The other thing to bear in mind is that compression in live recordings is used because physical performances to not have consistent volume levels. Singers move around the mic, they get excited, they get tired... light compression is a great tool for a mixer who is looking to get a little control over the volume without having to ride the gain on a single channel through an entire mix. Compression basically rides the gain for you.
A synth with a consistent patch(iow a patch without a lot of modulation routing) being fired at a midi velocity of 100 is going to give you the same volume characteristics now, 20 minutes from now, and 40 hours from now. Because of this consistency, you don't NEED to use a compressor to keep the levels manageable.
You know where it is going to sit in a mix, and you can have extremely precise control over it's volume at different points in the song. I personally prefer to not use any dynamics processing and just make sure my levels and eq'ing are solid in the first place.
When everything sounds clear and balanced and full, you don't need to squash everything to make it fit. If you squash the dynamics of your synths, you lose a lot of subtlety in your music. Velocity control should be your best friend, you don't want to pitch it out the window because you are compressing all your parts.
compression on each channel - just for rock n rollers?
exactly.Martian Telecom wrote:The other thing to bear in mind is that compression in live recordings is used because physical performances to not have consistent volume levels. Singers move around the mic, they get excited, they get tired... light compression is a great tool for a mixer who is looking to get a little control over the volume without having to ride the gain on a single channel through an entire mix. Compression basically rides the gain for you.
A synth with a consistent patch(iow a patch without a lot of modulation routing) being fired at a midi velocity of 100 is going to give you the same volume characteristics now, 20 minutes from now, and 40 hours from now. Because of this consistency, you don't NEED to use a compressor to keep the levels manageable.
You know where it is going to sit in a mix, and you can have extremely precise control over it's volume at different points in the song. I personally prefer to not use any dynamics processing and just make sure my levels and eq'ing are solid in the first place.
When everything sounds clear and balanced and full, you don't need to squash everything to make it fit. If you squash the dynamics of your synths, you lose a lot of subtlety in your music. Velocity control should be your best friend, you don't want to pitch it out the window because you are compressing all your parts.
as an effect it can be useful sometimes, but get your dynamics right in the first place.
I think a lot of the time it's about making mix decisions when it comes to compression. The thing with electronic music is that there isnt a great deal of dynamic range anyway - at least compared to acoustic stuff. Whether you use compression on every channel or not at all should be something you can decide for yourself. In terms of 'gelling' parts together, I prefer to use it, a drum buss for example with a compressor on the end tends to 'gel' the dynamics together so the parts behave the same. I personally like that sense of tightness while other may not.
For shaping transients or enhancing them, I prefer ADSR envelopes, far more user friendly and predictable. Some things might give a bit of character to a part but this is less likely with software compressors, there's lots of reasons for and against, I think it just comes down to experience for the most part and deciding when and where it might be beneficial. I think trial and error goes a long way, just experiment and try stuff.
For shaping transients or enhancing them, I prefer ADSR envelopes, far more user friendly and predictable. Some things might give a bit of character to a part but this is less likely with software compressors, there's lots of reasons for and against, I think it just comes down to experience for the most part and deciding when and where it might be beneficial. I think trial and error goes a long way, just experiment and try stuff.
ofcourse try the adsr first. In the first place it's way more easy and mostly get better results, but i'm talking about synths that are moving and don't have a constant volume. When you have automation on filters/flangers/phasers/etc. the volume will go up and down too like a guitar. Then compression is way better to use then just to try automate the adsr
it totally depends on which synths you are using and how deeply you program them. i program my synths so the dynamics are right from the outset. if say a bass note is jumping out, i reduce the velocity of the note, or if its just one oscillator in a patch thats too loud, i'll reduce the level of that osc, or the velocity to that osc, with careful programming you can get a loud fat consistent level out of your synth which has the right dynamics for the groove you want without resorting to compression, which will effectively distort your signal.Roqqert wrote:ofcourse try the adsr first. In the first place it's way more easy and mostly get better results, but i'm talking about synths that are moving and don't have a constant volume. When you have automation on filters/flangers/phasers/etc. the volume will go up and down too like a guitar. Then compression is way better to use then just to try automate the adsr
i love the pure clear signals i get from analogue synths, and i dont want to degrade the signal with a compressor unless its absolutely necessary.
if youre using samples then thats another story altogether.