Your fave compressor for tracking v/o

[Dayo]

Just wondering if any of you guys have a favourite hardware compressor for tracking voiceover?

I'm currently using a Distressor which works great on my voice (male), but can sometimes be a little unforgiving on female voices.

Any faves among us?

[apple-q]

I never compress while tracking. You never know how the VO is going to sound in the context of the final mix with all the other atmos, fx, music added so why compress it while recording? You won´t be able to de-compress it while it´s easy to add compression later.

Countless times I´ve received VOs recorded elsewhere that were compressed like for a radio-ad, slammed all way with no dynamics left when it was ment for a feature film. Often to a degree that it was unusable and had to be re-done.

Compression can be done later. Better safe than sorry.

[Dayo]

Originally Posted by apple-q

I never compress while tracking. You never know how the VO is going to sound in the context of the final mix with all the other atmos, fx, music added so why compress it while recording? You won´t be able to de-compress it while it´s easy to add compression later.

Countless times I´ve received VOs recorded elsewhere that were compressed like for a radio-ad, slammed all way with no dynamics left when it was ment for a feature film. Often to a degree that it was unusable and had to be re-done.

Compression can be done later. Better safe than sorry.

Understood. I guess the question is aimed at those of us who work in the radio wars!

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by Dayo

Understood. I guess the question is aimed at those of us who work in the radio wars!

I see. I guess that´s something different then.


;-)

[Dayo]

Originally Posted by apple-q

I see. I guess that´s something different then.


;-)

Well, yes and no. The "right" approach is obviously not to track with compression - even for radio. But many of us in the trenches find that 2 to 4 dB of compression on the way in gives a little extra fatness and competitive edge. Add another few dB of compression in the mix and it can often be a good recipe.

[ruy]

Manley Stereo ELOP

[danno812]

I never compress while tracking VO or recommend it. Any perceived benefit from doing so can certainly be achieved during mixing.

[Yoda117]

Originally Posted by danno812

I never compress while tracking VO or recommend it. Any perceived benefit from doing so can certainly be achieved during mixing.

+1

There are a few compressors I like to use with my VO, but none are used when tracking.

More often than not, your clients don't want that either when you're recording from home.

Are you talking about using this for auditions, broadcasting/announcing, or actual bookings? Broadcasting/accouncing is one thing, but anything else should be done during mixing... most bookings I get from clients who had a problem with their original talent are usually because they didn't understand this fact.

[Neil Whippey]

I use a Focusrite Red 7 - but all the dynamics are in bypass, except for the occasional bit of de-essing. i prefer to record giving myself 10db of headroom and then compress afterwards depending on what I'm doing...

For TV and radio I 2 stage compress. First compressor does most of my actual compressing and then the second just takes the peaks and is used more for colouration. If it's for film then I'm likely to want more dynamics in there but it really depends on the voice talent.

Neil

[Rick Sanchez]

I'm another who very rarely uses compression in VO recording and usually only on very inexperienced talent.
Many of us don't have that much control anymore not that it's all ISDN VO. Don't ya just love that mp3? Some of the newer boxes use AACPlus, which I have not heard, but who knows what the VO artists are doing on their end. Most of them have set it and forget it systems. Most of them can do overall level adjustments, but there are a couple of big name VO artists who use a lot of signal processing. To me it sounds horrible, but it's what the client wants.

[Yoda117]

Originally Posted by Rick Sanchez

. Most of them can do overall level adjustments, but there are a couple of big name VO artists who use a lot of signal processing. To me it sounds horrible, but it's what the client wants.

This is a great quote, because as a voice talent it comes down to what your client wants. The easiest way (IME) to do that is to provide two tracks: the original (which I track clean) and one with some processing (if I feel it's needed). If you have your stuff down, it doesn't add much time to the process and it gives your client the choice of sending off the clean audio (to do with as they please) or to use the processed track.

Part of the gig is that it's a service industry. Know your clients' pressure points and you'll usually be a-ok.

[santacore]

I guess I'm against the grain, because I like to use light compression going in. For a straight ahead VO I might now hit it much, but for games or ADR I always have something in line. Most of the time I'll just use the Digi compressor, since that's what most facilities have. When I bring my own rig I'll use my Buzz audio or an Presonus ACP22(thanks TVPostSound!) depending on the project.

[Rick Sanchez]

Originally Posted by santacore

I guess I'm against the grain, because I like to use light compression going in. For a straight ahead VO I might now hit it much, but for games or ADR I always have something in line. Most of the time I'll just use the Digi compressor, since that's what most facilities have. When I bring my own rig I'll use my Buzz audio or an Presonus ACP22(thanks TVPostSound!) depending on the project.

ADR and games, I'll usually have one available too. With ADR, it's just trying to match production. With games and animation, you never know when the talent might go from a whisper to a scream, so it can be very helpful. Announcers, at least the good ones usually have great mic technique and have a lot of control over their dynamics, so the less I have to put in the chain, the better. I can always compress or limit as needed later.

[Brent Hahn]

Pretty much everything we record gets mixed by us as well.

We almost always compress just a little going in, with dbx 160X's or XT's. Not that you can even hear it working, but if you don't do it, you have all these annoying little peaky spots and phrase-ends that dive off the table, and the only remedies are a bunch of fader jinking and/or a plug-in compressor that does what the dbx would have done in the first place, only worse.

For ISDN jobs, we have the compressor patched in but bypassed, and if things get hairy we ask the folks on the receiving end if they want us to compress a little.

[philper]

For me, just a little peak limiting in case the talent gets excited (esp w/ non-pros). On the subject of VO talent doing signal processing in their own studios as they record--I have had some recently that was REALLY over done, probably because all concerned liked how it sounded on its own at the time. Of course, they weren't listening to it in the context of the eventual mix, for which I had to do a great deal of work to that VO to make it "sit down" in the whole soundtrack. A few years ago I did an entire series with a self-recorded voice talent into that kind of thing who would not change anything about his method for our show--instead he would drop long lists of names of Famous Facilities that had been Thrilled With His Tracks. Eventually I gave up and basically "reverse-engineered" his signal processing back into something I could sort of live with.

Philip Perkins

[santacore]

Yeah, an 1176 in the wrong hands can do some serious damage. Ugh!

ISDN sessions can be the easiest and/or the most frustrating VO sessions I've dealt with. There's nothing like getting endless p-pops, mouth clicks, sibilance, over-compression, and having little you can do about it as it goes down.

[soundguydave]

Originally Posted by danno812

I never compress while tracking VO or recommend it. Any perceived benefit from doing so can certainly be achieved during mixing.

I've never understood this mentality. There are numerous benefits to processing while tracking, for one, you don't have to do it later, two, its recorded to the track, so you can't lose the settings later on, and three, if your client is sitting in the room with you, you want the VO to sound as good as possible during the recording process, so I'll even tweak some EQ. I'm not talking very drastic eq or compression, but if it sounds good now, why wouldn't it sound good later? If the VO sounds great during your recording, the client won't start second guessing themselves and get down on the VO. The auditions they heard we're probably eq'd and compressed too.

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

I'm not talking very drastic eq or compression, but if it sounds good now, why wouldn't it sound good later? If the VO sounds great during your recording, the client won't start second guessing themselves and get down on the VO. The auditions they heard we're probably eq'd and compressed too.

I´m talking film here:

This discussion is similar to an older argument about wether loacation mixers should EQ or compress their audio on set.

Their main point was:
-If it sounds good to them on set why do it later?
-If you can do it on set why forward the work to post?
-The director will be happier during the shoot when he watches the dailies with a scratch-track.

All similar to what you´re saying.

My point is:

-When you´re recording single raw elements (be it VO, FX or location sound) there´s no way for you to know in what sound-context in the final mix the elements will end up like or sound like. You are doing EQ and cmpression "al gusto" to your taste in a situation where all other sound elemets are in a rough stage at best, if at all there.
This is not about you being skilled or not. You simply can not know how much compression or EQ could be too much. We all know the effect when you listen to a great music-mix and then you solo the kick-drum and it will sound like butt on it´s own but awesome when you un-solo.
-About the director being happier during the recording: He might turn into the exact oposite later on the mixing stage when the compression you added turns out to be unusable.
-About the time-saving aspect: Where´s the time saving when you have to reverse-enginieer an unusable compression during the mix compared to compressing the VO for the first time spot on during the final mix?

Like someone pointed out earlier: At least record an untreated second track to give the final mixer a chance to fall back to that if necessary. if the treated track is good, fine, everyone will be happy and come back for the next film.

Your milage might vary here depending on what kind of branch you´re recording for.

The above was strickly referring to film work.

[soundguydave]

Originally Posted by apple-q

I´m talking film here:

This discussion is similar to an older argument about wether loacation mixers should EQ or compress their audio on set.

Their main point was:
-If it sounds good to them on set why do it later?
-If you can do it on set why forward the work to post?
-The director will be happier during the shoot when he watches the dailies with a scratch-track.

All similar to what you´re saying.

My point is:

-When you´re recording single raw elements (be it VO, FX or location sound) there´s no way for you to know in what sound-context in the final mix the elements will end up like or sound like. You are doing EQ and cmpression "al gusto" to your taste in a situation where all other sound elemets are in a rough stage at best, if at all there.
This is not about you being skilled or not. You simply can not know how much compression or EQ could be too much. We all know the effect when you listen to a great music-mix and then you solo the kick-drum and it will sound like butt on it´s own but awesome when you un-solo.
-About the director being happier during the recording: He might turn into the exact oposite later on the mixing stage when the compression you added turns out to be unusable.
-About the time-saving aspect: Where´s the time saving when you have to reverse-enginieer an unusable compression during the mix compared to compressing the VO for the first time spot on during the final mix?

Like someone pointed out earlier: At least record an untreated second track to give the final mixer a chance to fall back to that if necessary. if the treated track is good, fine, everyone will be happy and come back for the next film.

Your milage might vary here depending on what kind of branch you´re recording for.

The above was strickly referring to film work.

Well the OP was asking about voice over, which is what i was referring to.

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by Rick Sanchez

Announcers, at least the good ones usually have great mic technique and have a lot of control over their dynamics, so the less I have to put in the chain, the better.

The good ones have built in compressors called experience...

If I'm on the receiving end, I always spec no compression during tracking unless I know and trust the engineer. I won't admit it often but I do compress on the way in sometimes if the particular talent needs it (IOW if I need it to make my job easier). Very gentle just to smooth things out, if I can hear it I back it off. So I'm not picky about which compressor it is as long as its fairly transparent.

[apple-q]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

Well the OP was asking about voice over, which is what i was referring to.

Me too. There´s VO in movies, TV, commercials, radio plays, games, radio etc. etc. I was referring to voice-overs recorded for a movie. I just wanted to comment on your points and compared them with an argument I had earlier with a location mixer who made almost the same points like you.
I was comparing that to the solo-bass-drum example. Who needs the perfect solo bass-drum if it doesn´t sound good with the rest of the music?

;-)

[josh broome]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

you want the VO to sound as good as possible during the recording process.

I completely agree with that! No matter what you're actually recording (clean/processed), at least let the producers hear it sounding great during the session, keep them happy. thumbsup

[danno812]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

you want the VO to sound as good as possible during the recording process,

Great talent do.

[Dayo]

Maybe it's just me, but a couple of passes at 2 dB GR always sounds better than a single pass of 4 dB.