Upavas
Upavas
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3315
Posted : Aug 18, 2008 12:01
Sidechain the bass (receive) and the kick (send) and make sure you minimally compress (only if you have to, mainly the bass, hardly ever the kick...). This will give your mix a nice pumping sound. Also I never really compress the kick, more the bass to make it more aggressive. Sidechaining your bass and kick together will give you a little more dynamic range btw.
fuzzikitten
Annunaki
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40
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603
Posted : Aug 19, 2008 17:40
I used to sidechain the kick and bass, but stopped. Now I just don't put bass notes wherever there is a kick, or just turn the velocity of those coincident bass notes down (where velocity is mapped to volume obviously).
I like the sound this creates, where you have either a kick or a bass note - with proper selection of a kick and EQing the two together I can get a nice thick sound.
Medea
Aedem/Medea
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Posted : Aug 20, 2008 09:52
I compress individual channels very gently usually, or don't compress at all. I make compression almost unhearable, when the sound is playing solo, but this makes sense when a lot of sounds are playing at the same time. The mix just sound more transparent. Same with EQ, btw. I tweak EQ until I hear that the sound is changing, then I leave it alone;-).
the daleks
The Daleks
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Posted : Aug 20, 2008 11:02
I pretty much only use compression on bass and kick, and sometimes a parallel bus of the bass and kick together with gentle compression, and for anything else to just control peaks or even out the levels
for sidechaining i use a high ratio so it pushes the bass down when the kick hits, and a reasonable release so you get that whup on the next bass note
the rest is a matter of taste, but when you hear distortion, unless that is the sound you are going for, you know you are pushing the compressor hard, and digital compressors create some nasty artifacts when pushed hard
defintely need a mother of compression on a dance forum +4
Gamma Riders EP out now on iTunes and Amazon.com!
PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
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8087
Posted : Aug 20, 2008 21:12
btw insteed of sidechain compression you can use volume automation.
what would be intresting is a topic of how to make a track sounding loud and clean, a mix with good loudness potential and how to use compression and equing for that .
EYB
Noized
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2849
Posted : Aug 21, 2008 01:26
compressing is highly overrated but at the same time a very useful and a great sound design process...
...anyway read some stuff about compressing on the net, till u really got how it works and u will see when u really 'need' a compressor...
...but u can design sounds with compressors even without even knowing what a compressor is
anyway its not that hard to get the basics Signature
Saii
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Aug 24, 2008 07:06
ok lets say, the click of my kick drum is not "insync" with the bassline in terms of speed of the groove...how would i go by compressing the kick?
basically what im lookin for guys is, the threshold is pulled down to an average amount of bla bla...attack settings are at 10% of the knob, the release is at 90% etc....
if some one could do this for me it will alow me to understand compressors once and for all....
thanks alot guys,
saii.rave.ca
aciduss
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Aug 24, 2008 08:07
To compress a kick you should understand what a kick is basically: a pitchbended sinewaveform that goes from a high frequency to a low one very fast in time.
The click of a kick is the very beginning so when compressing you should pay attention to envolvent settings, speccially attack.
It depends of your sound and cannot give straight numbers on how to tweak but you can start by setting a deep threshold and big ratio numbers so you can notice the compressor working, then adjust attack n release then lower radio / treshold in order to get the sound you are looking for.
Compressor wont "move" the signal so you cannot "synch" a click with a compressor, usually kick's click han be easily handled with EQ (attenuating highs), use shelves or lowpass. You could also try to soft the click with a compressor and the objective would be to reduce kick's level at the very begining of the wave form (attack). Then let the fatness come uncompressed.
Again the compressor issue: it deals with volume leves on a specific signal, the basic workflow of a compressor is to compress then rise level (gain) so you can hear all (quiet and loud parts) of the same signal (hard to notice on a kick). Understanding this you may achieve what you are looking for but:
Perfectly good sounding basslines can be created without the use of compressors / sidechain.
First try to set bass notelenght position right, choose the right timbers in kicksamples / synths, then eq. Some make kick according to bass some create bass according to kick, either way make one fit other first only with eq and synth tweak, then you think about compressors.
my 2 cents
Saii
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Aug 24, 2008 21:13
aciduss, thank you very much for this fantastic post! i dont have any questions for you cuz you seriously went through everything but if anyone else has anything to add that would be great also....thanks guys!
saii.rave.ca
UnderTow
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9
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1448
Posted : Aug 25, 2008 01:50
Quote:
On 2008-08-19 17:40, fuzzikitten wrote:
with proper selection of a kick and EQing the two together I can get a nice thick sound.
No offence but that sounds rather thin and closed in to me and although it is relatively loud, there is a lot of mid frequencies that just make me want to turn the volume down.
I would try and make the mix more balanced.
UnderTow
Seppa
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485
Posted : Aug 25, 2008 09:34
on individual instument I only use sidechain compression mainly. its an excellent creative fx. but not all compressor will give you the same control and same result... i dont really use compression to fit thing in the mix for this I'd use some eq .
try the logic 8 compressor its a beast at this kind of thing never got a result like that before.
I use the class-au comp and set a very short attack(you can put 0 as well) around 64 ms so not so quick release it expands the tail of your bass or instrument. its all relative to your bpm though at the moment my track are quite slow.
its mainly use as a creative effect in this case. but really you can achieve whatever you want with that level of control.
tip: to make thing even more dramatic you can add an envelloper(or othe plug like spl or cubase one) bring the attack up and the release a bit up as well.
Boobytrip
IsraTrance Junior Member
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988
Posted : Aug 26, 2008 10:35
If you're curious about what compression does to your sound and how you might use it, I posted some graphical examples to illustrate the effects of compression on the dynamics of sounds in this thread:
PsyGalaXy
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Aug 29, 2008 00:46
Quote:
On 2008-08-25 09:34, Seppa wrote:
on individual instument I only use sidechain compression mainly. its an excellent creative fx. but not all compressor will give you the same control and same result... i dont really use compression to fit thing in the mix for this I'd use some eq .
try the logic 8 compressor its a beast at this kind of thing never got a result like that before.
I use the class-au comp and set a very short attack(you can put 0 as well) around 64 ms so not so quick release it expands the tail of your bass or instrument. its all relative to your bpm though at the moment my track are quite slow.
Hi friends , O agree , lohic 8 's compressor is really good for sidechaining the bass.
I found FET circuit pretty good too.
For others compression type i don't like it very much. The gain staging on this plug make finest adjustements very difficult.
_
Once a huge live sound engineer told me "the better compressor is not to use compressor" , i don't understood him at the moment but that says all..
Beside creative fx the hardest thing is compress (heavily if needed) in a "trasparent" mode and avoid pumping , squash and leave some transients alive.
When I compres too much a lead sound only to make dynamics quiter if i lose many transient all things go flat and sounds crappy in a mix..
Experience-->Somethimes i find good to use 2 compressors with smooth settings , the first with a lower threshold and 8-20:1 ratio ; the second is set to brickwall everything beyond an higher threeshold (it works for louder signals only) and all makeups at 0 (in live is veryb used for crappy singers&crappy gear)
If working whit midi or audio tracks somthimes it's much better to cut peaks whit automation. The most trasparent at all 4 me for max -6 dB adjustements , above 6dB I should pay attention and make curves or hyperbolic draws to avoid brutal effects.
Fingax
Cosmic Station
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1235
Posted : Aug 29, 2008 02:19
i like to compress the rhythms, to get better attack.
for bass, export to wave, and work on the transients/cycles using a audio editor.
a very soft compression usually goes good on many kind of sounds, but sometimes is not needed.. so just chose good sounds to work to start with. hard compressions are usually for artistic purposes, and is fine with me if sounds coherent in a mix.
