CHURCH TECH
LIFE-CHANGING STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT USING COMPRESSORS | Bill Gibson
This article in not about the basics of compression . I ’ m assuming that you know that already . If you don ’ t have a handle on compression and why we use it , I ’ d be happy to refer you to a few books written by yours truly , one of which is The Ultimate Live Sound Operator ’ s Handbook , 3rd Edition .
If you already know these techniques then you already understand how useful they are . If you have taken the course that I teach at Berklee , Live Sound : Mixing and Recording , there ’ s a pretty good chance that you ’ ve already implemented and love these techniques .
That is exactly how a compressor works , no matter whether it ’ s analog hardware or a digital plug-in . WAIT ! STOP ! Let ’ s think this through a little bit !
PARADIGM SHIFT ( MAGIC MOMENT ALERT !) In the analog world , there was always a concern about the noise floor : tape hiss . There was also a concern about overloading the tape and causing distortion , which although not as bad a solid-state distortion was still unacceptable in most cases . With modern digital mixers , noise isn ’ t an issue so engineers get lazy . As long as the level isn ’ t clipping , they leave the level alone until it ’ s time to mix , in the recording world , or they ride the channel fader in a live mix .
However , and this is a very important point , with old-school analog recording , engineers had to constantly keep tabs on the recording level — this is especially true with a vocal recording . I got in the habit of keeping one hand on the preamp input level , which obviously also fed the analog tape recorder . So , I rode the level of the voice or instrument I was recording . Even back then , there was a school of thought that the level should be set with enough headroom and then left alone during the take , but I always
WHY DO SOME ENGINEERS SAY THEY NEVER USE COMPRESSION ? Many great engineers say that they use very little compression in their mixes . It ’ s really important to consider the roots of those engineers . I ’ ve been fortunate enough to have written and adapted books for some iconic engineers . I ’ ve also been in the recording and live sound worlds for many moons and I know how and why I developed a few habits regarding level control .
MAX LEVEL
TAPE NOISE MAX LEVEL
Some lyrics are quiet .
Imagine yourself listening to the mix , and every time the vocal track starts to get too loud and read too hot on the meter , you turn the fader down and then back up again for the rest of the track or until the vocal gets too loud again .
TAPE NOISE
When analog tape noise was a problem , engineers were motivated to ride the input level on the preamp , which kept the preamp and the record levels closer to optimal and away from the noise floor .