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

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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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1. Send your vocal tracks to two mono aux sends.

2. The first Aux send has an EQ with a high pass set around 6-8khz, and a compressor set with a low threshold and fast attack and release. Mix that back in with the vocal to add a bit of air.High frequencies are attenuated as they travel through the air much faster than lower frequencies, so anything you want to sound “in your face” needs extra high end.

3. The second Aux send is for a plate reverb with as many early reflections as possible. The idea here is to get the vocal to sound as wide as possible. You want to avoid a vocal that images to a single point. The vocal needs to be wide to sound close and clear. The thumb rule is, the wider it is, it sounds closer to the listener and skinny sounds are farther away.

4. Later, you can always adapt your vocals to add any special effects. Normally I use 3 reverbs (small, medium and long) and a plate verb for the vocals.

Have fun recording/mixing your vocals.

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