Compressing vocals

Littlejonny

octatonic said:

...


If I have a snare track that has a short snare without a lot of body to it I will usually want to elongate the snare.
I do this with a compressor.
I do not want to squash the entire signal- because if I use too short an attack then there will be no punch.
The rule of thumb is having too fast an attack will make drums sound further away, so will having too long a release.

I am not really using the compressor to level out the snare hits so they are all the same level.
The drummer does that by playing well (for the most part).
I am making a tonal change.

So I will set my threshold (or input) so that the loud snare hits trigger the compressor.
I set the ratio to something like 2:1 or 4:1.
I then adjust the attack so that the transient gets through.

Here are three files:

1. Snare with no compression on the channel (there is on the group and the master.)

https://jamesrichmond.com/audio/tfb/Snare No Compression.mp3

2. Snare with compression with moderate attack and release

https://jamesrichmond.com/audio/tfb/Snare moderate attack and release.mp3

3. Snare with compression with shortest attack and longest release

https://jamesrichmond.com/audio/tfb/Snare shortest attack longest release.mp3

Example 2 Is how I have the compressor (a 500 series Compex) set for the track I am working on.
Can you hear how it is noticeably thicker than the no compression example, with more tail. 
The snare is longer.
This is a good thing.
(I love the Compex as a snare compressor)

So in example 3 I've gone for the shortest attack and longest release.
Can you hear how it, frankly, sucks?

It has clamped down on everything.
Yes it is quieter- I didn't have time to level match, but even if they were it wouldn't be a good snare sound.
Having a moderate attack and release allows the snare level to come up overall, the tail to be extended but with still allowing the snare attack through.

'Transparent Compression':

A lot of the time I use compression as a tonal effect, rather than purely for levelling a signal.
For instance, you can adjust the release time of a compressor in parallel to make the ride pulse with the rhythm of the song.
Or you can use a Distressor or an 1176 on a room mic to crush it and then blend it in underneath the overheads to get a much bigger drum sound.

I do have transparent compressors.
The Crane Song STC8 can do 20dB of compression without really being heard and I have an Anamod Realios TL that can do it too.
But mostly I don't want a compressor to be completely transparent.

To your final point ' the slower the attack, the more likely we are to hear the compressor working - or is that a misconception??'

It's partially true, but it depends on the context.

How Attack Time Affects Compression Perception:
Slow Attack (e.g., 30ms - 100ms)

Allows transients (like drum hits, plucks, or consonants in vocals) to pass through before compression kicks in.
This can make the compression more obvious if it clamps down after the transient, causing a noticeable "pumping" or level drop. However, in some cases, a slow attack can sound more natural because it preserves the transient impact.

Fast Attack (e.g., 1ms - 10ms)

Immediately reduces the signal, which can smooth things out but may also dull transients if too aggressive.
This can make the compression less noticeable in some cases because it consistently controls dynamics.
However, extreme fast attack times can create a "squashed" sound, making the compression obvious in a different way.
So, is slower attack more noticeable?
Yes, if the compression clamps down too late, causing a noticeable level dip.
No, if used subtly, since it allows transients to shine while controlling dynamics naturally.
It really depends on the source material, threshold, ratio, and release settings.

Compression is my absolute favourite part of mixing. 
There is an art to it and i really took me over a decade of fucking around with different compressors on an almost daily basis to really get inside it.
Even now I am constantly surprised by what you can do with them, how they blend together.

As you can probably tell this is one of my favourite topics.
I'm a huge advocate for hardware compression.
I have all the plugin equivalents of the hardware compressors and I do use them but the hardware sounds different in almost every case.
(Notice I said 'different', not 'better'.)

Some get closer than others.
The UA 1176 plugins are mostly great.
I think every API 2500 emulation kinda sucks- it compresses but it does't sound much like my 2500.
The UA Distressors and Fatso emulations are good but I still prefer the hardware, especially at extreme settings.
Any Neve 2254 emulation doesn't sound anything like a 2254, or my BAE 10DCF's which are based on a 2254.

I am less picky about EQ's and for Reverbs I think plugins are pretty indistinguishable.

I've stayed up quite late writing this post, so I am sure I'll need to make corrections when I wake up, which I will do.
Hope this helps.

I just read through this again - thanks @octatonic this is a great resource.

Littlejonny

I'm just remixing our EP which has been sat in the can for over a year, due to be uploaded/sent to vinyl press later this week. I'm already finding the above ideas helpful. 

One thing I wanted to do was reduce the plinkiness of the hi hat in the overhead mics on one track, and I ended up using Bittersweet turned fully to 'sweet'...I couldn't hear the advantage of a compressor instead as it was a very specific thing I was trying to achieve.

Does anyone else have this problem with hi hats and rides and what do you do about it?

Also, heavily clipped Fender Rhodes - not in a nice way...I think the recording engineer got something wrong...

octatonic

Littlejonny said:

I'm just remixing our EP which has been sat in the can for over a year, due to be uploaded/sent to vinyl press later this week. I'm already finding the above ideas helpful. 

One thing I wanted to do was reduce the plinkiness of the hi hat in the overhead mics on one track, and I ended up using Bittersweet turned fully to 'sweet'...I couldn't hear the advantage of a compressor instead as it was a very specific thing I was trying to achieve.

Does anyone else have this problem with hi hats and rides and what do you do about it?

Also, heavily clipped Fender Rhodes - not in a nice way...I think the recording engineer got something wrong...

So the first thing to do is record them well.
Mic choice and placement are key here.

But once recorded, do you have a separate hi-hat mic?
I usually highpass at 300, take off some 10k, use an expander to make the hi-hats louder than the snare and then use a multiband compressor from around 1-3k and above.

If you don't have a hi-hat mic then it depends on which frequency band you think is 'pinky'.
Do you know how to search for resonances with EQ?
Get a bell with a q of around 6, boost it by around 10dB and then sweep the frequency ranges and listen for things that poke out.
When you find it then lower the Q (depends on what you want to do but anywhere from 1-3, sometimes higher) and reduce that frequency range- anywhere from 1-5dB.

This is just a general suggestion, I'd need to hear the actual audio.

Things to check first though- make sure all your drum microphones are in phase.
I make everything be in phase with the overheads.
So mute all the drum mics except the OH's, put a plugin with polarity reverse on it, on each of the individual drum microphones.
Do this with all plugin processing turned off.
Then unmute each mic in turn and get the level to around where it needs to be, then switch the polarity on each mic (soloed with the OH's, nothing else playing).
You are listening for a drop in bottom end.
If you polarity reverse, say, the bass drum, and you suddenly get loads of bottom end then the bass drum was out of phase with the overheads. Keep the bass drum polarity reversed.

It is really common for the snare top to be out of phase with the overheads. I usually check this when tracking and will usually print the reversed polarity into the audio file.

You can use 'invert' as an audiosuite plugin (or whatever it is called in your DAW) too.

Do it with the kick, snare, tom, hihat, ride microphones.

I check it with room mics but I usually don't phase align room mics. 
This goes too with using plugins like AutoAlign.
I use it all the time for kick and snare but never for room mics.
I might nudge the room mics around a bit but I found that aligning the drums so they are all perfectly in phase makes the drum kit sound smaller.

Most of the time I just use the polarity reverse technique, it isn't perfect but it is good enough and perfectly in phase drums sound less good to my ears.

One thing too, as you start to EQ things you might find some phase shifts happen.
Circle back to the polarity reverse technique throughout the mix and make sure nothing has gone awry.

And make sure your OH's are in phase with each other.

Why am I saying all this?
Because the plinkiness of the hihats could just be a phase issue with the drum microphones.

One more thing. I really like proportional Q EQ's on drums. This would be the API 550A/B, Kush Electra.
A proportional EQ tightens the Q value the higher the boost or cut, allowing you to do broad brush EQ with low boost and cut and be a bit more targeted (I avoided using the word surgical didn't I? ... oh no, there I said it) with higher values.
It is something that works for me very well with drums (and guitars).

I would re-record the Rhodes.
If you can't then look at audio restoration plugins.

octatonic

Littlejonny said:

octatonic said:

...


If I have a snare track that has a short snare without a lot of body to it I will usually want to elongate the snare.
I do this with a compressor.
I do not want to squash the entire signal- because if I use too short an attack then there will be no punch.
The rule of thumb is having too fast an attack will make drums sound further away, so will having too long a release.

snip 

I've stayed up quite late writing this post, so I am sure I'll need to make corrections when I wake up, which I will do.
Hope this helps.

I just read through this again - thanks @octatonic this is a great resource.

You are welcome.

Cirrus

Littlejonny said:

One thing I wanted to do was reduce the plinkiness of the hi hat in the overhead mics on one track, and I ended up using Bittersweet turned fully to 'sweet'...I couldn't hear the advantage of a compressor instead as it was a very specific thing I was trying to achieve.

Does anyone else have this problem with hi hats and rides and what do you do about it?

As Octo alludes, there's lots of ways to approach this. It is often a performance issue.

I had a bit of Hi Hat nonsense with a recent project, just on some songs in some places. The most effective thing I found was just rebalancing the kit mics when the sound in the overheads wasn't what I wanted. I had two different mono kit mics and stereo rooms, and they all give me different Hi Hat tone. Compression often makes this kind of thing worse. Finding the annoying frequencies and cutting them can help, but if you go too far it can end up sounding hollow & weird.

On one track I went pretty wild with a low pass filter and in the course of fixing an annoying hi hat re-imagined a much more filtered, effected overall drum sound. So there can be an element of artistic/ creative masking of problem tracks too.

octatonic

Cirrus said:

Littlejonny said:

One thing I wanted to do was reduce the plinkiness of the hi hat in the overhead mics on one track, and I ended up using Bittersweet turned fully to 'sweet'...I couldn't hear the advantage of a compressor instead as it was a very specific thing I was trying to achieve.

Does anyone else have this problem with hi hats and rides and what do you do about it?

As Octo alludes, there's lots of ways to approach this. It is often a performance issue.

I had a bit of Hi Hat nonsense with a recent project, just on some songs in some places. The most effective thing I found was just rebalancing the kit mics when the sound in the overheads wasn't what I wanted. I had two different mono kit mics and stereo rooms, and they all give me different Hi Hat tone. Compression often makes this kind of thing worse. Finding the annoying frequencies and cutting them can help, but if you go too far it can end up sounding hollow & weird.

On one track I went pretty wild with a low pass filter and in the course of fixing an annoying hi hat re-imagined a much more filtered, effected overall drum sound. So there can be an element of artistic/ creative masking of problem tracks too.

I almost never compress overheads.
Lately I've been splitting the shells (BD, Sn, Toms) into a different routing folder that I run through a Zener or SSL Bus comp and then the OH's go to a separate routing folder with the HH, Ride and any room mics.
That folder is not compressed (but the room mic's are at the track level).
These get bussed to a Drum and Bass group bus that has all the shells and cymbals plus the bass guitar, currently a BAE 10DCF although I sometimes use an API 2500 if that isn't on the 2Bus.

The biggest issue I have with overheads is how they change the tonality of the snare. 
I do pretty big cuts at 500-1000hz, sometimes use a multiband compressor or dynamic EQ.

HH mic gets high passed around 300, OH's around 200hz.

Littlejonny

Re overheads: I think what happened is we had a particularly nice overhead sound, you could almost get away with it alone so I'd previously mixed it quite overhead heavy and used the shells to just enhance that. More of a jazz sound...hence perhaps too much emphasis on the hi hat and ride for this particular musical context.

I've gone back in and taken more of a rock approach with a hi pass on the OH and more shells. I've also discovered the joys of smashing the tom mics to get more sustain.

octatonic

Littlejonny said:

Re overheads: I think what happened is we had a particularly nice overhead sound, you could almost get away with it alone so I'd previously mixed it quite overhead heavy and used the shells to just enhance that. More of a jazz sound...hence perhaps too much emphasis on the hi hat and ride for this particular musical context.

I've gone back in and taken more of a rock approach with a hi pass on the OH and more shells. I've also discovered the joys of smashing the tom mics to get more sustain.

I'd go for an API 2500, 4:1, slowish attack and release.
Will sound great.

My current fave for Toms is the Crane Song STC8 but there isn't a plugin equivalent of that plugin that I am aware of.
DMG Audio TrackComp 2 probably comes the closest.

Littlejonny

octatonic said:

Littlejonny said:

Re overheads: I think what happened is we had a particularly nice overhead sound, you could almost get away with it alone so I'd previously mixed it quite overhead heavy and used the shells to just enhance that. More of a jazz sound...hence perhaps too much emphasis on the hi hat and ride for this particular musical context.

I've gone back in and taken more of a rock approach with a hi pass on the OH and more shells. I've also discovered the joys of smashing the tom mics to get more sustain.

I'd go for an API 2500, 4:1, slowish attack and release.
Will sound great.

My current fave for Toms is the Crane Song STC8 but there isn't a plugin equivalent of that plugin that I am aware of.
DMG Audio TrackComp 2 probably comes the closest.

Doesn't slowish attack emphasise the transient rather than the sustain?

octatonic

Littlejonny said:

octatonic said:

Littlejonny said:

Re overheads: I think what happened is we had a particularly nice overhead sound, you could almost get away with it alone so I'd previously mixed it quite overhead heavy and used the shells to just enhance that. More of a jazz sound...hence perhaps too much emphasis on the hi hat and ride for this particular musical context.

I've gone back in and taken more of a rock approach with a hi pass on the OH and more shells. I've also discovered the joys of smashing the tom mics to get more sustain.

I'd go for an API 2500, 4:1, slowish attack and release.
Will sound great.

My current fave for Toms is the Crane Song STC8 but there isn't a plugin equivalent of that plugin that I am aware of.
DMG Audio TrackComp 2 probably comes the closest.

Doesn't slowish attack emphasise the transient rather than the sustain?

It allows the transient through but that doesn't mean you can't elongate the tom (or more typically the snare) as well with the right attack and release settings.

The problem with a super fast attack, (as mentioned previously too) is you kill all your dynamics.
You  (or more correctly I) don't want the transient of a snare or tom to be at the same volume as the tail.
I want it louder.
Just not 10dB louder.

As mentioned earlier too, making the attack too short makes the snare/tom sound further away.
Same with the release being too long.

API 2500, 4:1, slowish attack and release is a starting point.

Stuckfast

I might also point out that "slow" and "fast" are highly relative terms. Fast attack on an 1176 is measured in microseconds. It's hard to model digitally because the fastest attack times are so fast, they are shorter than the time between adjacent samples. By contrast the fastest attack time on an optical compressor might be 30ms or more.

octatonic

Stuckfast said:

I might also point out that "slow" and "fast" are highly relative terms. Fast attack on an 1176 is measured in microseconds. It's hard to model digitally because the fastest attack times are so fast, they are shorter than the time between adjacent samples. By contrast the fastest attack time on an optical compressor might be 30ms or more.

Yes, good point.
I had assumed people understood this, which was a mistake.

Littlejonny

octatonic said:

Stuckfast said:

I might also point out that "slow" and "fast" are highly relative terms. Fast attack on an 1176 is measured in microseconds. It's hard to model digitally because the fastest attack times are so fast, they are shorter than the time between adjacent samples. By contrast the fastest attack time on an optical compressor might be 30ms or more.

Yes, good point.
I had assumed people understood this, which was a mistake.

I didn't understand this! So 1176 is extremely fast then...

What I've been doing with toms is to use Bittersweet (a transient) to 'sweeten' the hit, making the transient smaller ... this, when mixed back in with the overheads//head mic//room mics brings up the sustain

crosstownvamp

Stuckfast said:

I might also point out that "slow" and "fast" are highly relative terms. Fast attack on an 1176 is measured in microseconds. It's hard to model digitally because the fastest attack times are so fast, they are shorter than the time between adjacent samples. By contrast the fastest attack time on an optical compressor might be 30ms or more.

Wow - so if my mental arithmetic is correct it acts in less 0.025 ms?  Is that about right?

Um ok I looked up 1176 online and it has this:

>> Attack time is adjustable from 20 μs to 800 μs (0.00002–0.0008 seconds)

Why don't the videos rub this in ?!

octatonic

crosstownvamp said:

Stuckfast said:

I might also point out that "slow" and "fast" are highly relative terms. Fast attack on an 1176 is measured in microseconds. It's hard to model digitally because the fastest attack times are so fast, they are shorter than the time between adjacent samples. By contrast the fastest attack time on an optical compressor might be 30ms or more.

Wow - so if my mental arithmetic is correct it acts in less 0.025 ms?  Is that about right?

Um ok I looked up 1176 online and it has this:

>> Attack time is adjustable from 20 μs to 800 μs (0.00002–0.0008 seconds)

Why don't the videos rub this in ?!

I find it helpful to consider it in terms of processing a particular sound, let's say a snare drum.

At the slowest attack time you are letting roughly 40% of the transient through. That is usually too much.

Usually the attack is set around 3 on the dial, which allows the very front edge of the snare’s transient,  maybe the first 10–20% of it, depending on the snare and mic setup. Enough to feel the “crack”, especially in a mix, but not the full uncompressed transient.

Then a fast or medium fast release to bring out the body of the snare.

A Ludwig Black Beauty or LM400/402 with an SM57 into an API or Neve preamp and into an 1176, a bit of boost at 180-250 Hz, maybe a cut at 400-800 Hz, and a touch of 3-5kHz- that is usually all you need and it is the sound of rock music.

Littlejonny

Thanks for this - I have recently realised how common this technique is to essentially elongate the snare.

However, I was watching some of those great Reverb YouTube vids about recording drums last night and they said that the Rumours drum sound has no compression just pushed into the tape hot.

octatonic

Littlejonny said:

Thanks for this - I have recently realised how common this technique is to essentially elongate the snare.

However, I was watching some of those great Reverb YouTube vids about recording drums last night and they said that the Rumours drum sound has no compression just pushed into the tape hot.

I don't know if that is true or not but tape saturation is a form of compression.