Compression - apart from chicken picken' it seems pointless

[Mookakian]

There are a bunch of differences in compressors, and the controls on them. Some have only a couple of control knobs. My dbx 166xl has a bunch of knobs and controls (perhaps too many). With it, I can leave the attack alone, and lengthen the decay (i.e. sustain) if I wish to do this. Or I can set it on "auto" so the unit responds to my playing -- and I thing rather well. This is a rack mount unit, that offers more control than any pedal type I have tried. It also offers soft knee or contour compression, or neither. When I am playing on somebody else's rig without my compressor, I can get a similar result (but not as good) by cutting the treble a bit and boosting the lower mids. I set mine on auto, contour, and soft knee and leave it on all the time. I can still get those chugging, muted power chords. What I get that I really like is increased clean sustain and the ability to pick more lightly (and therefore faster) on solos.

In addition to this, I really like my Rocktron Nitro, which is a clean boost for solos that also adds a bit more soft knee compression. It lets my solos cut through the mix at a lower volume than would otherwise be needed.

I don't do much country, so I don't "chicken pick" at all. But my rig does it for me for soft jazz all the way to metal.

Interesting array of trialing and experience you have dolebludger.

I am interested in the extra controls, i admit i have not read up on them, or really thought much about anything other than attack and decay. What does "soft knee" and "contour control" do to your compression, if you dont mind me asking

 

[Rich]

"Soft knee" is a dbx term. When using soft knee mode, the attack of the compression isn't as hard. Think of the compression kicking in like either a switch or more gradual like using a volume knob to adjust a signal more gradually. That is, soft knee makes the effect kick in not so abruptly giving a more natural feel to the effect.

The contour control is like having an EQ that removes low frequencies from the compressor's detection. So, when using that control, the full frequency of your signal passes through the path, but the signal is split so that the part that is feeding the processing portion can have the low frequencies chopped off. This can be desirable with bass guitars and drums as the compressor won't seem to "pump" so much when using higher compression ratios.

 

[Dolebludger]

Rich explained this well. And it's not that I don't like country music. I listen to it all the time. It's just that I have never been able to master country leads.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Lots of education in this thread.

 

[Mookakian]

"Soft knee" is a dbx term. When using soft knee mode, the attack of the compression isn't as hard. Think of the compression kicking in like either a switch or more gradual like using a volume knob to adjust a signal more gradually. That is, soft knee makes the effect kick in not so abruptly giving a more natural feel to the effect.

The contour control is like having an EQ that removes low frequencies from the compressor's detection. So, when using that control, the full frequency of your signal passes through the path, but the signal is split so that the part that is feeding the processing portion can have the low frequencies chopped off. This can be desirable with bass guitars and drums as the compressor won't seem to "pump" so much when using higher compression ratios.

Oh hell yeah!! I like the sound of that, thanks rich! So with the contour up the lows/low mids pass through almost dry and the rest is more compressed, is that right? If so is there a way to get the opposite effect as well

 

[Hamtone]

Oh hell yeah!! I like the sound of that, thanks rich! So with the contour up the lows/low mids pass through almost dry and the rest is more compressed, is that right? If so is there a way to get the opposite effect as well

Yes you can limit on either ends with the correct comp. Studios do this on every recording there ever was.

 

[Dolebludger]

FWIW, the Rocktron Nitro clean boost pedal also automatically ads "soft knee" compression when you hit the boost switch. This is a cheap way to get some compression and solo boost to boot, if you only want compression on your solos. I've seen these pedals on line for as low as $35.

 

[Rich]

Oh hell yeah!! I like the sound of that, thanks rich! So with the contour up the lows/low mids pass through almost dry and the rest is more compressed, is that right? If so is there a way to get the opposite effect as well

Not exactly.

The signal is split: One part goes through the compressor and is processed by it and the other goes through the contour control to be fed to the compressor's processor.

So, the entire signal is being compressed but, because lower frequencies have a stronger signal/voltage, lessening them going into the circuit can give you more control over how evenly the frequency spectrum of the signal is being compressed. By shelving off the lows, they will have less influence over how strongly the compressor reacts when low frequencies are passing through it but the lows will be compressed more according to the rest of the frequencies (mids and highs) that are being fed into it. So, the entire signal is being compressed, but the lows are not the predominant part that is influencing the compressors detection circuit. This is something useful if you're running a drum kit mix or piano or some other instrument with a wide frequency range or even an entire song mix for mastering through a compressor.

To what you're thinking it does:

When mastering an album, a technique called called multi-band compression is often used. In that scenario, the final mix (stereo) is fed through a crossover circuit (usually three band - high, mid, low or maybe more bands) and each section is fed to a separate compressor. Today, this is done in the digital domain with a single software or hardware package (TC Electronics makes some badass multi-band compression mastering packages).

The advantage of this technique is that, to use hard rock as an example, you might want to apply heavier compression to the mid frequencies to make the final product appear to be louder. If you didn't use multi-band compression, you'd would able to compress the mix through a single compressor only so far before the low frequencies would cause the mix (particularly high frequencies like those found in cymbals) to "pump" or "breathe." So, after compressing the mids, you apply whatever amount of compression you desire to the low frequencies and likewise with the highs and this is all done through independent compressor circuits.

Okay, all of this sounds really cool - and it is. But, for guitar, it's likely total overkill and would make your rig overly complicated and drive you up a wall. There are lots of great simple compressors that are designed to work great with guitar rigs; I like the two knob Keeley and the Barber Tone Press offers some great additional features that don't require you to be a engineer to get a good sound. Frankly, the frequency spectrum covered by a guitar isn't all that wide and features like the contour control found on the dbx unit wouldn't be of much use and multi-band... I've never heard of a guitar player who uses that in a rig.

 

[Quill]

Rich, you're a gold mine.

I was looking around for reviews of the BYOC 5-knob, which is a pretty interesting thing to be looking for reviews for, as that search leads you to sites like Ovni Labs, which has enough compressor reviews to make you completely lose your mind over. The website is oriented to bass playing, but check out all the compressor reviews.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Damn, Rich. That post slayed, thanks for the great learning!

 

[b3john]

Epic post, Rich!

Okay, all of this sounds really cool - and it is. But, for guitar, it's likely total overkill and would make your rig overly complicated and drive you up a wall. There are lots of great simple compressors that are designed to work great with guitar rigs; I like the two knob Keeley and the Barber Tone Press offers some great additional features that don't require you to be a engineer to get a good sound. Frankly, the frequency spectrum covered by a guitar isn't all that wide and features like the contour control found on the dbx unit wouldn't be of much use and multi-band... I've never heard of a guitar player who uses that in a rig.

Any thoughts about adding a rack mounted compressor specifically for piezo guitar via the channel send/return loops of a small mixer for an FRFR system? I'm currently looking at either the two channel dbx 166XL or maybe the BBE MaxCom. Any chance of pulling off parallel compression by mixing the same piezo signal across two compressor channels, one lightly compressed and one more significantly compressed?

 

[Rich]

Thanks, guys! Compressors are such great tools and you can do a lot with them outside of "adding sustain" to guitar, especially when you combine them with other effects like gates, reverb, EQs and on and on.

Any thoughts about adding a rack mounted compressor specifically for piezo guitar via the channel send/return loops of a small mixer for an FRFR system? I'm currently looking at either the two channel dbx 166XL or maybe the BBE MaxCom. Any chance of pulling off parallel compression by mixing the same piezo signal across two compressor channels, one lightly compressed and one more significantly compressed?

To do this, you'll need a mixer that has buses (most mixers have this functionality) and allows you to insert an effect into those buses. Think of the buses you'll be using (whether mono or stereo) as being your dry bus(es) and processed/compressed bus(es). Assign the inputs that you want to use parallel compression on to each of the buses - maybe use bus 1 for dry and bus 2 for processed where you'll insert the compressor. After you have it set up, you can then blend the dry and processed signals using the mixer's buses.

When using this technique, set your attack and decay how you like but you'll want to at least start with a higher compression ratio than you would if you weren't using parallel compression. If you use lighter compression, you'll find that changes in the processed bus are going to be more subtle than you'd want them to be. After you get a blend you like, you can always go back and adjust the compressor's controls to fine tune it.

I'm a little brain damaged this morning, so hopefully that all makes sense.

As for choice of compressors, I'm a big believer in dbx; they make great sounding workhorse compressors. BBE is a great company too but I think of sonic maximizers (love those too) when I think of them - not that they aren't making excellent compressors, I just have no experience with the ones they make.

 

[Rich]

Okay, because I'm on a roll and you guys inflated my ego, here's some more...

When I think of compressors, the last application I think of for them is electric guitar. A few people wrote that they felt that electric guitar through a tube amp is already compressed enough and there is much truth to that, especially with an overdriven amp. A little compression after the fact (like during mixdown when making an album) can definitely help to tighten up a guitar track though.

But that's not what I wanted to write about.

There's a producer named Bob Clearmountain who made his name by producing Bruce Springsteen's Born In The USA album. Now that I've mentioned that, listen to the sound of the snare drum in the album's title song - it's right there at the beginning:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZD4ezDbbu4]YouTube - ‪Bruce Springsteen - Born In The U.S.A.‬‏[/ame]

Yeah, it's a big 80's sound and might seem a little dated but ask yourself "How the hell does a snare drum sound like that?"

Answer: I don't know exactly, but this is how I would go approach it.

Effects order: gate, compression, reverb, gate, compression, reverb.

First off, there is no snare drum that sounds that way in reality. You hit a snare drum with a stick, and it doesn't sound like that. But, it's a record album and, when making records, we're not always going with reality - we're going with what makes a song sound the best we can make it mixed with a healthy does of artistic vision.

Gate 1: We gate the snare drum track(s) so that they're clean without interference from other drums bleeding through.

Assuming you have two snare drum tracks (top and bottom), group these together in a bus. Gating separately helps a lot because the bottom snare mic picks up more of the kick drum.

Compressor 1: This one might be optional, but let's use one to get the best natural sounding snare drum we can get to start with a good original signal. We might use parallel compression to really get it popping, but the main goal is to get a strong attack out of it and use a slower decay to "elongate" the signal by keeping the compression strong for a longer period of time.

Reverb 1: Use a big freakin' room setting with a short decay - short decay is important! It might be a good idea to run this in parallel so we have control over the dry and wet signals for fine tuning after we add the rest of the effects. We want an really thick sounding reverb, but we want it to decay pretty quickly because...

Gate 2: Set this gate to open really fast but to close fairly quickly as reverb 1 decays. The goal here is to use the reverb not as an ambient effect to simulate a room, but as something that adds "size" and "sustain" to the snare. Realistic room sound is not at all the objective - we'll add that later. By using a gate, we're cutting off the reverb trail at the point where we want it to no longer "sustain."

Compressor 2: Put the hammer down and compress the hell out of this but use a slow attack so as not to lose the initial hit of the snare; again, you might choose to use parallel compression in this spot as well but might not need it. What we're doing here is compressing the gated reverb signal so that that fast decay we set on the reverb it doesn't trail off fast but is held at a consistent level during the entire time that gate 2 is open. We needed to use the fast reverb decay in the first place so that gate 2 could close where we wanted it to without staying open longer than we want because of too long of a decay setting on the reverb.

We now have our big, fat, sustained snare sound.

Reverb 2: This is the reverb we use to add ambiance to the track as you would adding reverb to any other track.

That's a spicey meat-a-ball!

I'm not claiming this is exactly how Bob Clearmountain did it, but I think it's a pretty good guess.

 

[River]

Excellent post, Rich.

 

[Rich]

Thanks! It took more brain than I expected and I hope it makes sense. Late gig in a roasting hot room last night... Jameson's didn't help any either.

 

[River]

Thanks! It took more brain than I expected and I hope it makes sense. Late gig in a roasting hot room last night... Jameson's didn't help any either.

With my extremely limited knowledge and experience, it makes a lot of sense. Makes me wish my DAW had the capacity to layer effects like that.

I'd love to have the gear it takes to work that magic but, if I did, I'd probably have no time for playing...

 

[Dolebludger]

Great posts and info, Rich. I think most guitar players who use compressors have no idea all the things they are capable of doing. I actually have only three uses for my dbx 166. One is the noise gate when florescent lights or bad electrical system in the venue causes havoc. Second is to soften the attack. Because the attack is where most playing errors happen, and because I am sloppier than I'd like to be, this helps me sound better. Third is to add clean sustain.

Now I have a question for you. I tend to play with both the "contour" and "soft knee" on. Is this self defeating?

 

[Rich]

Now I have a question for you. I tend to play with both the "contour" and "soft knee" on. Is this self defeating?

The contour, traditionally, probably isn't of a lot of use for guitar. But, if you want your lower notes to pop more and your mid and high notes to have some more compression on them in relation to the lows, then that might help you.

As for the soft knee switch, go with your ears. Again, traditionally, it isn't often used for guitar, but there's no reason to not use it if you're getting the results you want.

To me, effects and their controls aren't something to be rigidly categorized. Going on the Born In The USA post I wrote above, who would have ever thought of using gates, compressors and reverbs like that to create a snare drum that sounds like that - let alone creating a snare drum that sounds like that in the first place? Bob Clearmountain did.

I believe in learning traditional roles for effects, learning how to use them and then throwing out any preconceived notions of what you're supposed to use them for. Nobody ever became famous by following the rules.

I once used a VERY expensive tube mic preamp (TubeWorks) during a hard rock band's mastering project. The mix was done digitally in a small local studio and sounded rather dry. I ran it through a TC Electronics M5000 for multiband compression to do the usual mastering stuff but it still sounded rather lifeless. So, I grabbed a couple of 1/4 mic cables, plugged them into the analog outputs of the M5000 then strung them across the control room into the front inputs of the TubeWorks mic preamp and saturated the the mic pre a bit - just enough to add a some compression and harmonic content without causing it to distort. Voila! It was simply a matter of thinking about what was lacking in the content, looking at the gear racks and thinking about what might do what I wanted to accomplish and it turned out that a tube mic pre was just the ticket. I remember the studio owner (one helluva producer with a GREAT ear) walking into the control room, seeing the cables draped across the control room and asking me what I was doing. I explained it to him and he said "Good idea!" Whatever works, man. Whatever works.

 

[Rich]

With my extremely limited knowledge and experience, it makes a lot of sense. Makes me wish my DAW had the capacity to layer effects like that.

I'd love to have the gear it takes to work that magic but, if I did, I'd probably have no time for playing...

With digital setups these days, you can do a lot more - or at least more easily - than you could years ago. Depending on the software, it might just be a matter of doing some deep research or just figuring out a way of working around the limitations of what you have.

 

[River]

With digital setups these days, you can do a lot more - or at least more easily - than you could years ago. Depending on the software, it might just be a matter of doing some deep research or just figuring out a way of working around the limitations of what you have.

Good point. I could probably mix down a track with effects "a" to an MP3, pull that in and run it through effects "b".

And there would go my mind and time into a deep rabbit hole!