Mixing "into" a Compressor

dsw · Post by **dsw** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 10:41 am

Ignoring the obvious answers of use your ears, depends on the material

Don't ignore the obvious answer. it's obvious for a reason.

Start low.

MASSIVE Mastering · Post by **MASSIVE Mastering** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:06 am

Rufer wrote:What would be a good starting point as far as ratio and attack if one were going for this glue? Ignoring the obvious answers of use your ears, depends on the material, etc. Looking for some good starting points.

I tend to start with a rather long attack (100ms+) and a release time of about three days. Maybe it's more like 5-8 seconds...

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 11:35 am

you have the release that slow for real?

grockvt · Post by **grockvt** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:39 pm

more experimenting on the same track I had last night...thanks for the massive advice on a slow attack and long release time...it does seem to work in this case...

drawmer 1968 slowest attack setting is "6" ~ 50 msec

the release is interesting..."4" sounds pretty good on the track which is described as "semi-auto 200msec to 2 sec program dependent"..."5" is the same except 500msec to 5 sec...

on release 4 the toms sound more alive and on 5 the toms are just slightly not as alive..

I'm juicing the tube output a little right now (gain ~+5) and it is definitely addictive...this is probably going to be my downfall with the unit as I don't want to "overdo" it...I envision that this track will eventually go through a nice mastering tube processor of some kind (Manley? EQ / comp) when the time comes. I guess it is good to experiment (fake mastering) and describe what is liked / disliked to the real mastering engineer.

Not a lot out there on the 1968 inards but I am assuming there are no transformers in this thing. Is the tube circuit high voltage? Are there more op amps after the tube to create the balanced out? Anyhow - I think it is a pretty good match for the API A2D although there are a lot of leveling knobs to pay attention to in the combo (which is awesome but you do have to be careful and turn things down a little)...the API can seemingly handle much hotter signals which I guess is no surprise (does anything have more headroom than an API?)...

grockvt · Post by **grockvt** » Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:11 pm

After closely re-reading the marketing material I have determined this unit is not a traditional tube output unit. It seems to be a hybrid output (electronically balanced instead of a transformer) with a tube in there somewhere. Not sure why drawmer chose to write "vacuum tube" compressor all over the thing...are they competing with ART and Presonus? Makes me wonder. Anyhow, regardless of what is inside the box it does sound real good. There are tubes in there but it is not a tube based compressor nor is it exactly a JFET cell with a tube make-up gain circuit...it is something else...more like a JFET cell with an opamp buffered tube make up gain circuit...it works well.

So aside from this marketing issue, the unit and overall experience is pleasing.

Sounds real good whatever it is...

MASSIVE Mastering · Post by **MASSIVE Mastering** » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:30 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:you have the release that slow for real?

Whatever the slowest I can make it is - At least at the start. On the Vari-Mu, it seems to be 8-10 seconds at its slowest. The STC-8M is a little faster.

The SSL... Too fast -- Well, not anymore...

But it was too fast. As was the longest attack (30 lousy ms?).

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:36 am

interesting. any time i've messed with release times remotely that long i always felt like it dulled the mix too much. i'll have to experiment some more...

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 6:40 pm

Oh, gimme a break, he's just trying to get you to leave him some frikkin headroom by using super long times, 8 minutes, I'm cryin laffin, Good for ya.
Keep em from smashing it all to death on the 2bus. Yeah!
I'm sick of crappy, overcompressed trying to pass as a mix, no depth, no imaging junk.

grockvt · Post by **grockvt** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 7:47 pm

night 3 of experiments and I am getting to really like this...as for depth, I think you can get more depth with the drawmer 'cause it has got the 'big' button...the make up gain does have some vibe to it too...

release '4' seems to work on multiple tunes now

attack '6' it is to keep our mastering engineers happy...

MASSIVE Mastering · Post by **MASSIVE Mastering** » Thu Oct 09, 2008 9:45 pm

Brian wrote:Oh, gimme a break, he's just trying to get you to leave him some frikkin headroom by using super long times, 8 minutes, I'm cryin laffin, Good for ya.
Keep em from smashing it all to death on the 2bus. Yeah!
I'm sick of crappy, overcompressed trying to pass as a mix, no depth, no imaging junk.

Seconds - 8 seconds. Not just for the headroom -- If I'm mixing into a buss compressor, I'm looking for some "flava" - I want it digging in pretty much the whole time - but just a bit.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:23 am

MASSIVE Mastering wrote:
Brian wrote:Oh, gimme a break, he's just trying to get you to leave him some frikkin headroom by using super long times, 8 minutes, I'm cryin laffin, Good for ya.
Keep em from smashing it all to death on the 2bus. Yeah!
I'm sick of crappy, overcompressed trying to pass as a mix, no depth, no imaging junk.
Seconds - 8 seconds. Not just for the headroom -- If I'm mixing into a buss compressor, I'm looking for some "flava" - I want it digging in pretty much the whole time - but just a bit.

Unlike my ex-partner, who wanted to dig his way to hell or china the whole time.
Over compressing can fool the inexperienced mix engineer's ear.

BusyBoxSt7 · Post by **BusyBoxSt7** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 1:27 am

I will confess that some of my favorite drum sounds that I've done have been w/ no compression at all on the drum mics and a Massey L2007 on the master (but drums are the only thing setting it off). Yes, it's brick wall but it's only hitting the kick/snare usually and so the mix in general is pretty dynamic and breathes well... Sometimes when I individually compress the needed tracks in a mix (and doing the recommended 1-2dB on master) it just comes out way squashier than no comps almost anywhere except the master, which then may hit -5dB or so.

Then again, it depends on the players. Some people play it like they want it to sound and others leave all the work to us.

I really like the sound of setting up compressors with slow attacks so even if extra volume is needed in a mix, you can still let the drums punch through above everything else, even if it's flat-line distortion rock. I'm okay w/ a somewhat loud mix so long as it's still got some pop/punch/shape and it's rating more "harmonic enhancement" than "trashy radio white noise mids".

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:51 am

grockvt wrote:night 3 of experiments and I am getting to really like this...as for depth, I think you can get more depth with the drawmer 'cause it has got the 'big' button...the make up gain does have some vibe to it too...

release '4' seems to work on multiple tunes now

attack '6' it is to keep our mastering engineers happy...

I use a Drawmer '69 on my mix bus about 98% of the time. The compression part is the same, it just has the extra stuff, and I'd have bought a '68 had it been out a the time.

Release 4 (fastes program dependant) is what I often ues. It does a little squeeze and gets out of the way. I also like release 1 the fastest release. For attac usually I'm on 1 or 2. I usually have 1-3 db of GR on the mix bus with the '69. When I track things with it I'm not afraid to get the needle really moving to the left though.

Slow release times, to me--in general--dull out whatever it is I'm doing. I usually like a comp to do its thing and get out of the way. Probably why I'm really loving the Purple action I got a few months back, and why I still love the lowley RNC...

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Mixing "into" a Compressor

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