steevio wrote:i dont use it at all now.
[...]
my motto is get it right from the start - with everything
have you ever done band recordings? it`s hard to get things right from the start. when the drumset is sounding crap or nobody knows how to tune it or the drumheads are too new and so on. Or imagine a singer who can't sing very well but he (she) and his (her) band wants this recording so bad ...
Then you feel lucky when you can track their thin-sounding epiphone guit through an Urei 1176 (e.g.). Especially the original 1176 is something like a wonder-machine, far more than just an ordinary compressor. Bringing a singer`s weak voice to the front and evening out the unwanted gain-jumps is something important and a case made for compressor-use.
Or working on guitars, especially heavy-driven rock or metal guits... you can bring them up so fast and easy with a compressor. I stick at a ratio of 10:1, fast attack and release, adjusting the threshold to taste and et voila, metal music is done. (using softtubes tubetech emu for that most of the time)
Of course there are other ways of reaching a result something near too, but it`s not better or worse than smart usage of compression. anything is able to harm or to charm
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_wink.gif)
But of course not every signal needs compression, far less then most of the guys think.
I know a guy who`s absolutely against compression. But he is using a TL Audio Fat Track and likes to drive the valve on the output stage very hard and always tells me how cool this is. Of course it can sound cool (I own the same piece of gear and use it everyday), but it`s just valve saturation + valve COMPRESSION. The harder you drive the valve the more you can see the compression on the waveform. So everything is legit for reaching a goal (in the technical side of music production =) )