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Post by Martin John Butler on Jun 30, 2023 12:25:36 GMT -6
Most everything I've done on my last two albums had no compression during tracking. On occasion I use maybe 2db of compression going in so I can use a little less later on. That said, I'm jonesing for a Retro 176. It's colorful, but damn, everything I've done with the UAD plug-in 176 has a vibe I really like.
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Post by seawell on Jun 30, 2023 12:35:50 GMT -6
Johnkenn for vocal tracking, give a Buzz Audio Essence a try if you haven't yet.
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Post by Ward on Jun 30, 2023 12:59:03 GMT -6
I always compress on the way in for vocals. Unless I have to move fast and don't have time to do a run through or two where I can get things setup without fear of crushing things if the singer hammers it on the recording runs. For my own vocals I have a fairly easy goto setting that I can reach for very quickly. I like to commit to a sound up front. I do screw up - and crush things sometimes. But I consider that part of the game. I try tricks on my skateboard - and fall too. Ok I used to do that, like 40 years ago. heh. My point is I like going for it. Longboard? 0nly thing I can ride. |
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Post by longscale on Jun 30, 2023 13:01:44 GMT -6
For vocals 99% of the time I go mic->pre-> Retro 176. I like the 176 quite a bit. Even more when I upgraded the tubes with some quality NOS things from bowie.
Sometimes I go mic->pre->Manley ELOP->MC77. But honestly I never bonded with the ELOP and I'm really wanting to move it out.
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Post by longscale on Jun 30, 2023 13:03:12 GMT -6
I always compress on the way in for vocals. Unless I have to move fast and don't have time to do a run through or two where I can get things setup without fear of crushing things if the singer hammers it on the recording runs. For my own vocals I have a fairly easy goto setting that I can reach for very quickly. I like to commit to a sound up front. I do screw up - and crush things sometimes. But I consider that part of the game. I try tricks on my skateboard - and fall too. Ok I used to do that, like 40 years ago. heh. My point is I like going for it. Longboard? 0nly thing I can ride. That is all I have now (a Longboard). I still like the ride - but I think the kids all see "old man riding a board - eeeewwww". |
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Post by plinker on Jun 30, 2023 13:13:12 GMT -6
Longboard? 0nly thing I can ride. That is all I have now (a Longboard). I still like the ride - but I think the kids all see "old man riding a board - eeeewwww". Especially if you're wearing checkered Vans! |
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Post by the other mark williams on Jun 30, 2023 13:28:56 GMT -6
That is all I have now (a Longboard). I still like the ride - but I think the kids all see "old man riding a board - eeeewwww". Especially if you're wearing checkered Vans! I don't know, at least judging by my high-school-aged niece, checkered Vans are back, baby! Granted, she's not a skater... |
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Post by Vincent R. on Jun 30, 2023 13:53:37 GMT -6
Due to the crazy dynamic range of both Emily and I, and many of our other theatrical voiced friends that I record, I rarely track with compression, despite having a couple of nice compressor here. Every time I have tracked with compression I tended to over do it. Then I end up automating the louder parts up again. SMH. Most of the time when I've tracked with compression another engineer is running the session, and we'll take a little time dialing things in a bit before we dig into the recording.
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 30, 2023 14:00:46 GMT -6
I'm trying to think of a reason I wouldn't compress tracking my vocals with my Retro STA Level. .... no wait, I've thought of a reason, I can save on power and tube wear and tear :-) And about $2400 Good point :-) |
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Post by longscale on Jun 30, 2023 14:01:38 GMT -6
That is all I have now (a Longboard). I still like the ride - but I think the kids all see "old man riding a board - eeeewwww". Especially if you're wearing checkered Vans! I'm the Chuck Taylor generation. Because they were $19 new back in the day and that was what my parents said I could have. So black high top Chucks for me. Oddly enough I find them comfortable. |
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Post by Mister Chase on Jun 30, 2023 15:17:29 GMT -6
Depends but I like to track with at least some on genres where it's appropriate. It helps move the ball down the field a bit and you get an opportunity to use some sweet sweet hardware which still sounds better to me if even only a little. The FC526 got used on my last project with my Buchard home made d49. I was just tapping it and getting 3-5db gr on the biggest peaks. It's very transparent in terms of GR or at least can be. Love it. I probably undercooked it, honestly(for this project).
I also multed the signal in the patchbay so I took a clean signal alongside it just in case I really screwed up.
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Post by niklas1073 on Jun 30, 2023 15:28:17 GMT -6
I do both. If I’m in my home studio, I know the gear well enough that most times I’ll use compression on the way in. If I’m freelancing in an outside room I’ll mult the vocal and run one track dry and another through whatever fancy tube compressor I have at my disposal (Retro 176, Drip Fairchild etc). In either situation I’ll end up compressing again during the mix, and mostly with HW. My main goal is to track sounds as close to how I want them to sound in the mix as possible…without going overboard. It’s taken a lot of experience to get it right, compressing on the way in while still giving your self room on the mix to change things as needed. And I’ve screwed myself a few times, but that’s why I mult the vocal, so I have a clean backup. I should also note that sometimes the gear my cause technical problems you don’t hear until later. Like distortion or clipping or some weird momentary RFI that fucks up one word of the perfect take etc etc. I’d love to pretend that i have golden ears but truth is, when I’m 6 hours into tracking, and there are people talking in the control room, and someone is taking lunch orders, and I’m evaluating 16 tracks of audio for a million details…yeah, I miss stuff…all the time. I am human. As I’ve gotten better the “mistakes” have gotten better too, as in the mistakes are more musical and less noticeable than before if that makes sense. A poorly set 1176 or LA whatever can cook or a vocal or drum forever. The distortion will ruin it and if that's the best take that gets used, there's no way of getting around it. There are cleaner, better designed compressors now but people don't want to use them for whatever reasons because they're neither used by 3 letter mixers who distort everything nor well advertised. Also a big thing I've noticed is ground issues related to computers. There's no getting around it especially if it's over a direct-coupled interface. You better maximize noise before hitting it those setups if you can't move stuff around. Macs without the 3 pronged AC adaptors are the absolute worst things for ground issues commonly seen now. You need keep that shit away from anything recording analog audio or get the 3 pronged extension cable. Especially if you're not using transformer stuff. Transformers are useful. So many setups need the Jensen transformation isolation boxes anyway and bye bye all that stuff about dc coupling or ripping transformers out of the signal path to clean up the low end, eliminating hysteresis and improving slew rate  I do believe the reality is more nuanced than so though. Many genres are in some way defined or at least relies heavily on productional esthetics that goes way back in some cases. The fact that there are cleaner and better designed compressors does not mean they serve those esthetics necessarily. And I am not talking about fuzz boxes, at least I have never ended up using my compressors primarily as such and still choose to use both La2a and 1176 clones. I think it’s also too simple to blame it on a 3 letter mixer… for sure that 3 letter mixer shares those esthetics with many others of the same era and has been very successful within the genres the 3 letter mixer represents. I do agree that a poorly set up la2a or 1176 will screw up your production, I would take it further and say a poorly setup anything or anyone during your production chain will screw it up. I don’t see that as an argument to avoid them. They should be well setup and used correctly within the esthetics you are hoping to achieve. You can always spend the extra time to do it right the first time and don’t need to leave the doors open for retakes or move the decision making for later. I believe there are plenty of ways to get to the finishing line. Good, bad, right and wrongs for sure. And in many of them the La2a or 1176 are for sure not the wrong path despite the seemingly better compressors out there. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2023 15:39:36 GMT -6
The real question is do you want to hear it compressed well in your monitoring path with zero digital latency as you sing it? You can always use a cleaner, easy to set modern hardware compressor if you want to hear it compressed on the way in your monitoring path. Good digital compressors, even those on the UAD and HDX DSP platforms, must add greater latency than your round trip latency. There's no way around it because of the oversampling and downsampling's anti alias filters or the lookahead and FIR filters used in more bizarre but sometimes quite effective distortion prevention and reduction methods. Better interfaces now have a much higher dynamic range than tape so you don't really lose much by not compressing on the way in to maximize headroom and using a hardware insert later. You only get save another trip through the DA and AD with phase shift on the AD anti alias filter and maybe a DC filter on the DA if the interface is not DC coupled assuming the DA anti-alias filter is competently designed. Many are not and have well over a thousand degrees of phase shift if you are cursed with one of those. What clean compressors do you like? Transparent action and tone? That's easy to buy? Wow that's tough. Maybe Aphex, Daking, and Dangerous at most settings? A lot of other stuff will take the highs off, smash, or go nuts on certain settings. There are some VCA compressors with somewhat transparent finger on a fader action but not transparent tone because of old VCAs and not great circuitry and some modern stuff that has a fairly transparent tone but the action isn't there unless you want a gentle leveler or to take some peaks off on the way in but there's so much stuff cooked by hitting gear, classics included, hot. There's also the danger that the distortion from the gain reduction won't be masked. I ran into that with the MDWDRC2 where the aliasing and distortion from the secondary detector speeding up crapped up a drum so I swapped it out. Without it, the attack on the main detector sometimes would misfire and cause massive overshoots so it's not as universal a tool as I hoped and I use Molot GE much more often than it.
What I use on vocals? The old Oxford Dynamics because it's a dynamic multi fx plug with only one final VCA. For what I do, the vocals need to be smashed and I can ensure very little overshoot. So I can use the gate as strip silence with a fade, expander to push down noise or hiss, compressor to level it, limiter to smack down overshoots, and warmth on top of that to make it in your face or saturate out any overshoots if I set the limiter to not be as aggressive and there's only one dynamic process picked at each time to not overmodulate the vocal if I set it up halfway decent. It is more brutal and caveman, think than a lot of cleaner, modern stuff that can misfire like Kotelnikov GE outside of the sweetspot, it is more aggressive than the MDWDRC2 and the Pro Audio DSP DSM, and more transparent than two rounds of Molot GE or an 1176 + a leveler of some sort because of it's nature as a multi effect.
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Post by jacobamerritt on Jun 30, 2023 16:53:14 GMT -6
What clean compressors do you like? Transparent action and tone? That's easy to buy? Wow that's tough. Maybe Aphex, Daking, and Dangerous at most settings? A lot of other stuff will take the highs off, smash, or go nuts on certain settings. There are some VCA compressors with somewhat transparent finger on a fader action but not transparent tone because of old VCAs and not great circuitry and some modern stuff that has a fairly transparent tone but the action isn't there unless you want a gentle leveler or to take some peaks off on the way in but there's so much stuff cooked by hitting gear, classics included, hot. There's also the danger that the distortion from the gain reduction won't be masked. I ran into that with the MDWDRC2 where the aliasing and distortion from the secondary detector speeding up crapped up a drum so I swapped it out. Without it, the attack on the main detector sometimes would misfire and cause massive overshoots so it's not as universal a tool as I hoped and I use Molot GE much more often than it.
What I use on vocals? The old Oxford Dynamics because it's a dynamic multi fx plug with only one final VCA. For what I do, the vocals need to be smashed and I can ensure very little overshoot. So I can use the gate as strip silence with a fade, expander to push down noise or hiss, compressor to level it, limiter to smack down overshoots, and warmth on top of that to make it in your face or saturate out any overshoots if I set the limiter to not be as aggressive and there's only one dynamic process picked at each time to not overmodulate the vocal if I set it up halfway decent. It is more brutal and caveman, think than a lot of cleaner, modern stuff that can misfire like Kotelnikov GE outside of the sweetspot, it is more aggressive than the MDWDRC2 and the Pro Audio DSP DSM, and more transparent than two rounds of Molot GE or an 1176 + a leveler of some sort because of it's nature as a multi effect.
JDK R22 is pretty clean and fool proof, haven't used on vocals much though. And my research says - Spectra Sonics 610, I'll know personally in a couple weeks |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 30, 2023 17:16:03 GMT -6
So bottom line, the 'umble RNC is equal/better than so called "clean" Plugs? And it's under $200.  Chris |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jun 30, 2023 17:22:56 GMT -6
So bottom line, the 'umble RNC is equal/better than so called "clean" Plugs? And it's under $200. Chris I own four of those plus a PBC-6A, never regretted putting an RNC on a track. And not for lack of "better" options. I literally have two set up in my rehearsal space just because it's so nice to sing through it (and I'm not about to buy a $1k + compressor for rehearsal). |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 30, 2023 17:48:10 GMT -6
Honestly nowadays I'm very used to pressing the "Direct Monitoring" on my Scarlett/Mackie Blackjack/UA Volt USB Interfaces.* But I still have my 'ol Studio Projects VTB-1... Which is one XLR in/2 Outs. So I can run one with/one without Compression from there, into the Interface Line In's. Kidding aside I'm chicken to run most vocals through my Nanocompressor.  Chris * Yes it's all part of my Elephant Graveyard of Prosumer. |
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Post by tkaitkai on Jun 30, 2023 19:22:42 GMT -6
I always track through a compressor. For me, compressing pre-AD does something that I can’t replicate after the fact, even with quality HW.
Anytime I print dry vocals, I always struggle to get the same kind of dynamic control that I get compressing pre-AD. Tracking through compression makes leveling a vocal stupid easy.
I’m also a fan of clean compressors for this task. My Grace M102 is perfect for this. I have it parked at the same settings and I basically don’t even think about it anymore. Effortless control without any color or tone. I get enough color from the mic and mic pre. Plus, I can add all the distortion/saturation I want after the fact, but if it’s baked into the signal from the get go, there’s no undoing it.
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Post by Mister Chase on Jun 30, 2023 21:08:52 GMT -6
I always track through a compressor. For me, compressing pre-AD does something that I can’t replicate after the fact, even with quality HW. Anytime I print dry vocals, I always struggle to get the same kind of dynamic control that I get compressing pre-AD. Tracking through compression makes leveling a vocal stupid easy. I’m also a fan of clean compressors for this task. My Grace M102 is perfect for this. I have it parked at the same settings and I basically don’t even think about it anymore. Effortless control without any color or tone. I get enough color from the mic and mic pre. Plus, I can add all the distortion/saturation I want after the fact, but if it’s baked into the signal from the get go, there’s no undoing it. You know it's funny you mention that. I've actually thought this to be the case. Not sure how to describe it but it seems everything before the first conversion sounds a bit better... |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2023 22:04:34 GMT -6
Due to the crazy dynamic range of both Emily and I, and many of our other theatrical voiced friends that I record, I rarely track with compression, despite having a couple of nice compressor here. Every time I have tracked with compression I tended to over do it. Then I end up automating the louder parts up again. SMH. Most of the time when I've tracked with compression another engineer is running the session, and we'll take a little time dialing things in a bit before we dig into the recording. Been there myself man. Having to automate some metal dude who can’t do the metal voice (either clean singing, cookie monster, and ring wraith styles) loudly all the time whose vocals got slammed on the way in by something said metal dude thought sounded cool is a major cause of countless mix revisions to get it how the “singer” imagined it! |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 30, 2023 22:09:11 GMT -6
So bottom line, the 'umble RNC is equal/better than so called "clean" Plugs? And it's under $200. Chris idk about that. The RNC has a digital side chain with an analog vca. Super nice mode has smoother action than most plugins and other typical vca compressors but it isn’t very clean. The best plugins have smooth action and are cleaner than it but of course have higher latency. I paid more than 200 for the Oxford Dynamics, the Massenburg plugin, and the Sound Radix bundle with Powair. All do those have a cleaner box tone than the RNC. I somehow end up using the most ancient algorithm one (the Oxford Dynamics might be even older than the RNC because it is from the old Sony R-3 console that came out in the mid 90s) and a paid update of an old free compressor, Molot GE 🤷♂️ |
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Post by chessparov on Jun 30, 2023 23:06:23 GMT -6
Thanks Dan. Unfortunately my friend's Atomic Squeezebox (Isn't that a Who song?)... Has an audible hum, after being sent in for repair recently. At least there's not a rattle and hum.
Chris
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2023 0:52:05 GMT -6
Thanks Dan. Unfortunately my friend's Atomic Squeezebox (Isn't that a Who song?)... Has an audible hum, after being sent in for repair recently. At least there's not a rattle and hum. Chris mains hum? transformer hum? is it in the audio path or just the box? could be a humming transformer that's not in the audio. could be mains hum from bad power stuff. who knows? |
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Post by chessparov on Jul 1, 2023 1:59:04 GMT -6
I think he's going to send it back again.
Sorry only heard about the "hum", without getting more precise details.
Chris
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Post by Ward on Jul 1, 2023 8:23:49 GMT -6
That is all I have now (a Longboard). I still like the ride - but I think the kids all see "old man riding a board - eeeewwww". Especially if you're wearing checkered Vans! What's with the spying on us? Anyhow, I've moved on to burgundy van loafers now . . . but still tied up gumshoe bottoms for boarding shoes |
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