Should i record vocals with compression

Compression on the way in used to be much more important to get as much signal to tape as possible when the headroom was much lower than it is today and the engineer had to worry about tape noise. Today, that is not so much of a concern and I would have to say that you can go with or without it. What I will say is this. The sound of a high quality mic through a high quality preamp through a high quality compressor into a high quality AD cannot be beat as it can strongly influence one's performance and anytime you can do things to inspire somebody's performance, it is always a good idea.

In a perfect world, you would split the signal and record the uncompressed signal as well as the compressed one while monitoring one of them just to have a backup in case you hit the compression too hard but as long as you make sure that the gain reduction is about db, then it should be OK.

Originally Posted by k. Big 3rd. For me, personally, I try not to control my vocal while recording. I don't worry about that at that point.

I try to get the best, least compressed vocal I can. Once I do that, I know that all those precious peaks are there and my highs the details are still there. I use mixing for controlling the vocals. There's nothing worse than wasting a great take on an overcompressed recording.

Once those peaks are gone, there's no amount mixing that can make it sound like it wasn't overcompressed. Basically, I use the compressor to catch the ultra quick stray peaks Does anyone know if they are compressing during the recording of the vocals? Of course they are You know There IS a right way to do things in audio. It's not just a single right way, but there is a right way. The right way is to track it right the first time. If a track needs EQ, compression, or to be sung right and in tune You shouldn't have to 'fix' it afterwards.

Track it right first, then it's easy to mix. That is the right way. Plain and simple. When I do session with several MC's on one song, I us a little haredware compression to even out all the verses. Never more than 3 dB of reduction, at a ratio of tops!. Rhymefest is a big fan of a 6 kHz boost to add interlagence, but I have mixed him alot. Also since I mix in the box, I like to grab some out board character will I have the oppertunity. This is how most of us record our audio. Getting a clean sound, so we can do everything afterwards in the mixing stage and we have way more control.

This is a big advantage of recording with a clean signal, but some other engineers love to record their vocals with compression. It is a time saver and you get the tone that you want directly at the recording. And like they say, you get it right at the source. Now, on my side, for years I record my vocals clean without any effects, without any EQ or compression. But for the past two years or so, I started to just record with some compression.

And sometimes a bit of EQ if I need to. And then I have two compressors that I can use. The Drawmer , which is a tube compressor and also the Tegeler Creme, that is a stereo bus compressor to start with, but works pretty well on vocals as well. My starting settings are going to be ratio, maybe an attack of 30 milliseconds or so. A release time, maybe between 50 and milliseconds of release time.

And my gain reduction goes to around two, three dBs in reduction, which is pretty gentle. And this way I can keep my compression transparent and just to control a bit of the dynamics of the vocals, which works pretty well on my end.

Using compression is also good for the singer performance-wise, and this is one of the reasons why I love to record my vocals with compression. Recording vocals through a hardware compressor can significantly speed up the production process by reducing the amount of compression you need to apply in-the-box, resulting in a reduced load on your computer's CPU.

In this article, you'll learn how to record vocals through a hardware compressor. We'll take a look at three popular hardware vocal compressors and then dive into some recommended vocal compression settings. The proximity effect provides a number of stylistic recording options.

You can get your vocalist to stand a set distance from the microphone to capture a consistent tone, and then hit their vocals with a compressor during loud segments to even out the signal level. When tracking vocals through a standalone hardware compressor, you need to connect your microphone to a mic preamp—this lets you to boost the mic signal produced by the microphone to line level. You can then record the compressed signal through a line input on your audio interface.

To increase signal routing flexibility, I recommend that you make use of a patch bay. If you own multiple mic preamps and compressors, a patch bay is essential because it lets you quickly create new signal routings using patch cables. In the following video, I explain the benefits of routing signals through a patch bay, and demonstrate how to set up and use a patch bay.

Let's take a look at three popular hardware vocal compressors at various price points. Hardware compressors tend to cost an arm and a leg, but the dbx s Channel Strip provides four essential vocal processing features at a very affordable price. I prefer to remove noise in-the-box when processing studio vocals, so I only use this channel strip's gate in live contexts, such as when streaming. Regardless of that, the s is the perfect vocal processing toolkit—it delivers all the basic processing that you need.

In the following video, I demonstrate how to dial in each of the dbx s's settings for vocal processing—before and after audio examples are included! It can deliver the speed of a VCA, the personality of an FET, the warmth of an optical, or the coloration of a tube compressor—depending on the settings you use. This compressor lets you dial in compression settings to a much finer degree than the dbx s.

The unit includes a preamp, compressor, and EQ, providing you with significant tone-shaping abilities. Compared to the dbx s, the Avalon's compressor and EQ provide a much more precise level of control. However, when aggressive vocal compression is called for, the Distressor is my go-to choice. There are plenty of other hardware compressors out there that you can use to compress vocals, but the dbx s, Distressor, and Avalon VTsp are my top recommendations.

You can use this information to make more well-informed mixing decisions when compressing vocals.