Compression in General

Seizure.

Seizure.

Member
Jul 13, 2005
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www.seizure-music.com
Compression is kicking my ass:cry:

i'm looking for the sort of master buss compression you find on the last SYL, some Sevendust/old coal chamber and most tue madsen produced albums.

the squasht sound without distorting, some hate it.. i love it!!
the "shrrooommmpppphhhhh" when a slow staccato comes up... am i still making sense?

if some of you guys know were i'm talking about, could you post me some guidelines/compressor settings into getting that sound? how much release/attack/ratio on the masterbus... what kinda compressor.. etc...
any other tricks?

I WANT IT TO PUMP!!:rock:

would be hugely apreciated!!

(btw, Mendel..... you had the sound i wanted on your PREVIEW):rock:
 
Expensive gear+super trained ears+there's no miracle setting cause every source material is different.
Now, I'm starting wonder why people like super squished sounds. I like SYL music but their sound is giving headaches, no shit.
Just my 2 cents.
 
Thats just what i want:grin:

i like the subtle recordings too, but i'm just in this recording/mixing a pretty cool metalcore band right know.. and the slow deathmetally parts should just be pumping and dragging and heavy and deep like heck you know...

just some guidelines for setting a compressor to get this result would help alot.. i can set the nuances myself (and i allready got the EQ/recording in general pretty swell.)
 
~BURNY~ said:
You may find this useful:
http://www.har-bal.com/mastering_process.php
This general "home-mastering" guide. I doubt this Harbal thing is good but otherwise, it's pretty interesting.
Click to expand...

Har-Bal is an excellent program; I've had it since 1.0 and I have to say it's one of the most helpful tools I've used. It's primarily for EQ though. You could use its analyzer functions to match peak/average/rms power, but that's not its primary function; it's more for balance among frequencies rather than overall volume (hence Harmonic Balancer). Damn nice though; far more useful than those "automatically make this audio file sound like that audio file" progs, which are inherently flawed in that they don't take harmonic content into account.
Anyway, one thing to try is "mixing for the master", which basically means you throw the convention of attempting to get a "finished" sound in a mix and then polish it a bit in mastering. No, you won't be doing that. :muahaha: Instead, you'll want to mix down with the "slamming" elements like the snare and kick much MUCH louder than you want them to be, and then let your mastering compressor/limiter come down on them extremely hard. This will bring stuff like the guitars and bass up to "completely smashed" levels, while keeping the snare out front. It sounds awful in an awesome way.
You'll probably want to overcompress certain elements in the mix, too. Take the snare on SYL's "Alien" album; it's basically compressed so as to sound like a SNAP followed by an immense sucking of air; that's a compressor coming down on it fast, then releasing slowly. This only really works when the threshold is set extremely low (or "high", depending on how you look at the knob), and the input is totally slammed to all hell. My favorite way to do this is with an 1176; if you happen to have one, or the UAD version, I can share some settings for this smashed awfulness.
There; it's not every day you get a tutorial on making a track sound terrible on the Andy Sneap board! :grin:
 
A Gruesome Discovery said:
Take the snare on SYL's "Alien" album; it's basically compressed so as to sound like a SNAP followed by an immense sucking of air; that's a compressor coming down on it fast, then releasing slowly. This only really works when the threshold is set extremely low (or "high", depending on how you look at the knob), and the input is totally slammed to all hell. My favorite way to do this is with an 1176; if you happen to have one, or the UAD version, I can share some settings for this smashed awfulness.
There; it's not every day you get a tutorial on making a track sound terrible on the Andy Sneap board! :grin:
Click to expand...

THATS WHAT I MEAN!! (and need), i tottaly dig the snare/air thing... :worship:
and yes, post some settings!! i should be able to use them as a guideline:rock:
awesome duder!

man, this forum rocks.. this was exactly what i was looking for and that harbal thing seems nice too, but i was allready doing the same with paz:grin:
 
Seizure. said:
i was allready doing the same with paz:grin:
Click to expand...
no you weren't. i think you need to re-read what Gruesome said.... frequency analysis is NOT what Har Bal is all about, it has functionality beyond that. PAZ is ONLY frequency analysis.
 
Seizure. said:
THATS WHAT I MEAN!! (and need), i tottaly dig the snare/air thing... :worship:
and yes, post some settings!! i should be able to use them as a guideline:rock:
awesome duder!
Click to expand...

The 1176 is an odd beast, and the knobs are not only cryptic ("time" is from 1-7 wtf) but seem to work on a logarithmic scale, so I'm stumped as to how this translates in the digital world, but:
The 1176 Snare Snap 'n Suck™: :err:
Input: Whatever is just a bit too much
Output: Whatever doesn't make you deaf after setting the input
Attack: 10 o'clock
Release: 9 o'clock
8:1 ratio.
Now, that's not too helpful to anyone outside of 1176ville, so I've attempted to recreate it using a more standard digital comp (EX-1) and a simple snare drum track:
General Snare Snap 'n Suck™: :erk:
Threshold: very low (like 40 or 50dB).
Ratio: very high (40+!!!!).
Attack: 5-10ms
Release: 200-300ms
Hope that gets you started!
EDIT: I should probably clarify that with regard to the threshold/ratios, I'm not talking about settings for mastering compression here, just the snare track; however, the quick attack/moderate release settings can be applied to get a full mix pumping, just with less insane gain settings.
 
I've been very happy with UAD Precision Limiter, and Waves L2 in moderation. I don't use a compressor on the master fader, usually just a limiter. Occasionally I'll use a C4 if there is something about the mix that can benefit from some specific frequency compression - but it's always better to deal with those issues in the mix if you can.
 
I'm not too experienced with mastering; however, I agree with Kazrog in that I've noticed that limiting is much more effective than compressing for my novice projects. You really can get a lot more punch. Then again, when it comes to this sort of thing I really don't know what the hell I'm doing but the folks I'm recording sure like it.

**BTW I can't stop listening to the new In Flames***
 
James Murphy said:
no you weren't. i think you need to re-read what Gruesome said.... frequency analysis is NOT what Har Bal is all about, it has functionality beyond that. PAZ is ONLY frequency analysis.
Click to expand...

i just read further and tried and yeah, there is more to it..
i was just balancing my mix some more ... but that is a big part of har bal aight?:grin:

well anyway.. thanks dudes.. i think found enough to fuck around with for a while, and btw, how do you guys go about the 3k/4k maybe 5k area in a mix? i just notticed that area is pretty low on alot of commercial records (if you compare it to mine that is.. the commercial record is still pretty flat frequency wise...) i think its a pretty fatigueing area to listen to for a while:hypno:

and allthough something has to use that area in the mix i find its useally not guitars, but mostly snare smack and maybe vocals..

still making sense?
 
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