compressor or limiter?

samezvous · Post by **samezvous** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:16 am

hello all,
the situation is that i self record my music in an analog home studio. it's sort of singer songwriter-esque and is primarily voice and acoustic guitar. the problem is that i prefer to record live (2 mics- vox/guitar) and my songs tend have somewhat dramatic dynamic changes in them which i would prefer to be more rather than less extreme. this means that in order to not peak out the machine during the loud parts, i end up with a couple pounds of hiss on the really really soft parts. i don't mind some hiss obviously, but right now, there is simply too much. i thought maybe a good piece of gear to get to help,if not seriously come to close remedying, the problem would be a good limiter. am i barking up the wrong tree? is a limiter what i want?
my chain is pretty solid, i use an RE-20 and a AT4050 going to 2 bellari mic pre's going directly to an Otari 1 inch. everything is set to max out but not clip at the loudest parts of the songs.
i've tried using compression (a RNC and a behringer multi-com) but i just seem to hear the compression breathing too much because there's not too much instrumentation besides the vox&guitar to cover it up.
is a good limiter what i'm looking for?
or am i needing a compressor?
or am i needing a monkey with a mic tied to it's tail that moves forward and away during the different parts?

for some reason, compressor intimidate me and limiters don't. i'm not looking to alter the tone necessarily, just to keep it within a reasonable dynamic range so i can focus less on worrying about peaking out the machine and more on just performing the song. i am a musician first, engineer second. sort of like when i see a great acoustic performer live. it's all equally audible and i don't hear breathing.

what would you fine folks recommend for my needs in a price range (used) of about $400-$500. it would need to be stereo, preferably independent stereo. someone mentioned "gates" i believe as the name of a company that used to make great limiters back in the day and aren't crazy expensive today?

any suggestions, recommendations or corrections perhaps in what it is i need to do to better my sound would be greatly appreciated,
take care

MASSIVE Mastering · Post by **MASSIVE Mastering** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:43 am

Most compressors can be used as limiters... There are about a million of them in that price range. DBX, ART...

If you're hearing too much pumping, make some adjustments to the attack and release.

nick_a · Post by **nick_a** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 9:40 am

you can probably find a urei la-4 in that price range. It's a single-channel unit, but they're solid and relatively 'transparent', and if you're hitting the tape that hard you might just notice a difference with the vocals as opposed to if you compressed both guit and vox.

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:41 am

the problem is that i prefer to record live (2 mics- vox/guitar) and my songs tend have somewhat dramatic dynamic changes in them which i would prefer to be more rather than less extreme.

compression will make the changes less extreme. limiting is compression with a ratio higher than 20:1 (generally). rather than playing extremely dynamically and compressing (which again, will lessen the extremity of the changes anyway), why not just play with slightly less dramatic changes? you wont get any pumping and breathing that way.

dont get me wrong, it is a very very common practice to compress/limit like your talking about. just dont overlook the most obvious, natural choices before running for more gear.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 10:45 am

thethingwiththestuff wrote: just dont overlook the most obvious, natural choices before running for more gear.

Awe, you're taking away all our fun.

Well, a lot of it.

andyg666 · Post by **andyg666** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 11:47 am

thethingwiththestuff wrote: dont get me wrong, it is a very very common practice to compress/limit like your (sic) talking about.

THE MILLITANT GRAMMARIAN STRIKES AGAIN!!!!!!
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=24295

:ar15: <img src="http://www.doctorandphilip.com/hihatavatar.jpg">

Mr. Dipity · Post by **Mr. Dipity** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 12:29 pm

I vote for the monkey thing.

smpj20 · Post by **smpj20** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 3:35 pm

If you compres/limit, the noise floor comes up with the compression/limiting. It sounds like your gain structure is out a bit at the Balari side of things. Nothing worse than pulling up noise with comp/limiting. Have you thought about de-noising in PT or the new software?

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 4:23 pm

oh no!!!!!!!!!

Cappy*tan · Post by **Cappy*tan** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 8:14 pm

andyg666 wrote:
thethingwiththestuff wrote: dont get me wrong, it is a very very common practice to compress/limit like your (sic) talking about.

THE MILLITANT GRAMMARIAN STRIKES AGAIN!!!!!!
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=24295

:ar15: <img src="http://www.doctorandphilip.com/hihatavatar.jpg">

millitant?

joelpatterson · Post by **joelpatterson** » Sat Dec 18, 2004 9:52 pm

Militant grammarian, you got your WORK CUT OUT FOR YOU.

Hope you don't care about spelling.

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