Using Compression On Vocals For Beginners - RecordingRevolution.com

a friend Graham here from recording revolution comm today I want to show you how to use compression on vocals if you are a beginner if you've never really dive deep into mixing and you haven't really messed with compression much or you have and you feel confused this is gonna be a good video for you we're gonna look at how you can use a compressor on a lead vocal to give it punch to make it sound upfront to contain the level a little bit and give you a little bit of the reason why you use a compressor and then show you some simple steps to use it compressions one of those techniques and one of those effects that is used all the time and when you're newer to mixing you're kind of confused as to why and what is it supposed to be doing and it's very easy to screw up your tracks with compression when you don't know what you're doing I've been there so I know what it feels like so today I'm going to show you an easier way to approach compression on vocals so you won't be frustrated or overwhelmed so here I have a track and it's kind of mixes falling into place leave vocal has some EQ on it and that's about it and I want you to take a listen to the vocal how it's it's kind of getting lost in the mix a little bit summertime food Juba nothing cold two things that I can't quite but you live with my heart getting money you taking my mind everything I don't I leave it No [Music] all right so some words on the vocal I can hear fine most of them I can't and when you're mixing you don't want to overthink things if you can't hear enough of the vocal just turn it up grab the fader you know if this is the lead vocal here grab the fader turn it up now we could do that and that might solve some of the problems but I've already done this in the mix and what I know is that it'll make the quieter parts nice and louder again so I can hear some of those words better but then it makes the louder parts a little too loud he jumps out and you can see that if you just look at his vocal track this is the waveform the representation of his vocal performance you can see you got really quiet parts here you have louder parts here even this one phrase here you've got a wide variety of range you got a little bit of vocal here and then he explodes up here you've been acting cold cold is an open vowel when you open your mouth you sing vowels a's i's o's it's just louder even if you're not singing louder so that's louder this is too quiet same thing down here you got these little guys here but but you my heart is louder this is why vocals nee compression they're all over the place it's the human voice is very dynamic meaning it can be quiet for one second loud for another second so that's why compressors are so often used on vocals because they can contain that volume and give you more even performance what if you had a way that you could automate magically the quiet parts of the vocal to come up in volume and the louder parts of the vocal to come down in volume so they're a little better matched and they were all about the same volume so that the listener could hear every word and syllable the same wouldn't that be nice so that's what a compressor does so that's how I view compression it's like an automatic volume fader so I'll grab a compressor here let's grab the stock avid compressor it comes to the Pro Tools and you know you might see compressors they all look very different and some have very few knobs I'm not gonna go into like the 1176 of la-2a or any of those type compressors today I want to look at a standard da W compressor we have more of the knobs so you can feel confident you feel comfortable here you'll feel comfortable almost anywhere and the the knobs you really need to pay attention to are threshold attack and release ratio and gain or otherwise known as make up gain or make up the most important one is threshold if this threshold is all the way up is zero even though you have a compressor on your vocal it's not gonna do any compression but you've been acting cold the wind it's at this threshold is saying until the volume of the music or though in this case the vocal crosses above that threshold don't compress and as we can see if the threshold is at the very top and this vocal is never gonna get there yeah some it's a fight so you can play with these knobs all you want you can add presets all you want but if your threshold is too high it's not doing any compression so what you need to do is set the compress though threshold excuse me to the point where it's just below where it's cresting so I'm gonna say where it was by default it'll be just a way to gauge if it's a good starting point and what we're really looking for though is the gain reduction meter I don't really care where the threshold is the numbers don't matter what matters are how much gain reduction we're doing that's the most important thing how much are we turning down the vocal so let's look at that by default I'll leave the settings as they are for now you summit say I'm fine but you've been acting cold don't win it's a two things that I can't quite a lot but you're playing with my heart like it ain't mine so with this setting we can see that a lot of times it's doing minus 3 DB of gain reduction so sometimes like - 4 - 5 - sometimes not much you Summit's a fight like fine it didn't really do much but it did some compression on the other places now when it comes to ratio on vocals a good rule is 2 2 1 2 4 2 1 are good ratios I'm not gonna go into depth on what a ratio is here I've got something for you that will help you with that in a minute but but in general 2 2 1 for no 1 ratio is gonna be a natural not too aggressive ratio of how much it's turning down when the audio crosses the threshold so this default setting here on my compressor is 3 2 1 I think that's great you're attacking and release are really gonna affect the sound of the compressor attack is telling the compressor how quickly to jump on or attack the audio the moment it crosses the threshold so it's not gonna do anything until it crosses that threshold so only allowed parts are gonna be turned down but when they are turned down how quickly does the compressor compressor kick in so obviously a faster attack you're gonna have a more aggressive compression and you're gonna kill some of the transients the ups and the downs and slower taxing me a little more natural a little more loose release is the opposite how quickly does it release or let go of the vocal and let it reset back to its normal volume it looks like in this default setting on this compressor you've pretty much got a somewhat slow attack but it's kind of a medium attack medium release on a vocal I might go a little bit faster of an attack see what that does yeah summertime fight but you've been acting cold don't win it's a 2 things that I can't quite like but you're playing with my heart the kid ain't much so it's a little bit more its clamping down on his vocal just a little bit more but the most compressions doing is minus 6 DB which is nice and healthy nothing aggressive but if you've noticed all we've done now is turned down the loud parts of the vocal and that's what I want you to notice remember how I showed you there was these ups and these downs there's a wide dynamic on the vocal look at this section for example you've been acting cold you've been acting cold that you've been acting cold the first part of the line these quieter parts that you've been acting it's doing maybe minus 1 maybe minus 2 DB of gain reduction but when it gets too cold it turns it down minus 6 you've been acting cold you've been acting cold you've been acting college so it's turning this line down more that's turning these lines and that's what we want to do we want to turn the loud parts down to better match the quieter parts so now we have a more even performance but if you're smart you've noticed all we've done is make a more even but more quiet performance and that's not what we want we wanted to hear things better so now the final step of the puzzle is the game or the makeup gain knob now since we've done nothing but turn down the volume of the track we need to make that game back up and turn the whole thing back up now that we've evened out and smoothed out these Peaks so they're a lot more consistent let's bring the level of everything back up so if I'm taking the louder parts down by minus six quiet parts down by minus two minus three I might try to pull this gain up somewhere in between and see if we can make the overall output match the input peak so that I'm not making this track louder peak volume wise but overall more of the phrases will be louder than they were because I'm bringing back up with it all the quiet parts let's take a look yeah summits are fine but you've been acting cold don't win it's a two things that I can't quite a lot but you're playing with my heart like it ain't mine you have taken my mind everything I own I leave it be hi leave it over all right so what we've done is for the most part we've brought up the whole track by 4 and 1/2 DB which is a big chunk but again we're not just turning up the volume of the track we're compressing it evening it out and now bringing up the output volume of the whole thing and now you have a more consistent performance we'll listen to it on and off of the compressor in solo and you'll hear the difference you're gonna hear the quiet phrases disappear when we take off the compressor but then we'll play it in context with the mix which is really what matters most you some would say I'm fine but you've been acting cold don't win it's up no compression you summertime fine but you've been acting cold don't win it's up with compression you summertime fight but you've been acting cold don't win it's a two things that I can't quiet lie but you're playing with my heart the kid a month without compression but you're playing with my heart the kid a mic but you're playing with my heart the kid a mutt compressed but you're playing with my heart the kid ain't much my heart sounds about the same volume but this opening phrase here but you playing with my that's what was getting lost that's coming back up to match the level intensity of these louder parts do you see what we're doing here were using a compressor to bring up the lyrics the the phrases the syllables that are getting lost and swallowed so they are just as loud just as in your face and just as aggressive as the loud parts of the vocal and so in context with a mix with a compressor it's much better and when I take the compressor off you'll you'll notice the life go out of the vocal you've been acting cool to things that I can't cry [Music] right with compression this is a good example here you've been acting cold like the wintertime you only catch parts of those phrases you've been using with compression I want you to pay attention to like like the winter the word time is fine but like the winter that's the phrase that's getting lost without compression so I'm gonna take the compressor off you've been acting cold like the winter listen to that gets lost [Music] with compression now you hear it this is what a compressor is doing so if you're a brand new or you're starting to mess with compression this is what I want you to think about with the compressor is an automatic volume knob it's gonna turn down the loud parts turn up the quiet parts give you a more even upfront performance and you get all this kind of control in between I want you to think about the threshold set that - you're seeing - 6 DB of gain reduction on the loudest parts use a two to one four to one ratio and sort of the in-between medium attack medium release is a good starting point now I want to give you something else that will help you go more in depth with compression and simplify it even more for you I've got a cheat sheet or a checklist for compression there's seven tips to using compression in seven ways I think about it and so what I've done is put all seven of these together in a simple guide for you call my seven steps to compression checklist and what it'll do is explain a lot of what I've talked about today it'll give you some tips and tricks and mistakes to avoid with compression as well and it's a simple guide a PDF that you can print up keep it on your desk if you're old school like me you can keep it on your phone on your tablet it's like a like I said it's a checklist to reference it's a cheat sheet to reference any time you're mixing with compression this will really help you especially if you're brand new and it's good for you if you're a Wiley vet as well to be reminded of how to think about a compressor how to use a compressor and quickly get that vocal sound or that kick drum sound or that bass guitar sound or whatever you're trying to use compression for as fast as possible so download it's absolutely free just go to compression seven dot-com or put the link here in the video and in the description box that's compression with the number seven compression seven com get your free seven step compression checklist download I think it's gonna help you on your next mix thanks for watching thanks for subscribing to these videos have a great rest of your day and I'll see you on another video real soon

Channel: recordingrevolution

Views: 479,515

Keywords: using compression, vocal compression, mixing vocals, using compression on vocals, mixing with compression, home studio, recording revolution, recordingrevolution

Id: 9mORT3YSmeA

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018