Are You Using the Wrong Compressor? Compression Masterclass

welcome back to the channel in a previous video we took a listen to all the different types and styles of eq or equalization available and in this video we're going to do the same thing for compressors we're going to take a listen to all the main styles and also which ones might be best suited to a particular task so let's waste no time and just get right into it there's four types of compressors we're going to look at today phet vca tube and optical and while they all aim to control or modify the dynamics of a signal they all do this in vastly different ways whether this is using tubes or transistors or lights and photodiodes they're all listening to interpreting and applying gain reduction in different ways and this results in a different sound we'll start by taking a listen to a fat compressor in particular the 1176 limiting amplifier because it's by far the most popular fat compressor ever produced these typically are known for having a punchy and bold sound but there are a few pitfalls that you have to be aware of when using them so that you get the sound you're looking for so let's start by taking a listen to a drum kit process through this and you'll hear the very distinctive sound of this compressor [Music] effect compressors are full of tone and character you can hear they're not subtle in any way they're known for their very fast attack times in this case 20 microseconds so it's usually a good idea to slow down the attack time let some of the transient through and you'll end up with a much more punchy and snappy sound like this [Music] it's so easy to overdo this style of compression because it's really fun so many engineers often use this in parallel or use a mix control like this to just blend in an amount of that over compressed signal and it often adds a lot of energy and style to your recording [Music] one of the best times to use these compressors is while recording vocals or instruments i find that it gives an artist an awful lot of confidence to just be controlling those dynamics a little bit i find that you can get really confident and controlled performances out of them and it makes them feel a lot better about themselves too take a listen to how this just controls the guitar prevents it becoming overly dynamic when we don't need it to be you'll notice that i have a slow attack and a fast release and an issue i find is that often people set these too fast on the attack and too slow on the release and then you can turn a recording into mush really quickly and it's difficult to recover it when it sounds like this so a quick summary of fat compression these are excellent when you're looking to add color tone and texture to a sound they offer incredibly fast attack and release times so they're going to clamp down on transients really well especially when recording and a good place to start if you're new is to set the attack time very slow set the release time fast and then dial it in until you can hear compression don't always trust what the vu meter says definitely use your ear and decide when you've dialed in enough compression now we're going to take a look at tube compression often called vary mu or delta mu compression now many different compressors use tubes in their circuitry but when i talk about a tube compressor i mean a compressor where the gain reduction so how much gain and how to reduce that gain is handled by the tubes in the circuit the tubes are much slower to respond to the incoming audio than say a fat compressor and this means they preserve the transients very well they're great to use on mixes and subgroups and they provide what many engineers and producers call glue or warmth to the signal just due to the circuit topology they tend to sound really good so let's take a listen remember there's no eq here just compression [Music] while the compression itself was quite transparent the circuitry has imparted a lovely tone on the recording the tonal balance has shifted it almost sounds like we've applied an eq and warmed up the audio a little bit and although these excel on entire mixes you can use them on individual tracks such as vocals after a faster compressor or limiter you could use this to smooth out the average of the signal and just make everything sound a little bit warmer and a little bit smoother possibly one of the most iconic or famous very mew or delta mu compressors is the fairchild 670 or 670 and i've got to admit there's nothing that sounds like the hardware none of the recreations or plugins are quite there yet but hopefully this demonstration can again show you the the difference in tone that can be achieved even at just very small levels of compression [Music] to summarize tube compression it often has a much slower attack and release time which means that it allows transients to get through and it can be great for gluing a whole mix together and while the compression itself can sound fairly subtle or transparent the effects of the processing and circuitry is anything but transparent and you can expect quite a change in the tonal balance potentially becoming warmer or even brighter and this might be ideal for a certain application but it will leave other engineers choosing a slightly more subtle or transparent tool the next one we're going to look at is the optical or opto compressor and in particular the la2a because it's probably the most famous optical compressor ever made in this design the audio feeds a lighting element like an led and this shines brighter or dimmer depending on the intensity of the audio and a photocell picks up the light being emitted by this element and while the speed of light is incredibly fast the reaction between the audio lighting the led and the photocell picking up that light actually does create quite a bit of a delay on both the attack and release so they tend to be a great choice when you want to compress based on the average of a signal and not necessarily based on what those transients are doing in this next vocal example you'll hear that with the optical compression all the transients still get through and every word can be heard right on top of the mix whereas without the optical compression some of the words and phrases just start to drift down and become a little bit too quiet so let's take a delve listen until i knew no longer up from down it feels like sanity until my lungs remind me dove deep until i knew no longer up from down it feels like sanity until my lungs remind me dove deep until i knew no longer up from down dove deep until a new no longer up from down now let's finish off with my favorite type of compressor the vca or voltage controlled amplifier compressor the reason this is my favorite is that it offers you the most control and flexibility they can sound really sort of colorful and rich in tone or they can be incredibly transparent ssl api and neve all make world famous vca compressors and one of my favorites is the distressor by empirical labs simply because it is so flexible this design is also used in some of the best mastering compressors because it simply allows so much control flexibility and low distortion so let's take a listen to a few audio examples [Music] so [Music] so hopefully you could hear how that improved the sonic character of the mix really brought in some more dimension and detail there as well however vcas really do excel on individual channels whenever you want compression that can sound a little bit more transparent really control the dynamics without imparting too much tone these can often be your best friend you can hear this long attack time it's really letting all those transients through while just generally controlling the level but if i reduce the attack time you can hear it squashes the whole signal out and while this is clearly over compressed we're not hearing any issues with distortion or the compressor pumping up and down struggling with it it's just doing what it's told and it's not really making a fuss about it [Music] so to summarize vca compression it usually offers the most control and flexibility over your attack release threshold and gain reduction it can often sound the most transparent and because of this it's great for individual tracks but also entire mix or master processing however it's not always transparent because depending on the design of the compressor there may be other components in there which help to add a lot more character warmth brightness and saturation and finally many vca compressors also try to model the attack and release behavior of tube fet and optical compressors because it's often a very cost effective way to do so so just bear that in mind your vca compressor could really be a great all-around processor so that's it for today but if you want to know more please do watch my how to hear compression video or understanding compression videos which will help you dial in the different controls on these compressors to really get the results you're looking for so thank you very much for watching and i'll see in the next one bye for now

Channel: In The Mix

Views: 141,586

Rating: 4.9796042 out of 5

Keywords: Compression, Mixing with compression, compression explained, FET, Tube, VCA, Optical, comp, Best compressor, analog vs digital, Compression mastering, Compression mixing, compression tips, in the mix, Music Production, Mixing, Mastering

Id: SUd4U87EcDo

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 21 2021