Vocal Compression: In the box vs hardware units

[bladelaw]

Hey guys,

I've always used my UAD plugins for compression on vocals. They sound great, but I'm wondering what kind of difference I could expect by moving to a hardware compressor? Something say, in the 500 series.

Thanks!

[AllAboutTone]

Not to fond of plugs, I might get some URS Eq's at least, I love my 500 series 525s though. Bad ass on vocals.

I do know the stock plugs in PT are crapola.

[henge]

Haven't found a soft plug that comes close to my UBK Fatso! Plus it's great to turn a knob, no undo!

[wist]

good compression seems to be the hardest thing to get from plugs IMHO.

a little outboard may just rock your world.

I've got 525's and Purple Actions in the 500 series, both awesome in their own way.

If you're getting into the 500 series try to fill your rack/lunchbox straight away. I havn't yet filled my rack, so looking at those blanking panels is driving me insane!

[mattg082]

I've had good results with waves api 2500 on the drum buss and cL1b on the kick drum, a little bit of transient designer on the snare if it's itb drums. Vocals CLA LA2a with a great river, api 512 di for instruments. I do a lot of itb synths and the only thing I record otb is vocals,bass,guitar and sometimes a Juno. I'd figure it would benifit on vocals but given I have just a rosetta 200 processing synths or drums sent out would be a bit out of time, time consuming and costly for a stereo pair.

Thought about a distressor or a 527 for the lunchbox but haven't really had a whole lot of hands on with high end compressors in awhile. I don't know if it would just be time consuming and not worth it since I add stuff after the fact usually and what i'm working with. Should I even bother?

[jonathan jetter]

Originally Posted by AllAboutTone

Not to fond of plugs, I might get some URS Eq's at least, I love my 500 series 525s though. Bad ass on vocals.

I do know the stock plugs in PT are crapola.

given about 30 seconds you can make the Digirack EQ III null down to -60 or so against the URS plugs.

as to the original question....it depends what the goal is. for transparent reduction of a couple decibels, i think plugins work fine. for crazy overcompression as an effect, i think plugins can be great too. for mission-critical applications like a lead vocal, bass guitar, drum subgroup, or the 2-bus, hardware has been definitively better in my experience.

[kittonian]

Can't really speak to the whole 500's series thing but my vocal chain consists of the following:

A Designs Hammer -> Purple MC77 -> DBX 160SL -> SPL De Esser

Sounds amazing and plugs don't hold a candle to it. In fact, I just had a major artist in here yesterday and he specifically commented on how amazing the lead vocal sounded.

Hardware really does bring a lot to the table, but only specific hardware, and usually the high end stuff.

[sleeper1400]

i like both.

the real question is, "does it sound good?"

if the answer is yes, then go with it.




i'd also like to add the best kept secret in audio is the ART VLA.


i'd also like to add PT plugs are fine.

[dynamike]

I thought Renn Comp and Renn Vox sounded good. Then I got the UAD1176 and thought that sounded better.

Then I had a friend force me to borrow his Distressor.

I am now the proud owner of a new (used) Distressor.

BELIEVE the hype about hardware vs itb when it comes to compression.
I won't go back to itb.

My .02

Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

[Waltz Mastering]

Originally Posted by bladelaw

I'm wondering what kind of difference I could expect by moving to a hardware compressor?

How do you track with a plug-in compressor?

[MattiaS]

Well, you always must remember when you are processing a track ITB, you're working with binary code... I mean... After the AD, every processes will be just modifications in the order and long of the code that represents the audio... Somtimes better than others... But they are numbers... 'till your DA do the job transforming again in voltage... so you are in the hands of the algorithm of the plug in compresor that your using.... but any way... they are representations...

If you use a nice hardware compressor, you are processing electricty... and from your mic to your AD, it will be always electricity... the processing of the electricity is more.... Mmmm... Continuous if you want... you're changing values in the voltage... and the components of the circuit add their own characteristics to that voltage... adding that "analog" sound...

If you saw in other way.... if you draw a line with a pen... it's gonna be a line... continuous..... BUT if you use a Sacanner to play with that line in Photoshop, well... looks like a line in the computer... but if you do a zoom in... the line is just a number of pixels.... just littlel squares... you can do a curve with the digital line.... but if you zoom in that line It's gonna be the same squares in other order.... but if you draw a curve with a pen... it's gonna be continuous...

After all this boring Speech .... You can use plug ins or hardware... but remember... the plug ins are "representations" of what happen in the analog world... The plug ins are really usefull when you can't buy 100 compressors... and you need them... you can put 100 Comps in your daw... But the Hardware alway will be "the real thing"...

Probably you're gonna get more pleasant results with hardware.... after all it's not a representation...

My 2 cents...

Cheers!

[markrmckee]

Originally Posted by Waltz Mastering

How do you track with a plug-in compressor?

make sure you are in low latency monitoring mode in pro tools, set buffer to about 64 or 32 samples, and you can run a plug while tracking. it rocks!

however, i am a HUGE advocate of running a hardware based compressor to track vocals. commiting to tape on the front end is a huge part of being a good engineer.

[DaVinci]

Originally Posted by markrmckee

make sure you are in low latency monitoring mode in pro tools, set buffer to about 64 or 32 samples, and you can run a plug while tracking. it rocks!

It would be beyond pointless and into the area of brain damage to track through any plug. The only conceivable valid reason for doing the above in any fashion would be monitoring... like if the singer insists on hearing reverb on their voice, etc... but certainly DO NOT under any circumstances record the affected track.

It has already been digitized before the plug, so running it through the plug while tracking would have literally the exact same results as doing it later... except you would lose the ability to undo it if you later discover that your particular settings weren't ideal... all downside... zero upside.

If your system is so lacking that it simply cannot do all the processing you require of it on mixdown, then you may need to do some sort of affected stems or what have you to lighten the load... but at least if it was tracked dry, you can always go back later if you need to make changes.

[work2do]

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

It would be beyond pointless and into the area of brain damage to track through any plug.

May not be your cup of tea but many of your famous "auto-tune effect" artists prefer to track thru the plug-in in HD. They track thru it to get maximum effect of the grab, hold, and slide of the plug with their voice. Other than that and a few other special fx, I don't see the need to track thru plugs when you can monitor thru them.

[dynamike]

My AutoTune clients demand to hear the effect while recording, and for the most part I can understand why. It's not like they are actually singers. I'm talking about rappers here.

I run a tdm system, so while they can hear the effect, it's not actually printed as thy record. I'm not really sure why anyone would ever do that.

Why wouldn't you leave it tweakable afterwards?

The plug sounds identical goin in as does leaving it as an insert.


Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

[warhead]

Once you gain an intuitive control over a hardware compressor / limiter while tracking...you realize how valuable it is over a plug in. Not only does it sound better but a good one will control the dynamic range in a more pleasing way for the most part.

I do use plug ins for mixing.

War

[Mike Brown]

I track vocals through a distressor and then mix them all ITB. I love compressing/EQing to the recorder.

I usually use 3 compressor/limiter plugins on my lead vox tracks.

YMMV.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by MattiaS

If you saw in other way.... if you draw a line with a pen... it's gonna be a line... continuous..... BUT if you use a Sacanner to play with that line in Photoshop, well... looks like a line in the computer... but if you do a zoom in... the line is just a number of pixels.... just littlel squares... you can do a curve with the digital line.... but if you zoom in that line It's gonna be the same squares in other order.... but if you draw a curve with a pen... it's gonna be continuous...

You don't get to "hear" that "pixelation" though.
AFAIK - The waveforms are basically reconstructed at the D/A and during plugin processes.
So a sampled sinewave at 20k doesn't turn into a square/pulse wave by the time it gets to your speakers.

http://www.lavryengineering.com/docu...ing_Theory.pdf

[Audio Enginerd]

Originally Posted by Mike Brown

I track vocals through a distressor and then mix them all ITB. I love compressing/EQing to the recorder.

I usually use 3 compressor/limiter plugins on my lead vox tracks.

YMMV.

Yep, that is exactly what I do most of the time as well.

[dynamike]

Originally Posted by Mike Brown

I track vocals through a distressor and then mix them all ITB. I love compressing/EQing to the recorder.

I usually use 3 compressor/limiter plugins on my lead vox tracks.

YMMV.

Can you guys expand on the type of plugs and settings you would use when stacking multiple comps on a lead vocal? This is new to me.

I track with a Distressor and am very happy doing so. I'll occasionally follow with an RVox or RennComp if I see fit, but 3 comps on one vocal? Doesn't it render the track lifeless with no dynamics?

There's another thread about this too but not much detail.

Sent from my iPod touch using Gearslut

[DaVinci]

Originally Posted by konkaos

May not be your cup of tea but many of your famous "auto-tune effect" artists prefer to track thru the plug-in in HD. They track thru it to get maximum effect of the grab, hold, and slide of the plug with their voice. Other than that and a few other special fx, I don't see the need to track thru plugs when you can monitor thru them.

If I choose a sample rate, and bit depth, and record my voice at, say, 44.1k, 24 bit, the string of ones and zeros leaving the A/D converter, entering your rig, and hitting your DIGITAL autotune plugin is literally, exactly, perfectly identical to the string of ones and zeros coming back off your hard drive should you choose to trigger the plugin later.... non-destructively.

Anyone who tracks through a digital ITB effect is doing so for one reason only... they are misinformed.

[Mr.HOLMES]

Originally Posted by bladelaw

Hey guys,

I've always used my UAD plugins for compression on vocals. They sound great, but I'm wondering what kind of difference I could expect by moving to a hardware compressor? Something say, in the 500 series.

Thanks!

Save yourself the time reading this post and all the opinions.

Buy a hw-compressor try it out yourself!
I bet you will come to the conclusion that sometimes hardware works good and sometimes the plug.ins work good.

There is no problem in using a plug in to me.... even if I own some hardware.

[Daedalus77]

Originally Posted by jonathan jetter

for transparent reduction of a couple decibels, i think plugins work fine. for crazy overcompression as an effect, i think plugins can be great too. for mission-critical applications like a lead vocal, bass guitar, drum subgroup, or the 2-bus, hardware has been definitively better in my experience.

This is on the money. Some compressor plug-ins are great. I throw the Massey CT4 on all sorts of things, and it works wonders. But as the quotation above suggests, "mission-critical" stuff requires (high-end) hardware—sometimes multiple units.

As others have said, you should demo a few units. Once you do, you'll hear it.

My advice would be to start with the MC77. Best "first" high-end compressor purchase, in my opinion.

[teo]

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

If I choose a sample rate, and bit depth, and record my voice at, say, 44.1k, 24 bit, the string of ones and zeros leaving the A/D converter, entering your rig, and hitting your DIGITAL autotune plugin is literally, exactly, perfectly identical to the string of ones and zeros coming back off your hard drive should you choose to trigger the plugin later.... non-destructively.

Anyone who tracks through a digital ITB effect is doing so for one reason only... they are misinformed.

That's usually true, but with Autotune, they want to hear how the plug in will affect (destroy?) their voice later on. They are singing into the plugin, "playing" it in a way. It's much easier than recording flat, and applying AT later on. You never know what you are going to get.

Of course, AT is on the monitor path...not being recorded

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

Anyone who tracks through a digital ITB effect is doing so for one reason only... they are misinformed.

Mmm. Or they are confident enough in their skill to to commit as they track.

[DaVinci]

Originally Posted by teo

That's usually true, but with Autotune, they want to hear how the plug in will affect (destroy?) their voice later on. They are singing into the plugin, "playing" it in a way. It's much easier than recording flat, and applying AT later on. You never know what you are going to get.

Of course, AT is on the monitor path...not being recorded

No, it's always true.

If AT is on the monitor path, then you are NOT tracking through it, and your only issue is latency.

[DaVinci]

Originally Posted by Vogon

Mmm. Or they are confident enough in their skill to to commit as they track.

Are you joking? I find it unbelievable that this many people on here need to look at a flow chart of digital signal flow. You don't seem to realize that you are talking about something with zero upside whatsoever, and the potential downside of causing you to retrack the entire session.

To even suggest that anyone should ever track through (and print destructively via) AT or any other ITB plug within the host system post A/D... is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of digital processing.

If a client comes in and says they want to track through AT, the only logical thing for the engineer to do is to assume the client doesn't understand the details of what they are saying... and then to record non-destructively with AT in the monitor path. The client won't know any different because it is EXACTLY the same from a playback standpoint... they heard AT in the monitor path while they were tracking, they hear it exactly the same in the monitor path as those exact same ones and zeros come off the HD... Exactly what they heard going in is exactly what they'll hear every time it plays... except if there's a phrase or two that comes up as problematic when it's mixed down weeks later, at a $500/hour facility, when the artist is on the other side of the world...

... your name doesn't come up as the single reason everyone's time has been wasted, the artist has to recut the track, etc... and for what? The EXACT same sound either way.

It's not a matter of confidence. It's an IQ test.

[Vogon]

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

Are you joking? I find it unbelievable that this many people on here need to look at a flow chart of digital signal flow. You don't seem to realize that you are talking about something with zero upside whatsoever, and the potential downside of causing you to retrack the entire session.

That's not something I don't get.
I do see your point, but there are people who work very fast, and have enough skills to know exactly what they want as they track - if you don't then yes, you'll potentially have to re-track. That "commit now" mindset was borne from the old days, and is simply a different, and to some, a better way of doing things: It reduces the inclination to think everything is fixable later or produce tracks that need to be fixed later.

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

To even suggest that anyone should ever track through (and print destructively via) AT or any other ITB plug within the host system post A/D... is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of digital processing.

That's a big assumption about other people's skills and understanding...
People have different ways of doing things, that shouldn't really be unbelievable - they may actually have a better understanding than us.

[dynamike]

I'm with CallMeAl on this one.

Even if it is an old school mindset, there is still no point. Just leave it an insert and pretend it's already there. If the song ever needs to get remixed or touched up, at least you'll have the option.

The only thought I can have is DSP or CPU power. If you're layering a ton of AT vocals on separate tracks, it may be beneficial to print the AT on some of those tracks so you don't have to run a ton of hogging plugins on your older/less powerful system.


Posted via the Gearslutz iPhone app

[Mike Brown]

Originally Posted by CallMeAl

Are you joking? I find it unbelievable that this many people on here need to look at a flow chart of digital signal flow. You don't seem to realize that you are talking about something with zero upside whatsoever, and the potential downside of causing you to retrack the entire session.

To even suggest that anyone should ever track through (and print destructively via) AT or any other ITB plug within the host system post A/D... is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of digital processing.

LMAO!!!!!!!



With AutoTune I -kind of- agree... but tracking through TDM plugins to audio tracks is pretty common among professionals.

I do it all the time... with no ill effects.