Noob question but how do I compress guitars?

[eʍʍy]

Okay. I understand the different settings on compression and how to actually use it.

but the thing is, whenever I try to use it on my rhythm guitars they start crackling and if I use an amount that won't crackle then they don't get compressed.

I wanted to see if anyone here did something differently. I was watching Ola Englunds video on how to record metal guitar and he used compression the same way I did. Pretty similar settings and everything. so I don't see what's going on.

The compressors I was using were the ones in the Tracks3 Deluxe or whatever. One of them is a basic compressor and the other is a high ratio compressor. There's one other but I haven't bothered with it.
I was also using an Izotope one. I liked the layout of it and it had a handful of settings. If I lowered the threshold knob enough it'd start pushing everything in but it'd start clipping. There are some in Reaper I believe, but I never tried those.

I still can compress my guitars, but I have to use a dynamics processing plug-in instead. I'm pleased with the results but I'd still like to understand why normal compression plug-ins won't work for me.

Anyone want to help me out here?


Also. Any input on getting a loud mix? I know all the normals to it but there has to be something I'm missing. I've been able to get pretty loud. Louder than a lot of professional sounding albums out there, but not to that crazy loud radio volume. It doesn't really bother me anywhere since it's loud enough to listen to without a problem, but I'm still kind of curious.

What should my waveform look like on the mixdown?
I'm thinking my issue might be the drums.

 

[Plankis]

What kind of guitars are we talking about, clean or distorted? I generally don't compress distorted guitars. Except the lowmids, they tend to get multiband love.
Clean guitars are all about the performance imo. I hate that popping sound compressor do when they work too hard. Generally I like to get the compression from the amp, compressor before the amp is cool too.

And why are there no soundclips?

 

[SimonTaddio_Qc]

Heavily distorted guitars are compressed a lot to start with. Can't tell why you've got those crackles, I have the T-Rack compressor and it works good for me.
You can go to THIS website, which can maybe teach you a thing or 2 about compression (yeah, even if you know what all the knobs mean).
The waveform of a compressed track should have lower peaks than the raw track, more compressed (huh!?!).
The loudness is also achieved for a good part in the mastering stage, so don't go crazy with that while mixing.

 

[eʍʍy]

distorted. the track was pretty stable throughout and after EQ'ing it right, it didn't seem to need compression.

but I figured people still would use it to get everything crammed in as much as possible

what do you want a soundclip of?

@simon, thanks I'll look. I have no idea what I could be doing wrong though. I can compress every other instrument without a problem. just rhythm guitar crackles on me when I use anything but dynamics processing.

and I know about the waveform of a single track. but I mean like - the waveform of a mixdown.
because I don't think I give the drums enough attention which might get in the way.


Could my issue be that my rhythm guitar tracks simply don't need compression and since there aren't any peaks, the compressor is trying to push too much together which in turn makes it clip?
Sort of like how G-clip will clip if you use too much of it.

 

[Ascendant]

I don't like compressing whole distorted guitars, only leads sometimes. I guess the question is do you really need to compress the guitars? Or are you just doing it because Ola did? If it's thumping too much on palm mutes put a multiband on the low mids.

Not sure why you'd want a loud mix, unless you meant mastering, if so then a well balanced mix is a good place to start. Proceed to smash it with as many compressors, maximizers and brickwall limiters as your heart may desire. My waveforms usually look something like this after my (inexperienced) mastering:
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/4553/fsjal.png
Obviously depends a LOT on the material though, I would never make a blues track look like that after mastering.

 

[Audiosprite]

have you tried any other compressors?

 

[Skinny Viking]

is your makeup gain or output level cranked on the compressor? I guess I should 1st ask if the volume of the guitars jumps up when you use the comp

you really shouldn't have need of using a compressor on high gained guitars anyway ... with the exception of leads and such

 

[eʍʍy]

thanks everyone for the replies. I really appreciate it.

@Ascendant. Well, I figured the pros may kill everything with a compressor regardless of how much I think it needs it or not. A lot of people on this site seem to really know what they're doing and since Ola is from here, has good sounding recordings, and was doing it then I figured maybe I should as well.
As for palm-mutes, there isn't any sort of volume change from them as of now.
though I'll keep that in mind for future reference. thankss

Oh and I don't mean for like a loud mix. I mean what a mix would generally look like pre-mastering.
My metal mastered waveforms look exactly like yours do. The only thing I don't use that you listed was a maximizer. What's the difference between a maximizer and a limiter?
It's mainly my drums that I'm questioning.
The snare tends to stand out above the rest of it. I've seen loads of mixes like that. Is it supposed to or should it be buried in the mix as well?

@Audio, only the three I listed. the other ones I have aren't too grand.

@Skinny Viking
Noope and nope.

 

[Plankis]

Snares is one big transient so it isn't that weird. If it sounds good it sounds good. This is what people use the gclip for, to cut away those transients.

 

[eʍʍy]

Okay, that's what I do. ;D

Oh, by the way.
I've heard people say not to limit to -.1db and do -3 or 4 instead.

What's the reason behind this?

 

[Ascendant]

thanks everyone for the replies. I really appreciate it.

@Ascendant. Well, I figured the pros may kill everything with a compressor regardless of how much I think it needs it or not. A lot of people on this site seem to really know what they're doing and since Ola is from here, has good sounding recordings, and was doing it then I figured maybe I should as well.
As for palm-mutes, there isn't any sort of volume change from them as of now.
though I'll keep that in mind for future reference. thankss

Oh and I don't mean for like a loud mix. I mean what a mix would generally look like pre-mastering.
My metal mastered waveforms look exactly like yours do. The only thing I don't use that you listed was a maximizer. What's the difference between a maximizer and a limiter?
It's mainly my drums that I'm questioning.
The snare tends to stand out above the rest of it. I've seen loads of mixes like that. Is it supposed to or should it be buried in the mix as well?

Can't comment much on this, entirely depends on how well you know your compressors. The thing is you have to judge yourself if putting a compressor on your rhythm guitars sounds better or not, how much compression and so on.

I prefer to use a maximizer to get that final bit of loudness, it's usually the last thing in my chain before the limiter. There's of course a lot of different ones that behave differently.

Like the guy above said, I also use gclip sometimes on snares if they're popping a bit too much, rather than a compressor, to tame those transients a bit.

 

[eʍʍy]

Okay, thanks.

I should probably experiment with a maximizer next time.

Ozone has a maximizer and so does Tracks. Any suggestion on what might be a good one one to use?

 

[Ascendant]

I wouldn't know, I use the tls maximizer, works wonders. Experiment a bit with them, just try to avoid any nasty digital sounding distortion.

 

[eʍʍy]

okay :]

 

[RedDog]

Careful with your maximizers/ limiters. They can deaden your drums real fast. I can't imagine why you'd want full-spectrum compression on your guitars, but mixing entirely into a compressor might help even things out on the macro scale.

 

[John_C]

read Ermz's tutorial on guitars on the front page of the forum

 

[JonWormwood]

Love la2a on leads

 

[greyskull]

Compressing REALLLY heavy guitars has never really worked that well for me, but on more punk/hardcore and rock stuff it can give it a wierd/cool sheen.
ALso really nice on leads or high sustained chord parts to help tuck them to the back a little bit.

Also when mastering, the output limit should be set to -.3 for various reasons; overshoot, inter sample clipping cd players dac not being able to cope... YAWN

 

[ahjteam]

I think the crackling points to bad gain staging, master bus clipping, too fast attack/release and/or too low buffer size.

 

[K Odell]

The only reason I could see comping distorted guitars is if you were doing it to add color. I comp my distorted tracks with the CLA-3A, but not really for the actual compression, but for the color it tends to add to things.