Hdw Comp Upstream of Audio Interface?

I use compressors in the chain while tracking... it seems to help the performer feel they are hearing a familiar sound and so they play into the compressor.

If I was really sophisticated I would put the compressor on the monitor/playback split... and record clean and commit to compression later... but using the compressors while tracking seems to work fine if you already know what you want.

best regards,
mike

I use a compressor set to limiter type settings (high ratio, fairly fast attack, high threshold). It helps to prevent unintended overs if the performer gets a bit over-enthusiastic (or maybe has poor mic technique). This is fairly common with vocalists that have limted studio exeperience, since they are used to hand held mic's on stage where they can compensate for volume fluctuations by moving the mic around. Many of them are used to cramming a dynamic right up against their mouth on stage. In the studio with a stand mounted condenser, this isn't an option and the sensitivity difference between a hand held dynamic and a LDC can throw them off a bit.

I track w/ compressors all the time, now.  Good electronics won't hurt the sound (emphasis on good).  And a limiter helps with the level setting, same as the compressor.  You can get a nice, evened-out sound into the box, which means less work latter in mixing.  Nothing extreme (unless you want that specific sound), just some analog rounding out when you go in.  Of course, that is an artistic decision and I wouldn't do it on something classical or trés delicate.  Sometimes I'll do modern backing vocals w/o it just to diferentiate the sound from the lead - cleaner, more digital and a hair more dynamic.

To me, I see a fairly significant divide between people who track/mix other people's stuff for a living, and people who record themselves. If you are tracking/mixing other people's stuff, and they are not very confident what they want, and there's a lot riding on it (for the artists at the least), then it makes a lot of sense to be pretty hands off in the tracking phase and leave a lot of flexibility for the mixer who can swizzle it into many different configurations.

Some people who record themselves may do the same. If your primary interest is to just record songs and make them sound good, it makes sense to do the same.

If your interest as a self recorder is to master the process of recording yourself, then I think it makes more sense to try to record everything as close to what you think it should sound like as possible. Take risks and make decisions. So much of what's wrong with a lot of music today is that on one ever has to make a decision during the actual artistic process, so that the real artistic process isn't even done by the artist anyway, it's done by the mixer.

If you don't quite get it right, then learn from that mistake and try to do better next time. Utlimately, I don't think you'll ever get better (where better means more mojo, not more sterile perfection) results than you will by making those decisions and committing to effects, and then building on top of that with other things that you commit to.

With the music industry being what it is, it's pretty silly to figure that anyone is out there waiting for any of our songs to become massive hits. So I personally don't see the point in doing otherwise. Why create output that you could never actually play, in order to effectively impress no one? Why not work on your skills as an engineer and learn how to track it right?

Anyway, that's how I see it. So I commit to everything now, at least to the extent that I have the outboard gear to do it. And I'm getting better results than I ever did before, where I spent more time obessing about plugin settings than creating. Way more actually.

My primary tracking weapons are my home made 1176 and LA-2A. The two of those together, or one or the other separately, are just classic tracking gear. And I have a stereo pair of Speck EQs to do EQ on the way in where needed.

I still have to do drums in the box since I use BFD/BDF2, but I try to find the production I need basically before I start, so that I'm hearing pretty much what will finally be there and reacting to that.

+1000 Lance.  Droddey's thoughts are spot-on for me, too.

I've learned that the hard way (vox is my dominant instrument):
1) ... its far better to get vox and guitar compression (squashing) done at the pre-amp level ... else the crazy vocal spikes (and clippings) drive me insane in Sonar.  IOWs, I conistently start with 15 dcbs @ 7/1 ratio for my freaky vox ... before compressing 20-30 dcbs more with Voxformer (in sonar)
2) ... its far better to de-ess, filter, and EQ with my pre as well.

I use the Avalon 737 and a condensor mic successfully for this.  Mic technique helps a little, too.

Guitar DI and mic-ing: The fractal Ax fx is my best friend in the studio: comps, EQ, fx's and all the rest are best done 'live', despite my non-virtuoso guitar handling.

Nothing de-inspires me more than enveloping every spike and 'S' in Sonar and having to add fx's to every fx bin.