So, have you heard about or pros talking about compressors during the process recording/producing records? Of course you have. Many of the engineers in the music production scene often boast about their glowing tracks and how well they have achieved it through compression. Now to address what the pros are talking, lets look at and discuss(in comments) about the compression process, where and how to use compression in the recording chain etc.,

Compression, typically is an effect that can normalize your audio up to the levels where it stands out to sound uniform and neat. It evenly arranges the audio material and controls the levels that is very important, when there are large amount of tracks involved in modern day recordings. Thanks to all the computer power and the digital technology. Many audio professionals use compressors in all of their works and its very rarely we hear from someone who never have used compression in their music production. Well, most certainly when the mix goes to a mastering stage, it is quite obvious to use compression to polish the track and it has become a necessity to use compression in today’s world, be it analog or digital realm.

Well, there are times when compression is over used too, which is quite a human nature to overdo things . So lets not get there.

So how are compressors used in a recording studio or even in your regular home studio ?. There are 3 places where you can use compression. They are noting but the the recording chain, tracking chain and the mix-down chain. Let’s see each one of them below..

Recording Chain

In this step, the compressor is on a direct out or an insert of the mixer, which takes the mic signal, after getting boosted by the preamp. The main focus here is to normalize/optimize the audio while recording. But there is a strong opposition among folks recording on the computer sequencers(which is what it is today), in NOT to record with compression, but to record at complete 24 bits.

Tracking Chain (Which is were I use in my recordings)

In this step, Once your audio track is recorded on computer or on a multi-track, you can now add compression to each track individually to make them all sound even and normalized. The compressor here is added as an inert on the mixer.Say in the computer sequencer’s, the compression is added as an inerst plugin.

A classic compressor such as the UA LA-2A is a great choice for vocal tracks. It helps maintain the vocals polished on top of the underlying music tracks. But not many can afford such costly hardware compressors, specially the home studio music producers. The job can still be achieved well through all the modern software compressors that do a terrific job these days. So no worries.

Close up of the Universal Audio LA2A Classic Leveling Amplifier

Mixdown Chain

In this step, a few compression techniques may be used. Compressors can be applied on the busses or even on sends/returns, to accentuate certain parts of the mix.

Another advanced mix technique is called Parallel Compression, where the uncompressed source tracks are mixed with the compressed singnal coming back on a return or bus. It is a very good technique to adapt to and you can achieve some shining results. Try it out !!!

Some tend to put compressor on the master bus. You can avoid that, as you can deal with adding compression in the master stage, whether you send to a mastering house or do it yourself. When you do it yourself, try to make a nice solid mix and then take the bounced audio for the master project, rather than mastering on the mix project itself.

So that’s some breifing on compression folks. Please do check out my other post on “Should the Vocals be Compressed while Recording”

Also, check out all the Dynamic Processors

I hope this post helps you to create great music from your home studio. Please do pass on your comments and feedback and pls also subscribe to this home studio blog site, to get automatic updates about Music Production Tutorials videos on Editing, Mixing, Mastering techniques using industry products like Pro Toools 9/10, Reason 5/6, Native Instruments, Komplete 8 Ultimate, Kontakt and many other Virtual Instruments/Plugins

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Vocal Recording Tips – How to Monitor Effects & Dry Record while performing & Recording Vocals

The best practice to record vocals is to record it dry. But most vocal artists are at their best when some effects are added that they can monitor while recording. It gives you a sense of being with the song when the effects are added. Recording dry vocals would obviously sound seperated from the underlying
music track.

Basically you can record the audio with the effects while tracking or just monitor the effects and record it dry.

To Monitor & Record Vocals with effects onto an Audio Track :-
Put the mic (input) into an Aux track and add the necessary effects. Bus it over to an Audio track & record enable the tracks. Turn the fader/slider down on the Audio track, as you don’t want to hear the sound from both Aux Track & the Audio Track. You can just monitor the Aux track with its effects. This way you will hear vocals with effects & also be able to record it simultaneously onto the Audio Track.

To Monitor Vocals with effects but ONLY Record Dry Vocals onto an Audio Track :-
Now, If you don’t want to record the effects, then run the mic(input) to both the Aux & the Audio Track, instead of bussing from the Aux to the Audio Track. This way you can still monitor through the Aux Track but ONLY record dry through the audio track, which serves the purpose to hear the effect while recording but not actually record them. You also don’t have to about auto input monioring using this method coz all of the monitoring is through the Aux Track & auto input monioring doesn’t affect the Aux Tracks. But make sure you turn the Audio Track faders down or you’ll be double feeding the stereo bus.

I hope this post helps you to create great music from your home studio. Please do pass on your comments and feedback and pls also subscribe to this home studio blog site, to get automatic updates about Music Production Tutorials videos on Editing, Mixing, Mastering techniques using industry products like Pro Toools 8, Reason 4, Reason 5 & Record 1.5

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There is always this question that hovers many who want to know what’s best strategy applied for Compressing Vocals. A common question on using compression for vocals is “Should the vocals be compressed while recording?”.

In an analogue world, adding compression during recording is a good idea coz it helps to even out the signal levels and also maintains a very good signal-to-noise ratio. Vocals are basically audio tracks and compressing while recording vocals has to be done with real care, as it’s not easy to reverse the effects of overcompression.

So compressing in the digital domain while recording will have no audible benefits over doing this same processing in the mix down. With that said, its probably best left to handle compression during the mixing stage than tweaking at the tracking stage itself.

So the best suggestion would be to not do any compression on vocals while recording and its always advisable to add compression only during the mix down.

Well, at least cases, a little compression could be added during recording, only if the recording vocalist(s) finds it comfortable to produce good results.

I hope this post helps you to create great music from your home studio. Please do pass on your comments and feedback and pls also subscribe to this home studio blog site, to get automatic updates about Music Production Tutorials videos on Editing, Mixing, Mastering techniques using industry products like Pro Toools 8, Reason 4, Reason 5 & Record 1.5

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Making and producing music has never been possible from home before. Setting up a Home Recording Studio was nothing but a dream. But thanks to the cheap computer prices and the internet today. You should now be absolutely ready to bring your dreams into reality. So are you ready to spend somewhere in the range of $1000 – $1500? Well, if you said yes, just be ready to get more excited in setting up a pro home studio. All you would need to possess in order to build your home studio is a powerful computer and a few gears. Now, lets get into some details.

Steps involved in setting up a computer based home studio :
1. Choose your Computer – As said in the title, this particular post is mainly dealing with building a home studio for computer based recording. With that said, plan on what type of computer do you want to buy. Meaning, a laptop or a desktop. You should definitely have a minimum of 1gig RAM(more the better), more than 300gigs of hard disk space, a good sound card and atleast a 19 inch monitor. Write a detailed plan on what type of configuration/models would you like to invest on. Please take enough time in this step because your studio is virtually going to be built on your computer. You need to be savvy enough to power up your computer and make it so very available to produce and enjoy music. Remember, you can always add power to your computer down the line but try to make it a very good beginning, so you don’t have to worry about glitches while making music. The ultimate goal is to make music like the pro’s who do it in a real studio. So max out on budget with respect to getting a high quality computer.

2. Decide on what Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) you want to work with – There are so many DAW’s in the market now and each of them boast of spectacular capabilities. It is totally up to you to know and get used to a program. Some of the most popular DAW’s are Pro Tools, Cakewalk, Fruity Loops, Cubase, Reason etc., Make your selection. Probably if you’ve not been exposed to any of these DAW’s, you can always download some trial versions and get your hands on it. It is going to be the most critical software for all your recording, mixing and editing needs. You just cannot be casual here.

3. Get the Gears – After you’ve crossed the computer and the DAW selection hurdle, the next one is to get some gears to get to work. You would obviously need the following to get you started.

a. Mic – You need to decide on choosing between a condensor mic or a dynamic mic. There are so many models available in the market and you should have an understanding of all the advantages and disadvantages of each model. Personally, I’ve been recording all my vocals on RODE NT1A, which costed $225 when I bought and I’ve to say it is an amazing mic(condensor). I’ve had great recordings done with RODE NT1A.

b. Audio Interface – Audio Interface is the core of any good home recording studio. Well, as usual, there are so many audio interfaces available from so many companies and it again needs some special research to figure out the Audio Interfaces you want. Since I’m more of a pro tools user, I’m using MBOX2 PRO and it is firewire based. So, it all depends upon with Digital Audio Station(DAW) you want to work on. Also before choosing your audio interface, answer these basis questtions like
i. Whether you need Pro Tools compatibility?
Digidesign’s Pro Tools is the industry-wide standard platform for recording and producing music. So most of the Digidesign’s audio interfaces for Pro Tools are usually much costlier than its competitors. If you don’t need Pro Tools and plan on using another DAW software program, you don’t need Pro Tools hardware. But you have to remember that you can’t use Pro Tools without a compatible interface.
Pro Tools oriented setup is always pretty restricted to Digidesign’s products and it doesn’t seemlessly go with other products, which is one of the biggest drawbacks that most of the users crib about. Bottom line is if you are going with Pro Tools as your recording platform, then you should also be able to spend a few more bucks but I’m sure you will be happy when you get to do it. My best advice is to go with Firewire based audio interface to avoild latency problems, when you are recording.

ii. How Many Inputs would You Need?
You should be knowing what you are going to record on a regular schedule. That would determine the need for the inputs on the audio interface. Its always great to have many inputs, so you could always expand your musical landscape when needed but if your stuck with fewer inputs, it might always be a problem to seamlessly create the music you want. Well, you can definitely get things done with fewer inputs but it might take a lot of time for bigger musical arrangements. With that said, there are interfaces that are cheaper but offer less inputs. I would always prefer aleast two microphone preamp inputs, which would allow you to do vocals and guitar(for example) at once. So give it some time knowing all the products inputs and outputs available and their respective benefits.

iii. Do you want Firewire or USB based interfaces?
Firewire interfaces obviously are more expensive than USB but I would always vouch for getting a Firewire based interface. Well, If you’re only going to need two channels at a time, USB should be fine but I’m always hesitant suggesting a USB Audio Interface. I just cannot compromise Firewire Audio Intefaces for a USB under any circumstances. Please understand that audio interface is a key gear to your home studio and you don’t want to mess it up with cheaper products.

4. Recording Instruments – After all, you can’t perform music without a basic instrument on hand. The most common instruments would be a keyboard (synthesizer) or a guitar. So get your music instrument, if you don’t have one. Make sure that your keyboard has a MIDI interface, which is the key to making computer based music. Almost all the keyboard these days have the midi ports on them but just in case you are using an old keyboard, try to get a MIDI keyboard.

5. Cables for connecting it all together – Well, cables are going to be costing you a few 100 dollars as you would need it for connecting your audio interfaces, your microphones, your music instruments etc.,

Please do pass on your valuable comments and ratings, if you liked this post.

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