Compression, why bother?

ever notice how the RDJ album is mcuh more compressed than drukqs?

nothing i love more than abusing the shit out of compression.

here's a sample of me abusing the fuck out of a few compressors. :jedi:

Artist___04___compabuse.mp3Fetching info...

  Fred McGriff said:

so how do you run something through tape?

 

dont you lose sound quality that way?

well, as 'quality' is a rather nebulous idea in the first place, yes and no.

Yes, in that certain things are lost when you run the audio through a tape player, eg a little bit of crispness, a little highs and the like.

No, in that perhaps it's increasing the quality of the audio by lessening things like digital artifacts, giving the mix a little compression, and taking a little edge of the top end, and boosting the bottom a smidgen as well.

It really comes down to the kind of aesthetic you're going for. I like using tape just because I think it fits my sound better than really crisp autechre style digital goodness. Though... there's really somehow to do both (like BoC) but I can't do it =].

I love compression , volume can do the effect sometimes ofcourse, but can volume make a lousy 8 bit snare into a pumping one ?

I think gating , tape saturisation , hi pass distortion , sidechaining and lots of eq-ing goes along with compression, you can use it as an effect or just as an amplifier it depends on what kind of things you are doing.

It costed me years to understand what compression can do, and a different thing : most samples like breakbeats are already compressed so then it would be useless to compress it again unless it would be interfering with the rest of the sound...

compressors =

you have to use the compressors!

i think if you have a good enough ear you don't need compression till the very end to cut some of the tiny peaks and make your overall mix a bit louder

ppl always talk about compressing drums but it usually just means they are too lazy to twiddle with the volumes of each hit

lots of vsts these days have the option to scale the velocity with the pitch (z3ta) for instance to increase laziness

however i will say sometimes funny effects can be achieved thru over compression and side chain compression is very good for remixes when you are forced to use other peoples samples that don't really fit well together to begin with

I think the attack and release are the most important.

If you set the attack right you can get a really nice click on the start of a drum hit.

You record to tape and then back to computer for the quality of the sound? That's crazy. Tape compression doesn't improve anything.

what are you, some sort of cold hearted audiophile? it's all about altering the character of a sound.

  crystal said:

You record to tape and then back to computer for the quality of the sound? That's crazy. Tape compression doesn't improve anything.

come back after you've made 500 posts. Then you can call people crazy.

  crystal said:

You record to tape and then back to computer for the quality of the sound? That's crazy. Tape compression doesn't improve anything.

pish.

tape has a more responsive bottom end, and chips away at the hi freq.

it also reduces the dynamic range in a way akin to a compressor, whether that be true 1/2" tape compression, or just that lesser tape decks can't handle the depth of the signal.

it quite seriously colours the sound.

and it might be that particular colour that some people here are looking for.

  $$$Celatid said:

  crystal said:

You record to tape and then back to computer for the quality of the sound? That's crazy. Tape compression doesn't improve anything.

come back after you've made 500 posts. Then you can call people crazy.

man that's crazy talk

Forlon = For lol n

Ok, you can do whatever you want in your music, that's cool. That's one of the best reasons why music rules. You get complete freedom.

But aside from that, I'm only talking about this particular method of making a song on a computer, recording it to tape, and then recording it back to computer. You guys do that for a whole album?

When these compression and tape thingies are used, and the guy says why he does it, the way of thinking always goes to technical thinking. He never says "Because it sounds great and I love the sound of it". He says something like "because the resonant master frequency sidezoom ultra noise theoretically reduces 2khz from the top and 500hz from the bottom end".

There's always a technical or theoretical reason, rather than saying it's just an experiment and whether you liked it or not. That makes me think that you read it in a computer music magazine or are just copying some other guy on the internet.

I wonder if someone can tell me what's so useful about making a song or album on computer then recording it to tape then recording it back to pc without saying weird technical things, and just saying how it affects his more personal subjective feelings towards his own music, or say other benefits of this technique.

This technique seems a bit crazy to me, but I hope someone can show me why it's useful without resorting to irrelevant Computer Music/Sound on Sound audio theory. Because if it's really any good, I want to do it too. Thanks :angel:

i think someone already said it sounds good

listen to portishead. much of their sound is owed to the fact that they reportedly press samples on to vinyl and then scuff up the vinyl, then resample the crackly vinyl.

lee "scratch" perry used to blow ganja smoke on his 2" tape machine when he recorded.

  plugexpert said:

"I wonder if someone can tell me what's so useful about making a song or album on computer then recording it to tape then recording it back to pc without saying weird technical things, and just saying how it affects his more personal subjective feelings towards his own music, or say other benefits of this technique."

 

analog vs digital debate is lame, compression overrated judging from most of the music I hear on the radio today or on the net. I'd like to hear some really dynamic music, ranging in volumes but still be convincing to the listener, with tapecompression or not. Lets stop using the waves L3 multband limiter and make dynamic music.

you listen to the radio and yet you want more dynamic music? haha.....good luck.

Every radio station compresses the fuck out of everything when broadcasting, otherwise no-one would listen to them. It's all about being as loud as possible to get maximum attention.

And what with digital radio things aren't going to get better. Go listen to Classic FM on a digital radio and compare it to the analogue signal and it sounds fucking terrible......whole pieces that have little or no dynamic range.

  plugexpert said:

"I wonder if someone can tell me what's so useful about making a song or album on computer then recording it to tape then recording it back to pc without saying weird technical things, and just saying how it affects his more personal subjective feelings towards his own music, or say other benefits of this technique."

 

analog vs digital debate is lame

This has nothing to do with the analog vs digital debate...

i ahve a love hate relationship with compressors. i tend to limit everything beyond the point of dynamic relavance, particularly drums, then find myself fighting for some sort taming in the mix which just results in starting from scratch feeling like i need to learn the boundries and some proper mixing techniques. i love what they do, but hate how your supposed to use them. much like other music tech fundementals.

i say compress something only if you really need to, like something that has proper dynamic fluctuations, other wise, there really is no need, especially if you using loads of smaples and stuff. bah......

Everyone seems to have concentrated on using a compressor/limiter as a surgical tool, but they're great for creative uses too and you *could* ride the volume knob in that way to get those effects but it wouldn't sound the same because compressors aren't transparent. If they were then everyone would buy the £50 one and not the £5000 one.

I agree. overuse of compression sucks. just like overuse of anything sucks. stop listening to the radio.

  Forlon said:

  $$$Celatid said:

  crystal said:

You record to tape and then back to computer for the quality of the sound? That's crazy. Tape compression doesn't improve anything.

come back after you've made 500 posts. Then you can call people crazy.

man that's crazy talk

hey, you have 500 posts, so it's cool.