compressor plug-in help

[apropos of nothing]

There's so much talk about compression as a topic, and yet I've never felt like I quite "got it".

I ruined a project sometime last year with overcompression.

Well, live and learn. I figured out something about the compressor plug-in that hadn't quite dawned on me previously.

It sounds great -- you just have to turn down the mix knob so that you're not getting ONLY the compressed signal. 60/40 dry/wet seems like a good place to start. The track then stands up but doesn't sound like its an 18-wheeler going 75mph toward you.

Amazing. Amazing. Who knew?

Thought I'd share.

Love,

[jellisnyc]

I've found that I like to make duplicates of the more important tracks that need compression - kick, snare, vocals, etc. - and compress one, leave the other as is. then you can adjust in your mixer.

i started doing this when i wanted to see what it was like for engineers before plug-ins existed. they had to run the signal out to a compressor and then back to it's own track and mix accordingly. Emulating this method sounds better to me.

[Mr. Dipity]

I've found that I like to make duplicates of the more important tracks that need compression - kick, snare, vocals, etc. - and compress one, leave the other as is. then you can adjust in your mixer.

i started doing this when i wanted to see what it was like for engineers before plug-ins existed. they had to run the signal out to a compressor and then back to it's own track and mix accordingly. Emulating this method sounds better to me.

Watch out - this won't work if your plugin has any sort of internal latency. Even a latency compensating rendering engine, such as Nuendo, won't necessarily fix this. For example, you can't do it with the Rennaissance compressor in cubase, for example.

[jellisnyc]

I've run into plug-in latency issues before, but never when I'm running the plug-ins directly on tracks. It usually only happens when I use a send in cubase.

Maybe I'm just a badass... i dunno

[fillmoresound]

To compensate for latency, nudge your audio a bit. This should solve most of your problems, and it should only be a handfull of samples off. Have you tried using the plug-in as an aux? Set the outputs of your track to an aux, and return it on an open i/o w/ plug-in on the new track. Sending a certain amout on the aux send will blend your compressed/non-compressed signal. You've probably already tried this, but it is definitely a great technique. Plus, you can share the comp plug-in w/ other tracks since its on an aux and save dsp power.

Anyway, happy mixing