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On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 9:37 PM, Sergio Girardi <simpliflying@gmail.com>
wrote:
Compressors are good to make an instrument fit into the limited
bandwidth of a recording (compared to our acoustical hearing where the
brain self-adjusts to hear even small sounds in a noisy environment
and thus increasing the experienced bandwidth). Compressore are more
important when producing a recording but can do a lot of good to a
live performance setup as well. Technically a compressor brings up low
level sounds and brings down high level sounds, but one normally
tweaks a compressor to make a groove swing better - or for live
instruments, to make the natural attack envelope of the instrument
stand out well in the PA system.
A limiter does what its name tells: it sets a limit, a level which the
signal can not increase over.
Both compressors and limiters are very sensitive to too much
frequencies in a low or mid range so often you need an EQ before them
to thin out the sound so the compressor will sound groovy.
If a bus that is summing many instruments is sent through a compressor
all these instrument's sound affect each other. An example can be to
but a long 808 type kick and a light hihat pattern through a
compressor: you will then hear that during each kick hit the hihat
level is faded down ("pumping" in the compressor).
A gate is good to set a level under which no signal can enter. A
benefit is that noise is masked out.
> For example, to avoid peaks, distortion, and saturation,what do I need? A
> compressor, a limiter, an EQ, or just set the gain properly? Or a
> combination of those?
Mostly a combination of all that. And correctly tweaked. Applying them
in a different order may give different results, so experimentation
with open ears is the way to learn.
> And if I want do get a punchy round kick drum, or a fat powerful dense
> bass,
> weather from a sample or from a Synth or beatboxing, what do I need (a
> part
> a good sample or synth or voice)?
Having a punchy round kick is not enough, if you don't happen to make
"kick drum music" :-) You need to EQ, or arrange, the other
instruments in the musicalo mix to bring out the "fat", "round" and
"punchy" aspects of the kick.
You mentioned the RNC compressor. I have one of those and think it is
good when run in its Really-Good-Mode. I did an A-B test of it a while
back and found that I get better results with certain software
compressors, but if your aim is to avoid computers the RNC is a lot
bang for the buck.
Greetings from Sweden
Per Boysen
www.perboysen.com
http://www.youtube.com/perboysen