Hand-clap Compressor settings?

[rickymix]

Hi guys!
I'm in the midst of doing some mixes under deadline pressure and
have a quick question I was hoping to pick y'alls communal brain
about. I'm having trouble with a hand-clap trak in a B-52's type
song.
It's the traditional "_, 2, and, _, 4" pattern, but I'm having
trouble hearing the "and" beat. The claps on the back beat are nice
and audible, but the "and" gets lost. There should be some type of
compressor setting that would bring out that "and", but I can't seem
to quite get my mind around what it should be, the attack and release.
I'm using the RenComp in ProTools.
Thanks as always for your expertise!
Cheers, Rick.

[philicorda]

"rickymix" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi guys!
> I'm in the midst of doing some mixes under deadline pressure and
> have a quick question I was hoping to pick y'alls communal brain
> about. I'm having trouble with a hand-clap trak in a B-52's type
> song.
> It's the traditional "_, 2, and, _, 4" pattern, but I'm having
> trouble hearing the "and" beat. The claps on the back beat are nice
> and audible, but the "and" gets lost. There should be some type of
> compressor setting that would bring out that "and", but I can't seem
> to quite get my mind around what it should be, the attack and release.
> I'm using the RenComp in ProTools.
> Thanks as always for your expertise!
> Cheers, Rick.

Not expertise, just my personal taste...

With claps, as fast an attack on the compressor as possible, or it's not
going to be doing anything useful. The transient will get past before the
compressor reacts otherwise. An 1176 does this fine.
If you really hammer the compression it'l bring up the room sound, which is
where most of the clap really is.
I guess on ren-comp that'l be the electro setting, and turn off the auto
release thing. Better is L1, which will kill the peaks, but still keep the
clap audible.

[philicorda]

"rickymix" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi guys!
> I'm in the midst of doing some mixes under deadline pressure and
> have a quick question I was hoping to pick y'alls communal brain
> about. I'm having trouble with a hand-clap trak in a B-52's type
> song.
> It's the traditional "_, 2, and, _, 4" pattern, but I'm having
> trouble hearing the "and" beat. The claps on the back beat are nice
> and audible, but the "and" gets lost. There should be some type of
> compressor setting that would bring out that "and", but I can't seem
> to quite get my mind around what it should be, the attack and release.
> I'm using the RenComp in ProTools.
> Thanks as always for your expertise!
> Cheers, Rick.

Not expertise, just my personal taste...

With claps, as fast an attack on the compressor as possible, or it's not
going to be doing anything useful. The transient will get past before the
compressor reacts otherwise. An 1176 does this fine.
If you really hammer the compression it'l bring up the room sound, which is
where most of the clap really is.
I guess on ren-comp that'l be the electro setting, and turn off the auto
release thing. Better is L1, which will kill the peaks, but still keep the
clap audible.

[John L Rice]

"rickymix" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi guys!
> I'm in the midst of doing some mixes under deadline pressure and
> have a quick question I was hoping to pick y'alls communal brain
> about. I'm having trouble with a hand-clap trak in a B-52's type
> song.
> It's the traditional "_, 2, and, _, 4" pattern, but I'm having
> trouble hearing the "and" beat. The claps on the back beat are nice
> and audible, but the "and" gets lost. There should be some type of
> compressor setting that would bring out that "and", but I can't seem
> to quite get my mind around what it should be, the attack and release.
> I'm using the RenComp in ProTools.
> Thanks as always for your expertise!
> Cheers, Rick.

Just off the top of my head :
I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using a
hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.

Best of luck!

John L Rice

[John L Rice]

"rickymix" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi guys!
> I'm in the midst of doing some mixes under deadline pressure and
> have a quick question I was hoping to pick y'alls communal brain
> about. I'm having trouble with a hand-clap trak in a B-52's type
> song.
> It's the traditional "_, 2, and, _, 4" pattern, but I'm having
> trouble hearing the "and" beat. The claps on the back beat are nice
> and audible, but the "and" gets lost. There should be some type of
> compressor setting that would bring out that "and", but I can't seem
> to quite get my mind around what it should be, the attack and release.
> I'm using the RenComp in ProTools.
> Thanks as always for your expertise!
> Cheers, Rick.

Just off the top of my head :
I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using a
hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.

Best of luck!

John L Rice

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

"John L Rice" > wrote in message ...
>
> Just off the top of my head :
> I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using a
> hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.
>
> Best of luck!
>
> John L Rice
>
>
>

Ditto... limit, limit, limit. Claps contain amazingly fast and sharp high volume
transients that will definitely shoot by most compression, at best leaving
artifacts from the jolt.

--
David Morgan (MAMS)
http://www.m-a-m-s.com
http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com

[David Morgan \(MAMS\)]

"John L Rice" > wrote in message ...
>
> Just off the top of my head :
> I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using a
> hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.
>
> Best of luck!
>
> John L Rice
>
>
>

Ditto... limit, limit, limit. Claps contain amazingly fast and sharp high volume
transients that will definitely shoot by most compression, at best leaving
artifacts from the jolt.

--
David Morgan (MAMS)
http://www.m-a-m-s.com
http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com

[rickymix]

Belated thanks, guys. The quick attack time was the ticket; worked
great! I also added a pair of flip-flop tracks; the old trick of
putting flip-flops on your hands for bright handclaps. I combined
that with the other handclaps, all smacked with some hard limiting,
and that did the trick. Pulled the track together nicely.
Thanks again, Rick.

Folks wrote:
> > Just off the top of my head :
> > I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using a
> > hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.
> >
> > Best of luck!
> >
> > John L Rice
> >
> >
> >
>
> Ditto... limit, limit, limit. Claps contain amazingly fast and sharp high volume
> transients that will definitely shoot by most compression, at best leaving
> artifacts from the jolt.

[John L Rice]

Glad it worked out. Thanks for the flip-flop tip, don't think I had heard
about that one. :-)

John L Rice


"rickymix" > wrote in message
om...
> Belated thanks, guys. The quick attack time was the ticket; worked
> great! I also added a pair of flip-flop tracks; the old trick of
> putting flip-flops on your hands for bright handclaps. I combined
> that with the other handclaps, all smacked with some hard limiting,
> and that did the trick. Pulled the track together nicely.
> Thanks again, Rick.
>
> Folks wrote:
> > > Just off the top of my head :
> > > I don't have ProTools or your compressor but I think I would try using
a
> > > hard limiter first and then bring up the overall gain.
> > >
> > > Best of luck!
> > >
> > > John L Rice
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Ditto... limit, limit, limit. Claps contain amazingly fast and sharp
high volume
> > transients that will definitely shoot by most compression, at best
leaving
> > artifacts from the jolt.