When Should I Use Compression?

[Alukarj]

I've read this thread, but I never know when to use compression. I used to just adjust the volumes to avoid clipping, and that obviously wasn't a good move. Still. Let's say I have a really fat bassline that I want to stand out, but it clips, and if I lower the volume, well, it doesn't sound as mighty as I'd like it to be. Is that where compression comes in, or what? I used to hate using compression because I didn't like the idea of it taking away some of the quality in a track, and apparently I've been missing out on what good it can do.

[Layra-chan]

If your bass is peaking a lot, turn everything down, not just the bass. If you pull the volume down on everything the same way, the relative volumes will stay the same and so the overall sound should be the same. The easiest way to do this is to just pull down the fader on the master channel, not touching the individual channels.
If it "doesn't sound as mighty" then turn the volume on your computer or speakers up. Unless you're trying to go deaf, you should still have plenty of headroom available on your computer's soundcard or your speaker's own amps.

If your bass is peaking only a little bit, then you might get away with using a limiter with its threshold set just below 0db, so that it only catches stuff that exceeds 0db. Or you can use a clipper and simply lop off the stuff that goes too loud. Both of these introduce changes in the sound, so you really only want to use them with the thresholds set really high.


Other things you can do: slap an EQ or a filter on the bass, see if you can remove some of the subbass. Oftentimes these days people put in a lot more sub than they actually need, and those low, low frequencies add a lot of volume that humans can't actually hear.
See if your percussion is roughly the same frequency range as your bassline. If they're interfering, you're probably turning up the bass to try to make it audible over the percussion. What you'll need to do in this case is move bass or the percussion to a different frequency, or just turn down the percussion.
Use a sidechain compressor, so that the bass goes away when the kick hits; if you do this, you'll want to set the release so that it at least sounds like the bass was still playing fully during the kick, even if it wasn't; basically you're trying to make the kick act as a bass note, leaving in just enough bass during the kick to give it a tone but not enough to actually interfere.


The general rule for using compression when mixing is that it's great for fixing irregularly wandering volume, like from an acoustic instrument or vocals. If you're working with synths, however, there are usually better tools for fixing clipping problems. First is the volume fader on the master channel, followed by limiting or deliberate clipping. Then you look at the subbass, you look at the other instruments, and you screw around with EQ or sidechaining or just straight-up changing what the other instruments are doing.

Otherwise, compression isn't that great a fixing tool. It's great as a shaping tool, 'cause you can use it to increase volume at the expense of dynamics (which can include transients as well as general dynamic range), and you can use it to make a bunch of different instruments sound like they're at least playing in the same room together, and you can go nuts on the sidechaining if you're making house.
But using compression as a fixing tool takes a lot of skill, so in general I don't really recommend that people do it. Sure it's less harsh than limiting, but getting all the settings right without the compression being too obvious is really hard, whereas with limiting you at least can say "threshold at 0db" and be pretty much done with it..

[Alukarj]

Layra-chan

If your bass is peaking a lot, turn everything down, not just the bass. If you pull the volume down on everything the same way, the relative volumes will stay the same and so the overall sound should be the same. The easiest way to do this is to just pull down the fader on the master channel, not touching the individual channels.
If it "doesn't sound as mighty" then turn the volume on your computer or speakers up. Unless you're trying to go deaf, you should still have plenty of headroom available on your computer's soundcard or your speaker's own amps.

If your bass is peaking only a little bit, then you might get away with using a limiter with its threshold set just below 0db, so that it only catches stuff that exceeds 0db. Or you can use a clipper and simply lop off the stuff that goes too loud. Both of these introduce changes in the sound, so you really only want to use them with the thresholds set really high.


Other things you can do: slap an EQ or a filter on the bass, see if you can remove some of the subbass. Oftentimes these days people put in a lot more sub than they actually need, and those low, low frequencies add a lot of volume that humans can't actually hear.
See if your percussion is roughly the same frequency range as your bassline. If they're interfering, you're probably turning up the bass to try to make it audible over the percussion. What you'll need to do in this case is move bass or the percussion to a different frequency, or just turn down the percussion.
Use a sidechain compressor, so that the bass goes away when the kick hits; if you do this, you'll want to set the release so that it at least sounds like the bass was still playing fully during the kick, even if it wasn't; basically you're trying to make the kick act as a bass note, leaving in just enough bass during the kick to give it a tone but not enough to actually interfere.


The general rule for using compression when mixing is that it's great for fixing irregularly wandering volume, like from an acoustic instrument or vocals. If you're working with synths, however, there are usually better tools for fixing clipping problems. First is the volume fader on the master channel, followed by limiting or deliberate clipping. Then you look at the subbass, you look at the other instruments, and you screw around with EQ or sidechaining or just straight-up changing what the other instruments are doing.

Otherwise, compression isn't that great a fixing tool. It's great as a shaping tool, 'cause you can use it to increase volume at the expense of dynamics (which can include transients as well as general dynamic range), and you can use it to make a bunch of different instruments sound like they're at least playing in the same room together, and you can go nuts on the sidechaining if you're making house.
But using compression as a fixing tool takes a lot of skill, so in general I don't really recommend that people do it. Sure it's less harsh than limiting, but getting all the settings right without the compression being too obvious is really hard, whereas with limiting you at least can say "threshold at 0db" and be pretty much done with it..

It's not so much that the speakers aren't loud enough or that I want to go deaf. lol I guess the examples of music I should have used were dubstep and electro house because of their obnoxiously noticeable bassline. I usually do slap on an EQ and cut out the subbass. That's the stuff below 60 Hz, right? I also try to cut out the unnecessary frequencies that may be above the subbass and are very unpleasant to hear. I'd use the EQ to boost some of the quieter stuff such as hi-hats or the melodic synth as well, that may have gotten drowned out or are very subtle when I don't want them to be, aside from just adjusting the volume control, of course.

As for the side-chain compression, I really should look further into that. I normally do ducking and that in itself works out fine. I'm just now wondering if the two do the same exact thing or if there is a major difference. Thanks.

[Layra-chan]

Okay, yeah, that stuff is usually compressed to hell. Notice how other than those brief interludes where dubstep plays, like, classical music or some s**t, it's all very dynamically flat? All blare blare blare blare all the time? That's because it's all heavily compressed, or probably actually limitered to ******** and then compressed.
I don't consider this "fixing" though, in that as you pointed out the sound quality does change quite a bit when you do this. Note that dubstep kicks are rarely that sharp in terms of the transient, and that the snares are mostly noise and reverb. That's compression, but it's deliberate shaping compression, deliberately sacrificing percussive transients and tonality for ability to crank up the bassline.
The obnoxious volume is a combination of compression (often limiting) and deliberate clipping/distortion, which is why the basslines extend so far into the upper frequencies. Also the tracks tend to be fairly minimal in instrumentation, with usually only one or two things playing at any given moment; this allows everything to be really loud without interfering with anything else.

I don't like using compression this way, and unsurprisingly I don't really like electro house or brostep. I guess the way to phrase what I want to say is that it's only degrading the sound quality if it's not deliberate, because fidelity can only be measured relative to what you want the thing to sound like.

Ducking is a type of sidechaining, the more extreme version where you pull the volume down a lot and set the release to be very short. You often don't actually need to do this, usually only a small volume drop and slow release is enough to remove most of the interference, but on the other hand a lot of people like the way ducking sounds, so whatever.

Also, I'd definitely look into changing where the kick sits frequency-wise. You don't really need a deep, boomy kick if you've got a deep, boomy bassline masking it anyway. The best way to make the bassline sound big is to make everything else sound small.

[Alukarj]

Layra-chan

Okay, yeah, that stuff is usually compressed to hell. Notice how other than those brief interludes where dubstep plays, like, classical music or some s**t, it's all very dynamically flat? All blare blare blare blare all the time? That's because it's all heavily compressed, or probably actually limitered to ******** and then compressed.
I don't consider this "fixing" though, in that as you pointed out the sound quality does change quite a bit when you do this. Note that dubstep kicks are rarely that sharp in terms of the transient, and that the snares are mostly noise and reverb. That's compression, but it's deliberate shaping compression, deliberately sacrificing percussive transients and tonality for ability to crank up the bassline.
The obnoxious volume is a combination of compression (often limiting) and deliberate clipping/distortion, which is why the basslines extend so far into the upper frequencies. Also the tracks tend to be fairly minimal in instrumentation, with usually only one or two things playing at any given moment; this allows everything to be really loud without interfering with anything else.

I don't like using compression this way, and unsurprisingly I don't really like electro house or brostep. I guess the way to phrase what I want to say is that it's only degrading the sound quality if it's not deliberate, because fidelity can only be measured relative to what you want the thing to sound like.

Ducking is a type of sidechaining, the more extreme version where you pull the volume down a lot and set the release to be very short. You often don't actually need to do this, usually only a small volume drop and slow release is enough to remove most of the interference, but on the other hand a lot of people like the way ducking sounds, so whatever.

Also, I'd definitely look into changing where the kick sits frequency-wise. You don't really need a deep, boomy kick if you've got a deep, boomy bassline masking it anyway. The best way to make the bassline sound big is to make everything else sound small.

Great post! A lot of it made me laugh, but it was also very informative, so thanks.

[xxxOHackOxxx]

Alukarj

Layra-chan

Okay, yeah, that stuff is usually compressed to hell. Notice how other than those brief interludes where dubstep plays, like, classical music or some s**t, it's all very dynamically flat? All blare blare blare blare all the time? That's because it's all heavily compressed, or probably actually limitered to ******** and then compressed.
I don't consider this "fixing" though, in that as you pointed out the sound quality does change quite a bit when you do this. Note that dubstep kicks are rarely that sharp in terms of the transient, and that the snares are mostly noise and reverb. That's compression, but it's deliberate shaping compression, deliberately sacrificing percussive transients and tonality for ability to crank up the bassline.
The obnoxious volume is a combination of compression (often limiting) and deliberate clipping/distortion, which is why the basslines extend so far into the upper frequencies. Also the tracks tend to be fairly minimal in instrumentation, with usually only one or two things playing at any given moment; this allows everything to be really loud without interfering with anything else.

I don't like using compression this way, and unsurprisingly I don't really like electro house or brostep. I guess the way to phrase what I want to say is that it's only degrading the sound quality if it's not deliberate, because fidelity can only be measured relative to what you want the thing to sound like.

Ducking is a type of sidechaining, the more extreme version where you pull the volume down a lot and set the release to be very short. You often don't actually need to do this, usually only a small volume drop and slow release is enough to remove most of the interference, but on the other hand a lot of people like the way ducking sounds, so whatever.

Also, I'd definitely look into changing where the kick sits frequency-wise. You don't really need a deep, boomy kick if you've got a deep, boomy bassline masking it anyway. The best way to make the bassline sound big is to make everything else sound small.

Great post! A lot of it made me laugh, but it was also very informative, so thanks.

You should also try to smoothly EQ or scoop out any frequencies that are clashing 3nodding

[White Linen]

I compress so i produce?
I think so I am?
I dance so I tribe?????????????????????????????

[savagesarge]

White Linen

I compress so i produce?
I think so I am?
I dance so I tribe?????????????????????????????

[r a p h a e l]

My favorite producer, SIRIUSMO, likes to put a hard limiter on his bass/lead synths. Try applying one to your lead and then balancing it in your mix...

Ultimately it's all about gain structure.