Compression; how to do it right

Hi guys,
Newb here again, carrying on with striving for a great sound...
I've used a few compressors included with Sonar, like Sonitus, primarily for bass guitar tracks, and just don't find them doing what I expect or want.  I'm a guitar player, used to quality pedals, knowing what they do, how they sound, how they affect the overall sound.  For some reason I don't get that sort of result from, for example, Sonitus.  I can see the visual, the dot moving on the curve, up and down over the knee, and it looks ideal. But it doesn't really sound like it's compressing it properly. Mess with the ratio and threshold, but just don't get what I want.  I expect to be able to really smooth the bass track out, but seem to wind up pushing the plugin way too far without favorable results... it just gets ugly sounding.  For bass in particular, I'm not after subtle...  our player is very dynamic, and it doesn't come out well on the tracks.  Need it nicely compressed to make it smooth. 
Any ideas ?

+1 to wicked; the attack time will remove or allow the initial pluck of each string.
 
On a guitar pedal, typically not as many parameters can be tweaked as with a plugin (the missing ones are "built in" to the box), so understanding how each works and what it does is important. A good way to learn them is playing with extreme values at first (one at a time), then tone them down for a more musical application. Compressors are an effect that are beneficial to learn intimately to get the most from them (and used a lot).
 
Here are a couple quick articles I found worth reading, one specific to bass, and the other more general:
http://www.studybass.com/gear/bass-effects/bass-compressor-settings/
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/compressionmadeeasy.htm

BOOST11 is my gun....Believe it! (Everytime...)

mettelus
 
 
Here are a couple quick articles I found worth reading, one specific to bass, and the other more general:
http://www.studybass.com/gear/bass-effects/bass-compressor-settings/
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/compressionmadeeasy.htm

excellent reference  !!!

Another thing to consider is that an effect is totally clueless about the signal it sees (it is dependent on the user to feed it properly), so relying solely on the compressor to do the grunt work can cause issues.
 
Without seeing your specific situation, a few things I would do for that signal before it sees a compressor:

1. Normalize it (to -0.1dB) to bring up the peaks (this will also bring up noise).
2. Gate that signal to remove the noise you brought up (possibly into the audible range).
3. HP/LP that signal so that only the context important to the bass is passed to the compressor (bring in each filter into the meat of the signal till you can hear its effect, then back it off a smidge).
4. Fiddle with recommendations above for the compressor itself.

Your situation seems more like a limiter function (high ratio desired), so realize that with a high dynamic range on the signal that you need to be sure that noise is not fed to the compressor, or the compressor will be more than happy to gain that for you too.

As Shawn says, Boost 11 is the down and dirty way to compress bass. A basic, easy to use visually self explanatory tool (brick wall limiter).  I know you probably don't want to hear someone tell you that a solution to your problem is something you don't currently own, but for a multitude of reasons, one of which is the beautifully executed multiband compression, get Ozone.  I fiddled with the Sonitus compressor for a long time and was never satisfied with it, then, in order to do mastering, I got Ozone, and now I use it everywhere, not just on the master buss.  The compression is simple to dial in, and it sounds fab.  Once you discover the benefits of multiband, you'll never go back.

cowboydan

• Step 2 – Insert a compressor and a phase flipping plug-in on this track (We will call this “track 1″)

Couldn't you just use the 'phase' switch on the track in Sonar ?
 
Great stuff guy's, you can pick up a lot of stuff from reading in these forums, and it's mostly free from all the ego and elitism etc that you can find at other places, another reason why I love using Sonar now days :)

LA-2A models are indeed very easy to use and sound amazing, however they don't suit all program material and uses. But for "leveling" they just sound great. 
 
Personally I have a thing for 1176 type compressors right now. They're especially wonderful on guitars and vocals and again, very easy to dial in a great sound. Took me a while to get used to the backward attack and release controls though (in fact I still have to think about it, same way I have to think what high-pass and low-pass mean for a second every time lol). I have the Native Instruments VC-76 and use it a lot. 
 
One thing I've found about compression is that sometimes I can't really hear what's going on unless I turn the volume way down. It must because the ears are more sensitive to dynamic changes at low volumes or something. Try it - next time you can't hear what the compressor's doing, turn the volume down. 

and don't be afraid to use hard LIMITERS to do compression work...
 
and the way you would use them there, is where the meters hardly even kiss the signal,
and use your ears....... not the reduction meter, to hear a change.
it is different than typical compression.
 
it 'colors' the sound in a different way than regular (non limiting) compression
 
 
it almost works as a 'compander', and you have to mix INTO it for it to really work well.
 

for just peak removal of a bass part, would just use a limiter and not compress the bass yet....so the mix doesn't get too dense allready.
I find the old VC64 (Vintage Channel VST) compressor the nicest, neutral and it has the basic controls you need, Nomad CP2S is nice too.
I only do NY (Parallel) compression and workflow is to set a low ratio 1:2, and fader all down....then dial in untill I come to point where the compression only makes it louder and no longer adds dynamics.
then play with ratio first, then fine-tune treshold and last I tweak attack/release
 
good luck.
 

I like the idea of copying a track, flipping the phase and adding compression to the unflipped track to get an idea of what is really happening to the signal as you compress it.
 
I'm discovering lately that working with the attack and threshold is very important to the outcome of the effect, sometimes a very small adjustment can make the difference between hearing more detail and squashing a signal too much. I do rely on the visuals of a meter as well as my ears when making these adjustments. For a signal with momentary peaks like a piano with hard hitting tines or a guitar with an aggressive attack I like to just tickle the meter since my goal is to level only those peaks. I listen and watch those attacks on the meter in terms of -db until I get it the best I can. It's all a balance between the signal input level..or how much of the signal  you want to feed to the compressor and what you have determined to do to the signal. Determine ahead of time what your goals are. Don't let the compressor make that decision. Tell the compressor what you want it to do.
 
I have to ask this- Are you using the monitor button on your track? If not....you won't hear the processed sound through the PC and it won't sound like anything is happening.The processing will also produce a very small lag time. On a decent system it probably won't be very noticable, on a system with high latency you will get a delay. Some guitarists prefer a hardware compressor for this reason.
 
 

https://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/infatuation-or-love-sonata-no5
Ok there is a lot of disinformation here, stuff that will only confuse you.  There are two or three people who have responded, who are professionals...Jeff, Rain (even though Rain and I don't get on) they will give you sound advice.  Any one suggesting multi-band for a newb is silly, how can you set a multi-band if you have no clue about compression in the first place.  Boost 11 is designed for limiting, and won't particularly help squash the track in a good way.  Here is my advice and it is gleaned from many years of research, although I am not a profession.
 
First...do you need to compress?  Huh this sounds like a silly question but it is not!  What I want you to do is first go into preferences and in audio preferences change the pan law to minus 3.  This will change your mixes to the point you go wow.  I'm asking you to do this because if you are going to learn to mix the first thing you need to do is make Sonar work like an analogue desk.  Then place the console emulator on all the tracks and buss's.  Make sure you place the buss console emulator on the buss's and the track emulator on the tracks.  This can be used to compress your tracks ever so slightly, shape the tone and fatten bass, even without touching a compressor.  I hope you have producer.  If not, still change pan law.  Pan Law is important, it will give the stereo image a boost, by cutting 3db from the centre and create a wider stereo image. http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR%20X2&language=3&help=Playback.27.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_law
 
After this change the track meters to RMS-24, as Jeff will chime in these meters aren't entirely accurate and he will start talking about VU meters but if you know the RMS meters, then they can be used to predict wether you need to compress.
 
Ok now we can talk about compression, check the bass meter and if the meter is hovering around -18 RMS, then you probably don't need to compress or very little, if it is more than -18, don't reach for the fader, use the trim at the top of the track to get the bass to sit at around the above target.  Here is why I want you to think about Sonar differently.  Sonar and most DAW's are designed to work like an analog desk, huh?  All the rules about summing still apply, hence the reason I told you to change the pan law.  Using the fader only decreases the resolution in digital.  So by using the trim you keep the summing rules and the resolution rules.  If needed only change the fader a few DB and never up.
 
Now if you still think you need to compress, here is  couple of basic settings, although I am struggling to remember them off the top of my head.  I have a manual, given to me by professional's from audio school and the basic principles work.  For bass, use a ratio of 4-6 no more.  10 is limiting and yes you can limit bass with a 10 ratio, the 1176 which is a famous compressor used in the 70's was used this way.  But for a newb, it is too much.  The PC76 is an emulation of this plug and if you have the pro channel then perhaps learn how to use it. http://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=SONAR X2&language=3&help=ProChannel.4.html#1200380
 
However if you don't and all you have is the sonitus one, then learn how to use it.  Here is another quick lesson, all compressors are different, the sonitus one is just a plain vanilla compressor.  I'm using H-Comp by Waves for mastering...very smooth and transparent, check it out and if it comes up for sale at 50 bucks...get it but it has different controls and reacts much differently to sonitus.  For starters it has no gain make-up, it's auto.  It has a punch control which acts like a second attack and it has 4 analogue modes.
 
Ok sorry I digressed, ratio 4-6, attack 10-50 ms, release 100-500...this is the setting I can't remember off the top of my head and it varies again with different compressors.  make-up depends on how much gain reduction, anywhere up to 6db.  These settings are pretty stock standard but will work with the sonitus.  Also set the knee to hard for bass.
 
My advice is first set your levels for all your tracks, get everything sitting at around that -18 RMS mark.  Do this using the trim, then if needed use the fader marginally to balance.  If you have the pro channel use the tape and console emulator's first to see if you can compress this way.  If you have the console emulator, even the tube module is excellent for basic bass compression.
 
Here is the latest mix I've been working on: https://soundcloud.com/aaudiomystiks/infatuation-or-love-sonata-no5 and even though it's a virtual orchestra, the principles still apply.  There is still a little mud on the bottom end, which I am going to fix right now.  EQ here is another misunderstood principle which I suspect you will have questions about.  Again if you have the prochannel the quadcurve is excellent and with a little know how it can make mixes really punch through.
 
Ben