Rick's Articles

Audio Technology - Volume 2 : Issue 2
Manic Compression Today is one of those days. You know the kind? You're just minding your own business, doing the things that keep food on the table, fighting the good fight, yadda yadda... Anyway, because it's the Festive Season, it's time to catch up with friends, get kissed by relatives, do a little reflective thinking and maybe even make a few resolutions.

Christmas is a lot of people squeezed into my life in a short period of time, and I'm sure if I compressed all of them into one sentence it would probably read, 'bah humbug'.

I don't like Christmas much. It's not a huge problem, I just don't like the falseness of it all. I don't like everybody stressing out trying to be jolly, and I don't like everybody pretending to know exactly what it's all about. Just once I'd like to hear someone say, "I'm sure there's more to this", or, "I just don't get it".

Anyway, Christmas isn't the only thing that's had me confused year in and year out. I've never been able to work out why my mobile phone drops out at precisely the wrong time, why my bank never rings with good news, why I still track with NS10s, why girls yell, or why - when I supposedly have one of the coolest jobs on the planet - I always seem to find myself alone at 3:00am soldering a new lead for a 9:00am session.

But the one thing that really gets me, the one that really stings, is why nobody I know is ever going to own up about compression. Let's face it - it's a new year, a new decade, a new century and a new millennium. It's time to 'fess' up. How many of us actually know what a compressor really does?

I'm sure you're all thinking, "He ain't talking to me, I know about compression. It's the dynamic range thingy that compresses and limits stuff, it squishes things. It's that box with the meters and knobs that I use every day or the plug-in that I turn on all the time. It's that way cool looking thing that I set until it doesn't sound bad and then I worry about it all day. It's that thing that makes me fight with musicians, or maybe it's that thing I leave up to the mastering guy because he must have better compressors then me. It's that thing I'm always prepared to buy more of because the ones I have ain't so good... Yeah compression, it's easy stuff, I could talk about it all day". Sure pal, sure...

I'll bet most of you haven't got a clue what a compressor sounds like, and if you do it won't offend you that I'm throwing mud, because compression is really tricky stuff. Compression is based on a fairly esoteric principle that says you can make something sound louder by making it softer when it wants to be loud. Hmmmm...

I've been making major release records for my whole adult life and one of the principle building blocks of recording is also the most maligned tool I know. I'm not going to bore you with the technical details how a compressor works. What I want to talk about is what a compressor sounds like, I mean, what it really sounds like, and that is no easy task.

Let me confess something: I worked for about five years using compressors on thousands of records before I got it figured out (you know that thing where everybody else is doing it so you've got to do it too?). I figured you just turned the knobs until it didn't sound bad and then left them alone. I worked for years like that and I was praised for the results. This is how most people use compressors, like one big poker bluff hoping that nobody is ever going to ask to see the cards.

If you're using a compressor right, ain't nobody going to fight you about the sound of the bass or the crack of the drums, nobody is going to talk about dynamic range or what radio needs, they are just going to say "things are sounding good" or maybe, "whatever you've done, just keep on doing it". If you're using compression the right way it will be your secret friend and not your constant enemy.

As I said, I was just bluffing my way through, blaming my tools and searching for a better compressor, until one day when I was trying out a stand-alone SSL compressor, something clicked somewhere in the dark recesses of my brain. It was like somebody flicked a switch, and let me tell you it was some revelation. I could hear compression - actually hear it! I'm not talking about hearing it go wrong, we can all do that.

One day, after five years, when I wasn't thinking about it too much, it was like instant compression Technicolor. Suddenly it was "oh, so that's what they're talking about, that is what the ratio knob does". So if you're thinking that you're almost sure you can hear compression... bzzz... wrong! It's just like those multiple orgasms, if you think you might have had one then you haven't had one. The sound of compression is not a subtle thing. If you're thinking it' subtle, beware! Turn the knobs some more and really have a listen. Nowadays I don't think of compression as dynamic range control, but as sonic glue, a building tool - it's absolutely essential in holding together a record, it's the only way to get all that sound onto one of those shiny little discs.

Forget about all the analogue versus digital wars, forget about not having high enough resolution in your converters. Figure out what compression sounds like and you will increase your sonic skill a hundredfold. Your records will be radically better forever.

But there's more then one type of compression and, as I said, it's a lot like glue. If you use Tarzan's Grip to stick your Star Trek Enterprise model together then you're going to get a soggy sticky mess, but if you use Airfix plastic cement it will work nicely and be ready for display from your studio ceiling (well, maybe not my studio ceiling). Just as different things need different glues to bond them, you need different types of compression for different sounds.

Nowadays I can identify different compressors within a mix, the same way as I can identify different guitars or keyboards. You know the sound of a Stratocaster compared to a Les Paul? Or a Prophet 5 compared to a DX7? It's the same story with compressors. Urei, dbx, SSL, Neve, Manley, TC Electronic, etc, each has their own sonic footprint, and sometimes one box can have several sonic footprints. It's the way those sounds interact when combined with all the other sounds that makes them so cool.

In my world the recording chain goes microphone, preamp, compressor, then recorder. It's a scary day when I EQ to tape, but I compress nearly everything, always. I use different compressors on different sounds, rather than using the same compressor with different settings. When I mix, then maybe I'll use some EQ, probably a compressor, definitely a mix bus compressor or two. When I master I'll probably add some EQ and then even more compression. Even with all that compression nobody in the last 10 years has ever said to me that any of my records sound really compressed. (In case you're not aware, "really compressed" is generally an insult.)

The sound of top-flight records is usually the sound of compressors sizzling away. And, the most popular big time 'must have' sound is an SSL console - the whole damn thing is one huge mother of a multi-channel compressor. Every single channel has several VCA’s that control the sound even if the compressors are turned off. So if you really want that 'top flight' sound just mix on an SSL console. If you haven't got an SSL and still want that sound, then fake it and fool everybody - get an SSL stereo compressor and put it over the stereo mix of whatever console you're using. It's instant SSL, and it's unmistakable! Try it on a Neve console and you'll get the two best mixing combinations I know of: the tone of Neve and the sheen of SSL. Run that into a Fairchild or a Manley compressor and you can probably put your feet up - you won't want to remix that track ever, and if you can hear the compression it will be marvellous.

I know a few people who feel the same as I do about compressors and as a rule they consistently make good sounding records, and that's the clue. They're walking on Planet Compression, their mixes are consistent! Which indicates they are listening to what their compressors are doing. Actually, not just listening, but hearing.

These people are in a different head space to the rest of the audio population. Where do you stand? On Planet Compression, or out in orbit somewhere wondering why you can't touch down without crashing every time?

It's a tough call, but let's be honest. Can you hear compression when it's sounding good? Can you adjust it to sound even better? Judging by the sound of most records in the last 10 years, the answer is, 'no!'. People just don't know what compressors do. There wouldn't be so much talk about them if we did, and there wouldn't be so many new compressors on the market. And boy, are there a lot of new compressors floating around.

The thing is, I don't even know what lit my own personal compression awakening, because I knew what a compressor did long before I ever heard it. But what I do know, it that I've heard people misuse, abuse or neglect to use compressors and then lust for a better model. The whole process of recording is compressing all that sound into a replayable medium to be pushed out some paper speakers. It's really kind of magic when you think about it.

Compression is my friend and trusted ally. How do you feel about compressors? Do you trust them? Do you hear what they do? Perhaps if you just admit you don't, turn them all off and then turn them on again one at a time, you might get this compression thing whipped.

The people who get compression right manage to make loud, spacious, deep and sonorous mixes which are a pleasure to turn up louder and louder. As for the ones who don't know how to get it right? Well, you know the score, their mixes are distorted, squished, flat, thin and horrible. They give compression its bad name.

I'm tired of reading about how modern mastering destroys all the dynamic range, how a good compressor is a dead compressor, and how it's a great tool if used subtly, but if you abuse it, it sucks. That's all crap. The question is, can you hear it?

I don't care about dynamic range any more then I care about Christmas. I just know I need some, I know what it feels like without some, and I know when I've got to leave some lying around for the older folks...

It's a new millennium, a time for resolutions, and I think Lenny Kravitz kinda nailed it among his manic doses of compression when he said, "Are you gonna go my way?".

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