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#1
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Compressor woes...
I've been having some recent problems getting a good vocal sound in my
studio. I have an SPX 990 unit. But the pot it's wired into gives me a lot of noise, and yes, it should be cleaned and / or put onto another module... but well, let's just say that I'm not trilled about our engineering department at this time, and the company refuses to get a new board, (this one dates back to '74 I believe). Okay, so that aside, I have some other options. I have an old Symetrix unit that's pretty user-friendly, but the compressor on it is a little too harsh. It has an EQ on it, but when I turn that off, or down too much, it gives me a really "hollow" sound. Also, I'm recording everything into ProTools, so my other option is to just record it dry, and add compression in there. But, my question with that is, should I be adding the compression directly onto the vocal channel, or should I be creating an aux channel and adding the compression through there? Our other producer uses an older SPX unit but brings it up through his board and mixes it with the dry signal, so should I be doing the same on the software side of things in ProTools? As you can see, I'm kinda new at this. I do pretty good with guitar sounds, but have never mastered the art of good vocal sounds. Gimmie a break, I was hired for my editing abilities Any help would be appreciated. |
#2
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Compressor woes...
You do this for a living?
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#3
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Compressor woes...
my question with that is,
should I be adding the compression directly onto the vocal channel, Yes, the compressor is inserted in the vocal channel. or should I be creating an aux channel and adding the compression through there? No, aux sends are for reverbs & delays, etc. Our other producer uses an older SPX unit but brings it up through his board and mixes it with the dry signal, so should I be doing the same on the software side of things in ProTools? For reverb, yes, for compression, no. Even though the SPX90 has a compressor algorithm in it, you will die by lethal injection if you ever attempt to use it as a vocal compressor. Scott Fraser |
#4
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Compressor woes...
Chay wrote:
Are you actually trying to control the dynamics? The above paragraph has me wondering. I have heard that some engineers use a compressor on an aux bus as an "effect", but it's not something you'd do to control dynamics at all. For this, the compressor must be inserted into a channel. What exactly are you wanting the compressor to do for you? Basically, just to round out the sound. The application here is radio. And yes I do this for a living, but it's a very small market. The job requirements were having at least three teeth, and the ability to stay vertical for eight hours a day. Any thoughts on good compressor / eq settings for spoken word? I hate to say it. But if it's in good shape (and most of them aren't, it's true), the Audimax does a surprisingly good job of levelling out voices without noticeable pumping of the noise floor between words. The nifty hardware that locks the gain level during quiet parts really does work very well. It's a special purpose tool for a special job, really. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#6
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Compressor woes...
Cool, unfortunately they're not going to be spending any more money on my
studio this fiscal, so I'll stuck with what I have. |
#7
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Compressor woes...
Scott Chasty wrote:
Cool, unfortunately they're not going to be spending any more money on my studio this fiscal, so I'll stuck with what I have. You don't actually pay money for Audimaxes... call up the other stations in the area. SOMEBODY has one at the transmitter site gathering dust that they'll trade for beer. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#8
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Compressor woes...
I know of some albums that are very well respected for their mixes where
there were compressors used on aux sends. Thre's aslo the feed back trick where you put a compressor on a send, send your vocal to it, bring the output of the compressor back up on a channel and send a little of it back to itself. Given the original poster's lack of expertise I think esoteric applications are not what he needs to hear about right now, & putting a comp on an aux counts as an esoteric application. He needs to start at a more basic level, i.e. a channel insert. Aux sends are for when you wnat to make once device available to more than one channel and/or controlling the exact level that ou want to send to that particulart device. Yeah, I think I know that. Given the original post I'm going to stick with my advice that he insert the compressor on the vocal channel. Scott Fraser |
#9
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Compressor woes...
Go ahead and apply the compressor on an insert in ProTools. I'm not familiar
with the comps in PT, but you could start with a 4:1 ratio, and medium-fast attack and release. Go for about 5 dB of reduction, and tweak it by listening. They may have presets available on those plugs too. If there is none for V/O, use a gentle vocal comp setting. I think you may find that adding some low EQ adds to the sound nicely. Don't go crazy with it though. And listen to it kind of loud to make sure there isn't too much (low end disappears at low volume). Good luck. -- Bill L "Scott Chasty" wrote in message . ca... Cool, unfortunately they're not going to be spending any more money on my studio this fiscal, so I'll stuck with what I have. |
#10
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Compressor woes...
In article ,
Scott Chasty wrote: Also, I'm recording everything into ProTools, so my other option is to just record it dry, and add compression in there. But, my question with that is, should I be adding the compression directly onto the vocal channel, or should I be creating an aux channel and adding the compression through there? Our other producer uses an older SPX unit but brings it up through his board and mixes it with the dry signal, so should I be doing the same on the software side of things in ProTools? When I do this in ProTools (TDM), I use plugin compressors inserted on the playback / record track and have a nice time of it. Why are you considering mucking around with hardware inserts (dealing with all sorts of converter latency) to random early 80s multieffect units that aren't even known for working well for vocal compression when you can run some seriously nice compressors as plugins? The McDSP CompressorBank is a great compressor for vocals, and it has only 2 samples of latency. I use it all the time for vocals - I record the preamp straight into the converters and use it on the monitor side with great results. The Waves Renaissance Compressor is also quite nice for this use, but it has 64 samples of latency, so it's not quite so ideal if your talent has to monitor through it. In the mix when noone's cue mix is passing through them, both sound great, are easy to control and are relatively inexpensive. The 'freebie' Digi dynamics plugin is pretty mediocre and it's hard to get usable results from it, but I'll bet it'll work better than an SPX-90 on an insert loop, and it's free to you since you already have it in your rig. These would be my obvious choices. If you want to use hardware, then how about inserting an analog compressor between your mike amp and the converters and printing your tracks through that? Maybe funds are not available, but heck - why do your bosses think that you can hammer in nails without buying you a hammer? Get the tightwads to pony up for some tools that work. Your task is so far from rocket science that it's not funny. Printing a competent voiceover has to be the A#1 basic task of any recording room - if you can't do it with what you have, you have to ask some serious questions to yourself and those around you. Best of luck with Ebeneezer Scrooge, Monte McGuire (BTW, your other producer who brings up an SPX-90 return with the dry signal is adding a good bit of phasing to the audio, since the delay through the SPX-90 is not zero (and not an integer multiple of samples in any workstation I know of, so it's not even able to be compensated for). I'm sort of surprised that noone has noticed this, but do their tracks sound phasey and thin to you? Overall, this sounds like a seriously messed up place to work, somewhere where audio is taking a 'back seat'. Are they at least paying you well?) |