Suppose I master my own recording. I'm not a pro, just putting together something for my band. How many decibels of compression should I expect to use, and what kind of ratio is most appropriate?

The music we're recording has two moderately low-tuned dirty guitars (and usually no more than two tracks of guitar), bass, singing, and drums. I didn't record many tracks, and the dynamics don't change a great deal. It just needs the compression for that smoothed out vibe.

[From a DIY perspective]

Compression during mastering varies wildly.

I suppose it depends quite a lot on the material. For instance, you don't want to squash Classical recordings, but you may want to make some shitty Pop-Rock band as loud as possible for radio.

From my experience, I don't think 3dB compression on peaks would be out of the ordinary, but again, it dpends on the material. Some music has relatively little dynamic variation in the first place.

You may want to use a transient or "peak limiter" too. This allows you to "steal" a few more dB of volume by hard-limiting small transients which are relatively inaudible. On most material, you'll be able to gain around 3dB without obvious distortion. It's a fine line though - it sounds fucking awful if you over do it.

Whatever you do, try and make it transparent, leaving no artefacts in the original audio.

spectre wrote:Suppose I master my own recording. I'm not a pro, just putting together something for my band. How many decibels of compression should I expect to use, and what kind of ratio is most appropriate?

The music we're recording has two moderately low-tuned dirty guitars (and usually no more than two tracks of guitar), bass, singing, and drums. I didn't record many tracks, and the dynamics don't change a great deal. It just needs the compression for that smoothed out vibe.

As a mastering engineer, I compress for a variety of reasons. Generally, I use compression as more for a tool than for a stylistic choice. That's not to say that I rarely use it for color, just that I use it more for sculpting and controlling compared to coloring and applying a compressed sound.

But it's not uncommon for me to have the following in my mastering rack:
Low specific EQ
Full band EQ
Full Band Compressor
Multi band Compressor
Limiter

If I'm using the full band compressor, it's usually to reduce dynamic range between quiet parts and loud parts, with a slow attach and release, or it's to give that compressor "embiggening" where it doesn't make it any louder, it just seems to make it denser and mabe a bit more wide.

The multi band is great for things like adjusting how a bass guitar and kick drum interact in the low end, how a guitar and vocals sit in the midrange, or to tame a bright cymbal in an otherwise darker mix.

Really, though, decide what you want it to sound like first, and then use the tools to make it sound like what you want.

Ben Adrian

Has anyone ever used one of those TC Electronic Finalizers. Either the 96K or the Finalizer Express? I understood those are stand alone mastering processors, but do they have preset settings? Maybe possible to be used as a nice mix down pre-master compressor?

SoundFarm wrote:Has anyone ever used one of those TC Electronic Finalizers. Either the 96K or the Finalizer Express? I understood those are stand alone mastering processors, but do they have preset settings? Maybe possible to be used as a nice mix down pre-master compressor?

I've used one for a quick and dirty "mastering" job in the studio so the band could take the songs home and have a listen.

I was really impressed with it until I heard the job done by a real mastering guy in a mastering studio.

Not a bad little box to impress people with, I suppose. It got me.

I don't know how to give you the answer you want.

Whereas I had previously paid professionals to give me either whatever they thought best or whatever was most competitive (i.e. on the radio), my fourth project has very strict guidelines:

1) Hard knee compression (4-6:1)
2) A high compression threshold (that is the effect doesn't kick in until a high signal hits it)
3) Only 3-6 dB of total compression and
4) ABSOLUTELY NO LIMITING.

I can't think of anyone off hand who's using these exact parameters, but I like it because
1) It gives you a fairly strong "perceived volume" while
2) Leaving the relative transient responses of instruments relative to each other (that is loud to soft in a short space of time) intact.

A lot of people who post on this site tend to prefer what I call (not necessarily pergotiveley) "sludge." (The Shipping News' "Flies the Field" is my most recent favorite under this rubric). Certainly, these short time space dynamic transients I'm obsessing on are somewhat less signicant with slower tempos.

My advice is no good for that (Shipping News) kind of record and, by the way, I don't think the Shipping News makes any use of compression whatsoever.

My music is a little peppier and needs to have a very active sense of propulsion.

Given that, I don't feel entirely comfortably with Steve's No Compression sensibility.

With that said, [/b]can't we just agree to hate limiting.

cowtown14 wrote:can't we just agree to hate limiting.

Limiting isn't the devil (when the limiter is a good one), but limiter abuse certainly is (especially when that limiter is the Waves L2).

I certainly prefer judicious use of a good limiter to intentional digital clipping... the latter seems to be more and more fashionable these days.

cowtown14 wrote:can't we just agree to hate limiting.

nope.

Can't we just agree to hate hard limiting?

cowtown14 wrote:Whereas I had previously paid professionals to give me either whatever they thought best or whatever was most competitive (i.e. on the radio), my fourth project has very strict guidelines:

1) Hard knee compression (4-6:1)
2) A high compression threshold (that is the effect doesn't kick in until a high signal hits it)
3) Only 3-6 dB of total compression and
4) ABSOLUTELY NO LIMITING.

I can't think of anyone off hand who's using these exact parameters, but I like it because
1) It gives you a fairly strong "perceived volume" while
2) Leaving the relative transient responses of instruments relative to each other (that is loud to soft in a short space of time) intact.

Actually, that's about the exact settings that I used recently on a set of live recordings for an old band I was in.

I agree with you - the overall volume did appear to increase by a small amount - because the compressor only got those transients that are normally reserved for the limiter. It's not as exacting as a hard limiter, but to have 3db of compression that only hits the loudest of the loud (the extra hard snare hits, and some vocal anomalies) while using maybe 2-3db of makeup gain will do the trick.

And keep the dynamics intact. Salut! - mild compression!