Message 2/2
Date: 23-Oct-99 @ 07:37 PM -
RE: Compression question
well how hard you drive it depends on what style and whether it's analog tape or not... with tape, drive it to fuck and ALWAYS listen to the off-tape return, ferget what the meters say in that case, use your ears, cos tape saturation/overload sound great for rockdrums...
with digital this aint possible - you cannot clip the signal, so leave lotsa headroom..... you can add punch to drums by setting a medium comp-ration to begin, a slow attack to allow the intitial transient to bust thru, then a fast decay to shut down the rest of the drum hit decay so it doesnt overload,,,, this add's alot of punch, then mess witth the ratio etc to taste.... if you ahve a choice like with an alesis 3060, don't use soft-knee or RMS for that... use peak if you can although it'll still work with the other types even soft-kneee to an extent... as with digital youve got to allow lotsa headroom i'd add comp' after recording to leave your options open, unless it's live drums played, in which case use compression when you record as normal as well as gates... in the FX-RACK section ther is some basic starter compression ratio's you can try for different types of sounds....