Slow Release- when?

[Noise Commander]

Could you describe different scenarios where you usually use slower release times on a compressor? What sonic goal in mind? What instruments or busses?

I really understand the attack part, but I often end up having a rather fast release. But I saw Pensado use slow releases.

As each compressor is different let's talk about the 1176 as a reference.

If you want to restrict most of the transients you use faster attack times. If you want to retain some snap/punch you use slower attacks. And a fast release stops the compression very fast.
But when to use slow releases?
What sound does that create?

When would you use a faster attack and a slow release on a 1176?

[Sunim Koria]

I use slow releases (500ms - 1sec+) for leveling duties mainly, especially when I want to keep the compression as transparent as possible. Used in combination with a fast attack, slow releases can do a tremendous job of clamping an instrument down into a mix without much effect on its overall dynamic. I find that a slow release in combination with a slow attack is good for "lifting" a sound - the transients are let through/emphasised and the slow release grabs the sustain and tails and lifts them up. The ratio/threshold combination probably need to be fairly transparent though.

I've never had much luck using a 1176 with a fast attack-slow release combination. It's great as an effect but poor for leveling duties because of the hard knee/high ratio - too much potential for pumping. But an LA2A however...

A common procedure is to slam a vocal track into a 1176 (fast attack+release) and follow that with some kind of gentle leveling (slow attack+release) - totally gets it right up there in the mix.

Best,

SK

[Happy Musicfan]

Originally Posted by Sunim Koria

I use slow releases (500ms - 1sec+) for leveling duties mainly, especially when I want to keep the compression as transparent as possible. Used in combination with a fast attack, slow releases can do a tremendous job of clamping an instrument down into a mix without much effect on its overall dynamic.

That's what I suspected, but it's nice to have it confirmed. I guess it kind of lets the instruments really breath, and open up, especially when used with low ratios.


I wonder if anyone ever uses *extremely* slow releases (3-5 seconds) on anything.

And still, I'm p-p-p-p-paranoid about killing transients (drums, electric guitar & bass in standard prog rock mix) when using attack times less than .5 ms.

[Wayne]

Faster releases often result in a more forward sound. True that effect could be partly explained by the slower release being more time in reduced level, but to my ear there's is more to it than that.

[UnDeFiNeD]

in short, faster releases mean more "aggresive" compression.

In long; with a short realease, you force the vca to go directly to unity gain again, after the signal drops below the threshold.
This, depending on material and settings, often ends up audibly distorting the signal (compression ALLWAYS distorts, but in this case it creates steeper vertical slopes to put it in easy term, which results in more audible distortion).

Reverb tails coming from the room the source was recorded in also get drasticly affected by the release setting.
A short release means that the VCA quickly goes back up to unity gain. But seeing that you compressed, means that you also added make up gain at the end.
This results in making the reverb tail much louder than in the original material.

Inversly, by using a long release, the VCA stays down in the reverb tail and slowly comes back up again after a while; making it less audible.

Alex

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by Sunim Koria

I've never had much luck using a 1176 with a fast attack-slow release combination. It's great as an effect but poor for leveling duties because of the hard knee/high ratio - too much potential for pumping. But an LA2A however...

The 1176 is fairly soft knee at the lower ratios, as I understand it, and is set for harder knee mode at the 20:1 ratio. So it's supposedly a semi-soft knee compressor unless you are using it at the higher ratio (again as I understand it and as documented by UA, not saying I've proven it with a scope and test signal.)

But it's stupidly fast so there's not really any such thing as a slow attack on the 1176. Its slowest attack is faster than many other compressors' fastest (800 microseconds according to the documentation, with 20us being its fastest attack speed.)

[Ward Pike]

Note: An LA2a has two main controls - peak reduction and make-up gain. There are no adjustments for attack or release on any of mine.

As to the original question: When you are leveling program material for smoothness and not just attacking peaks.

[Sunim Koria]

Originally Posted by Ward Pike

Note: An LA2a has two main controls - peak reduction and make-up gain. There are no adjustments for attack or release on any of mine.

Rightly so. I was implying that I think of the LA2A as inherently having a fast attack/slow release characteristic.

SK

[jpgerard]

First, depends on what type of comp you're dealing with... an RMS comp with "slow" release will give a different response than a Peak compressor even if you set the release to the same rate (dB/Sec) as the circuit will react to the music very differently... but if we limit the discussion to one type of comp, the slower releases are best kept for levelling, overall level control rather than peak reduction or loudness boost. Using fast release settings is a lot of fun but I'd say that when it comes to mixing, you can play with a signal that's been compressed with slow release and still inject some extra punch in it but once you have a signal that's been compressed with fast release, it's more difficult to "tame" it. As a rule, I guess you could say that faster releases give more punch and bring up room sound and leakage more and slower release times don't let you add punch much but will let you work on your dynamics more when you're mixing/mastering.

[Bob Ross]

Originally Posted by Noise Commander

And a fast release stops the compression very fast.

I think it's really important to think through that and recognize what it means to say that the compression "stops"

...because in most cases, just because the compression stops, that doesn't mean the effect of the compressor stops; in fact, that's usually when it really gets going!

A fast release with nearly any amount of make-up gain means tails and room sounds and all sorts of sundry details get brought forward...all that crap that's not being squashed is now being made louder.

So for me, the contexts where I use slower release times are generaly when I don't want to hear that characteristic "breathing", where I want to more-or-less maintain an instrument's own release character albeit quieter. iow, more as a level control device than an envelope control device (at least as far as the tail end of transients are concerned).