Compression

[John Brown]

I have never used a compressor on anything that I have done so far, but I keep seeing that it is supposed to be necessary. What exactly does compression do for the recording or sound of the guitar. Do you use it for other things like vocals and drums? Will it help me to pick up the ladies? Thanks.

[Dave da Dude]

I haven't USED a compressor, but I've listened to many sound samples.

 

When I read (what's available) about the effect, it sounds like it would be detrimental to good sound, squashing the top of the sound down, pushing the bass up, yuk.

 

All I know is it sounds good! To me anyway.

 

Just trying to bring this back up to the top to see if anyone has some insight to this.

 

Dave Anybody out there actually KNOW anyting (technical) about this effect? Anybody who uses it? Anybody like it?

[sbrock1san.rr.com]

www.studiocovers.com/articles.htm

 

Look at the "Compression" section. That site has a ton of great articles on recording and guitar.

 

It would take forever to explain why one would use a compressor. It's basically an automatic control to make the music maintain a constant level. For electric guitar it can also add sustain to a distorted sound, make a clean sound stand out in a mix and have more presence, and it can also make the soft parts less soft and the loud parts less loud.

 

It's not a necessary effect for guitar. It's more common to use it on vocals, bass guitar, and drums. When you push a tube amplifier hard with an electric guitar the tubes are acting like compressors already. Compressors also have some side effects- they accentuate finger noises and squeaks and you may have to play with an even cleaner technique when using a compressor.

 

Personally, I rarely use compression on electric guitar. Many distortion effect pedals already add compression. If you've ever used a Boss Metal Zone pedal for instance, that's a compressed sound. I always use compression on bass guitar and vocals, and sometimes on rhythm acoustic guitar. Compression is a very useful tool and it takes some experience to know when to use it and when not to. It can easily be abused and destroy the dynamics of your music.

[michael saulnier]

Good points Steve...

 

I'd add that in the recording process, the final step, mastering, (where you take the mixed tracks and prepare them to be burned on a cd), typically uses sizeable doses of compression as well.

 

Largely, it's to get the tracks "loud". If you record a cd on a DAW or hard disk recorder for home studio use, set the levels right, and then burn a cd of the results... then play it back... you'll notice your cd tracks are significantly less volume on each track than any of your favorite cd's... The main reason is compression...

 

If you ever look at the graphic view of a .wav file of most "pro" music, you'll see the dynamic range is almost flat and completely fills the available space... while your non-compressed ones have major "spikes" of high and low amplitude. By "compressing" the highs and lows, you can raise the overall volume before distortion... This has become an "art form" / "competition" to see who can have the "loudest" cd...

 

It's kinda sad, but if you want "pro" level recordings... you gotta compress 'em...

 

guitplayer

[Gus1234]

i do need a compressor 50% of the time .

 

I sing and play at once . i have to sing and play some " patterns " like an arpeggio .

The compressor is very useful to keep the notes at the same level . Sometimes when singing i hit some notes harder than others . that's why i need .

I do not squash the sound .... but sometimes i do The compression is an useful tool if you know how to use it . Think about that Byrds style ... 12 strings .. ask lee

[Dave da Dude]

Hey guys, thanks for the info, very useful, especially:

 

SteveRB, “Compression is a very useful tool and it takes some experience to know when to use it and when not to. It can easily be abused and destroy the dynamics of your music.”

 

Guitarplayer, “It's kinda sad, but if you want "pro" level recordings... you gotta compress 'em...”

 

Gus, “I do not squash the sound .... but sometimes i do The compression is an useful tool if you know how to use it . Think about that Byrds style ... 12 strings .. ask lee. When the music is some crunch power chords , i get rid of the compressor . “

 

But even so, I STILL think I want to have one.

 

BTW this is the second time in two days that I've heard reference to the Byrds and twelve-string guitars (the other was at the Rickenbaker site, yes it was a "RIC").

 

Thanks again guys.

[phaeton]

I have a compressor on my simple FX unit that i use for direct recording.

 

I'm not very versed on compressulation nor do i use it that much.. but i have noticed that there seems to be a point where the more compression you add, the *thinner* and more brittle things start to sound.

 

Since then, i've started to notice compression effects in a lot of CD's that have been "remastered" from older (i.e. 70's and 80's) hard blues and metal albums.

 

I'm not sure if it's compression, noise gating or the other parts of fx that are used to "clean" the signal with, but i can name a number of examples where there is definately too much compression and other doctoring.

 

The Fleetwood Mac album "mystery to me" is definately an example. Everything sounds squashed, dry, and just "too clean". Yet i pull out my copy on cassette (which i grabbed from dad's vinyl) and it's much more warm and `spacious' sounding.

 

I've got some black sabbath albums that actually `breathe' as if there's too much dbx noise reduction (which, iirc, uses compression for part of it's work) going on- Everything is muffled and squashed, but occasionally something comes up loud enough to where the mix will kind of "burst" out of the gate- at which point everything gains about 10db of top end and usually distorts a little bit.

 

I've got some stuff from really really old blues albums (like str8 up serious 1930's-1940's Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker etc) where they've tried using compression to bring up the levels of the old mono recordings. You'll hear all the phonograph scratching fairly loud, but the second they start playing the guitar you can hear the sound level drop significantly.

 

The point of this rambling? I guess mostly that compression can be a good thing, but you've got to know how to use it to make it work right. Sadly, there are some `professionals' that somewhat fall a little short of the mark. It's too bad, bc there's a lot of ruined albums out there.

 

IMHO, trying to take a recording from the 60's or 70's (which is otherwise ok) and trying to strip the "noise" from it is criminal. Me myself, i like to hear the hum of the old tube amps, the bass guitar rattling the snare and the lead vocalist's teeth hitting the mic. That's just as much a part of the music, in my book.

 

Heh.. i've even got an Iron Maiden album floating around where someone actually put effort into *removing* *feedback* from the guitar tracks. That's just sick and wrong.

[Dave da Dude]

SteveRB, "Look at the "Compression section." That site has a ton of great articles on recording and guitar.

 

Steve, you are a master of understatement, "It would take forever to explain why one would use a compressor." I went to the above site, found VERY interesting technical articles about compression and set about copy/pasting them into a word document. After I had recorded two lengthy articles (for a total of twelve pages) into MS Word, I looked ahead to see how much more I had to go, THIRTY-TWO articles! WOW!

 

Have I opened up Pandora's Box?

 

But still...thanks for the info. I couldn't have asked for a more definitive site. Still like the sound though and remember, Gus said he uses one 50% of the time. Maybe the key is in knowing when NOT to use one.

 

Tanx again guys, Dave.

[sysexguy]

IMHO, one can't be too rich, too thin or own too many compressors.

 

There are basically three types to look for, ones that are transparent and appear to do nothing, ones that get an amazing sound at one or a limited (pardon the pun) combination of settings and ones that offer vast palette of great sounds (rare!!!)

 

The ones to avoid require drastic overuse before they do anything.

 

A great guitar application is to take 2 similar but different rhythm guitar parts ( a la Stones, Aerosmith, Black Crowes etc.) and pan them hard L/R and then take the sum in mono and parallel it back with gobs of compression right in the center.

 

Andy

[SRB]

some very good and useful information here...i tend to use compression as a peak tamer as there is only so much headroom available on any recording medium...if you have transients that are eating up sonic space, by taming them you can make other things louder, punchier, silkier, etc...

 

compression is great on acoustic guitar picked or strummed...i especially like it for accentuating pick attack on strummed acoustic parts to yeild a result that is as much percussive as it is harmonic...

 

best,

 

SRB

[Meriphew_dup1]

I use two compressors for two different applications - The Keeley Compressor for clear transparent compression (which it is great at), and a Boss CS-2 Compression Sustainer, which does the extreme "colored" thing very well.

[zzzzz]

I'm a bassist and I use compression all the time.As stated earlier it helps things to sound more even it is especially good for slap and pop style playing.It is a very tight and punchy sound I really love.Sometimes if overly used it can sound squashed and is hard to sound dynamic.