Over-Compression MYTH

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[@alexsmff]

For people who still might have some trouble hearing it, go to 3:30 and 4:10, you'll hear the "gruff" of the beginning of his word sounds like a burp because the compression's attack doesn't react quick enough to bring it down before it kicks in at which point everything else sounds quieter in comparison

[@TreyVittetoeMusic]

Great video and great sound on the vocal Joe! Your example here shows perfectly how a super compressed a vocal can still feel so alive. Those subtle tones and breaths that are brought out give it such great energy. Love it!

[@obidavekenobe]

I think i’m gonna dub this compression style the “Joe Gilder Compressor🤟”

[@jimglunt9864]

Thanks for this video. At last some compression advice that's actually usable and beneficial.

[@SamDiazProducer]

Great one Joe! Thanks!!

[@MixingGBP]

Amazing! I would have said you were wrong about this going in, but, wow, every word is more clear at that high compression ratio. Even the breaths at the end of the phrase are heard. I need to try this.

[@DaveChips]

Legend says that it's also possible to dial down a lil bit that 100% mix knob :D

[@OfficeofthePacific]

Great video, Joe. As you know... compression is my Achilles Heal! This was very interesting. Where the compression stands out to me the most is during the breaths and on the second one is sounds smoother. I will be doing some fiddling with knobs today. Thank you so much!

[@DavidLeeKing]

Very helpful - thanks!

[@marioCazares]

Woah this was surprising actually, thank you!

[@Romlingen]

Vert good video AS usual Joe. Thanks

[@KasiToursSA]

very helpful tutorial thanks

[@markbeling3330]

Awsome video once again

[@DonBernhard]

To me, the breaths sound artificially too loud in both examples, but not quite as bad with the greater attack & release settings. Maybe within the mix it'll be fine.

[@LouisSerieusement]

thanks !!

[@Elle-gm9rt]

Thank you for this video. I've been working on a vocal mix and struggling with compressing because the vocals do need quite a bit of compression because they are quite dynamic and inconsistent in volume but the compression made the vocals sound too suffocated. This helped A LOT!

[@williampalenikjr8433]

Another good video here

[@unvaryingArchive]

fire

[@bambangsetyo5771]

woah thanks joe, btw, anyone can help me ? does audio interface affect on vst sound quality ?

[@IanRoss]

You know what Joe...I've kinda of given up on compression and focused on levels and eq. Loved the results...But after this video, I'm absolutely going to try to get back into compression to see what I come up with from your video. While, I enjoy my mixes now, I still hear other mixes that have that little something extra and in my heart I knew it was because of my lack of compression on tracks and busses. This gives me confidence to go ahead an give it another go. Thanks friend.

[@IanRoss]

I can't thank you enough Joe...this turned out fantastic!

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

Nice, another great explanation of compression. I'll certainly add that trick to my mixing arsenal, which I think I'm doing somewhat already when I dial in my effects chain. I actually lean somewhat to adding in just a bit too much compression to color the sound. And I'm running stacked compression like a Waves Fairchild 670 into the Studio One version of the LA-2A. Can it be overdone? Probably to likely, but the overall sound is great. At least in my ears. ☕

[@beachforestmountain4269]

Thanks Joe. If you were adding Parallel Compression to a track/bus, would you add it on top of a normal Compressor, or should the Parallel Compressor be enough to do the job of both Compressors? And if you did use both Compressors, would you use a different Compressor for each?

[@jeremythomas2865]

I have been using a ratio of 6:1, attack at 5-10ms and release at around 50ms, with a reduction of about 5-10db on vocals for years. I like how it sounds to my ears. Gives a good tight compression but still sounds quite natural. The compressor stacking just taking 1-2 db each time doesn’t do it for me and I rarely hear the difference.

[@MkenyaMarekaniTV]

Could you show us how to use auto tune in studio one 🤔 n quantization

[@m00se67]

would this be mimicking an LA2A type compressor ?

[@Selrisitai]

I think _limiting_ would be fine, but the problem with compression is that when you fade out, "All a-lone-uuhhh," that vocal effect at the end, the breath, is just as loud as the loudest belted note, not because it's literally the same in decibels, but because _the noise of the room,_ the _room's volume_ has been increased, which actually makes the quiet part sound louder than the loud part. Your brain understands the _relative_ volume, so when the "uuh" breathe-out is twice as loud as it should be, the brain says, "O.K., if he starts singing it's going to blow your ear-drums, based on how loud that 'quiet' breath was just now." In other words, compression reduces impact, increases fatigue, and is unnatural. Again, maybe prevent the vocals from going quite as loud as they could, in large part because of how microphones record, but I would just tame peaks rather than smoothing out all the troughs and valleys.

[@RussellCorwynActor]

Going out on a limb as someone without a background here --- this was a great explanation for vocal performances with long, belted vowels. Is there a similar rule of thumb (what attack/release settings?) for spoken conversations? Voiceover in explainer videos? Voiceover in animation and/or video games?

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

My opinion would be it depends a lot on the specific compressor plug-in. If you have the attack and release settings, try 10ms attack and 30ms release. Some compressors don't have these settings like the Studio One LA-2A in the Fat Channel XT. If you use that same Fat Channel XT with the 1176 FET compressor, it's ALL fast attack, from super fast to very fast on that dial. Set them by what sounds right to you.

[@velvetdog2211]

For me, it's about putting a leash on the vocals & that's a good thing... but there is a price to pay; Artifacts. I use Waves Vocal Rider to get consistency on the peaks, and then Waves MaxxVolume, low range [ db not freq.; wave form valleys] to boost the intimacy. It's easy to over do intimacy, but it sure is nice to have that move when you want it... and no artifacts.

[@Nathan_Lundstrom]

Haha, "I like compressing lead vocals and YOU should too." #truth I like that lots of your videos are using stock plugins! It shows you don't need expensive tools to make things sound great when your source audio is already 75% of what you want in a final mix.

[@wongsanggar]

Absolutely right! Newcomers tend to blame the wrong culprit when it comes to "over-compression" as they just recognize LA-2A. :))

[@Al69BfR]

But now the „a“ from „all“ sounds almost like a burp. What can I do to prevent such over exaggeration of the first letter or syllable? Is automation a way (thinking of vocal rider)?

[@shalyfemusic]

Speed up the attack

[@dlrss1v274]

4:10 it's almost like you burped in the second one, LMAO

[@gabriel_moulin]

I kinda of disagree about the part of the "compression slowly ramping up and down, therefore there's a smoother sound" because the effect on the track itself is harsher transients (you can clearly hear in the video) when you leave the attack with "breathing space". The first example was actually smoother sounding (even with the squashed dynamic range). I guess it's a matter of hearing rather than interpreting what a knob should do.

[@dharmik1919]

i thought the same. The second compressor is letting some of the transients go because of a slower attack and hence the first few syllables are jumping out (not in a nice way). The 1st compressor is squashing everything and thereby sounds a lot more smoother to me.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Valid points. The transients are jumping out more, but that sounds better to my ears (in some cases) than everything being smashed from the beginning, especially on lead vocals.

[@gabriel_moulin]

@@HomeStudioCorner I prefer that sound as well, it's specially effective in hip hop snd agressive genres, compression is a really versatile tool. Keep the good work Joe!

[@mrsportcoat1]

What does the plugin tuner do in studio one?

[@Kineticartist]

the tuner plugin is for any instrument to see what notes are being played and if they are sharp or flat you can slso use it to tune your guitar by showing you if a string is sharp or flat and you can then adjust your tuning pegs on your guitar accordingly

[@prodbykaioken]

***Burp*** Allll I waaaaant.....

[@Fwuzeem]

But the second one does not sound good at the beginning of the vocal phrase, as you hear the micro-grumble he makes. It's very distracting. The first compressor is clearly not as good as the second, but the end of the phrase on the second is very distracting with the end of the word 'wanted' coming through as loud as the loudest part of the word in the middle of the phrase. The middle parts sound fine I'd agree, but that's only because the compressor is working within it's comfortable range where it doesn't release all the way to the top anymore. If it can get it to do that you won't have all the micro-grumble and end of the word and it would sound much nicer.

[@SaintLuminus]

My ears are revealing the truth here. This works and works well! I can't wait to experiment with this. :)

[@jordandumas662]

Does this apply to instruments too? Like bass, guitar, and drums

[@heavymetalmixer91]

Most of the time yeah, but there are mostimes when you could want to chop the peaks agressively, so using a fast attack and/or fast release it's also a choice.

[@EversonBernardes]

One thing you might want to do is using two compressors: a fast one with less compression, just to grab and tame attack transients; and slower but powerful one, to even out stuff. I tend to do that on bass tracks played with a pick, for instance, to tame just some of the snap, while getting that nice and even bottom end.

[@JimijaymesProductions]

This isnt overconpression though its just heavy compression. Overcompression is when everything is so compressed it affects the sound, listen to the remaster of nevermind compared to the original especially in bloom, the cymbals are washy and everything is too upfront. Heavy limiting and compression give this sound. All you've done is change the attack so the transients aren't compressed as much, while gain reduction is the same if you look on ana analyser I'd bet you the peaks are less compressed.

[@JimijaymesProductions]

BTW not trying to belittle this video by the way lots of people are scared of heavy compression or heavy handed anything. I still do on certain sources but get something like an la2a to heavily compress a vocal in a certain mix and it works really well. It's all about what part it compresses and what you are trying to achieve.

[@tcmixpro9933]

Hey Joe. I really like what you're doing with this channel, but every now and then I notice you missing opportunities to provide extremely important info, and this is one of those times. Regarding compressor attack and release times, when those are each set to 1ms the compressor is able to clamp down on the signal then let go in 1/500th of a second. That means that at 500Hz and below, it will be compressing INDIVIDUAL CYCLES of the waveform. That's reshaping the waveform, and that's DISTORTION. It's not what most people think of when they hear the word "distortion" (i.e. clipping), but it's distortion nonetheless, it massively alters the sound, and in most cases it sounds pretty horrible. In fact, to avoid distorting the waveform, the combined attack and release times should always be AT LEAST double the period (wavelength in ms) of the lowest fundamental frequency of the instrument. For instance, at standard tuning the low E on a bass is around 41Hz (24.39ms per cycle), so when compressing a bass the combined attack and release time should add up to no less than 50ms. In actual practice, it's often best to double THAT number. This is important stuff to learn for any aspiring engineer.

[@aboc500]

why is the 1176 which cant get near that attack time so ubiquitous on bass then?

[@erinburke9711]

​@@aboc500 Because the release times are longer. The sustained single-cycle distortion only takes place if the release time is also ultra-fast. The short attack time will cause some brief distortion as the compressor kicks in, but it doesn't last.

[@leo.nordmann]

Wow thanks for this information. I've done this intuitively anyways, but having a "scientific" explanation to what I'm doing is great.

[@royrice8597]

1960’s recordings were way over compressed. Sucked the bass right out! Shame.😩😩😩 You can “pull” it out but it’s a stretch! 👍👍👍

[@cupidomuzik6199]

Me 👂it all sounds the same 😂

[@NonsensicalReality]

Yep, still over compressed 😂 I hate how unnatural it sounds, especially with how much breath you hear.

[@lionheartroar3104]

It is not a myth...my ears can hear the garbage

[@Dkondraciuk2062]

burp :D