice to all the other elements in the mix that determines the EQ approach. Often a vocal EQ that works in a mix won’t sound particularly good when the vocal is soloing. As I mentioned above, my preference is to lower the EQ at certain frequencies rather than boost it.

Here are a couple of cases where crossovers can solve common vocal problems:

• Muddy or Boomy Vocal – In this situation I tend to pull out a dB or two at around 200 Hz. This also has the effect of making the vocal cut better through a mix or sound brighter.
• Piercing or painful voice: Here, I’ll pull out a few dB’s at around 3 khz. This tends to take the edge off the voice without removing any of the clarity.

Here are a couple of cases where tasteful frequency boosting comes in handy:

• Bring out the low end of a voice: add 1-2db of gain between 80Hz and 100Hz
• Add Brightness: Occasionally, if a vocal sound is too dark or undefined, I’ll add a few dB of gain at 5kHz
• Add Air or Breath – Here I’ll use a bookshelf EQ that boosts all frequencies above 12.5khz

Shelving

In a shelving equalizer, a band of frequencies, either at the high or low frequency end of the spectrum, is boosted or attenuated by a fixed amount. The term shelving is generally not applied to a midrange boost or cut.

acoustic guitars

While working as an engineer in Nashville, I spent a lot of time miking and recording acoustic guitars. Despite the constant improvement in the pickup systems that go into acoustic guitars, I still believe there is no substitute for a well-placed condenser microphone (or microphones) when it comes to capturing the warmth, body, and air of your guitar. an acoustic guitar. However, as with all acoustic instruments, it is challenging to place one correctly in a mix and preserve its texture and character while blending with the other instruments. There are a couple of approaches to compression and equalization that will go a long way to solving this problem.

Acoustic guitar compression in the driveway

When compressing acoustic guitar on the way to my DAW, I find it better to be a little more aggressive with attack and release settings than with a lead vocal. I’ll use more of a fast medium attack (about 22ms) and release (about 500ms) on a hardware compressor with a 3:1 ratio and then play around with the threshold knob until, again, the gain is attenuated by about: 3dB.

Acoustic guitar compression in the mix

At this point, it’s a good idea to base your compression settings on the type of mixing you’re doing. If it’s a simple acoustic guitar and vocal recording, it’s quite possible to leave all compression on acoustic. However, if it’s a full band mix and I want to make sure I can clearly hear acoustic strumming or fingerpicking between the other instruments, I’ll use a compression plugin (like Metric Halo’s Channel Strip) and compress a little more. aggressively: 16ms attack and 160ms release with a ratio of 3.5:1. Take a look at my settings.

Relationship

A compressor reduces the gain (level) of an audio signal if its amplitude exceeds a certain value. limit. The amount of gain reduction is determined by a ratio. For example, with a 4:1 ratio, when the input level is 4dB above the threshold, the compressor will process the signal so that the output signal level is 1dB above the threshold. So the gain (level) has been reduced by 3 dB.

acoustic guitar equalizer

Like vocals, I don’t believe in EQing acoustic guitar while I’m recording it, just because I rarely know what the other elements in the mix are going to be. However, there are two very specific approaches I use to EQ an acoustic guitar depending on whether or not it’s accompanying a vocal performance or part of a larger mix. Generally speaking, the EQ approach is more subtle on guitar/single vocals to preserve the fuller tone of the acoustic, and more aggressive on the full band mix to accommodate other instruments while retaining the essential elements of the sound. acoustic sound.

Here are some EQ settings for a simple acoustic guitar and vocal recording:

• Eliminate rumble: I like to pull in 1 or 2 dB at 125 Hz to eliminate the rumble that often accompanies placing an acoustic too close to the sound hole.
• Add Brightness: If after removing some of the rumble, I’m still looking for more brightness in the acoustics, I’ll bump it up a dB or two at 5kHz.

Here are some EQ settings for an acoustic on a full band recording:

• Adding Clarity: I found that a high-pass filter at 120Hz leaves room for the kick and bass in a mix while allowing the acoustics to shine through in the higher frequencies. Leaving the low end of the acoustic frequency will often muddy the mix and obscure the kick and bass.
• Are you still muddy? – Don’t be afraid to push your high pass filter to 200Hz or even 300Hz if the guitar isn’t cutting through the mix yet. It can sound terrible on its own but perfect in the mix and that’s the key.
• Adding Spark: As noted above, if removing low frequencies isn’t enough to get the acoustics through a mix, adding two or three dB to 5k will go a long way to bring out the strummed or fingered strings of the acoustic.

Compression and EQ are two very powerful weapons in your mixing arsenal, but as with anything, overusing them will do more harm than good. I am thinking of the words of an engineer whose work I highly respect, who liked to say “I’ll compress until it sucks and then I’ll go back from there.” In other words, knowing when to say “when” is an equally useful skill. One final thought… when it comes to the signal path, I tend to place compression after EQ because EQ effectively raises or lowers the volume of the track and I’ve found that I get more effective response from the compressor if I do. hit. with the audio EQed. I would highly recommend using the above EQ and Compression settings not as a foolproof rule but as a starting point. Every mix is ​​different and your ears will tell you what works and what doesn’t.

Good luck!