10 commercial compressors compared in a dance context

[hifiboom]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....


just did an small example to show you:(may not be a best track in a musical way)

But you easily hear: when kick comes every other sound drops volume....

So there is much compression, but it does not completly destroy the sound of the song:

http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/sidechain.wma

[bmanic]

c01: Compadre
c02: 1975
c03: G
c04: SV-315
c05: 1980
c06: GUP-1
c07: Am-Track
c08: Marquis
c09: 1970
c10: MixPressor

I'm very pleased to see my favourite was voxengo marquis! It's an incredible compressor, for sure!

Cheers!
bManic

[dr. orange]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....


just did an small example to show you:(may not be a best track in a musical way)

But you easily hear: when kick comes every other sound drops volume....

So there is much compression, but it does not completly destroy the sound of the song:

http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/sidechain.wma

dood, to be honest, that's just plain ugly, no really I wanna smack my head on the table, how can anyone do something like this?

[fgimian]

All my guesses were incorrect lol ... Who would have thought that Marquis sounded better than the lot ? WOW !! IT was the only one with that "deep" sound, I honestly thought that was the Sonalksis ! Very very surprised

Fots

[hifiboom]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....


just did an small example to show you:(may not be a best track in a musical way)

But you easily hear: when kick comes every other sound drops volume....

So there is much compression, but it does not completly destroy the sound of the song:

http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/sidechain.wma

dood, to be honest, that's just plain ugly, no really I wanna smack my head on the table, how can anyone do something like this?

it was just some ruff composing to show the sidechain ad how it works....

not to win your personal contest...

so keep cool

don't do damage to your head because of this.

[kmonkey]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....


just did an small example to show you:(may not be a best track in a musical way)

But you easily hear: when kick comes every other sound drops volume....

So there is much compression, but it does not completly destroy the sound of the song:

http://home.arcor.de/soundspace1/reverb/sidechain.wma

dood, to be honest, that's just plain ugly, no really I wanna smack my head on the table, how can anyone do something like this?

It was just fine example to me. You probably wont use sidechain in orchestra do you?

[hifiboom]

I don think so, with orchestral music you need maximum dynamics...
so I would not use compressors too much on this...


I thought this thread was about dance context.

[defjamm]

whoever bases his opinion on a 'comparison' like this is an idiot imho.

I don't see why. For me, the URS1975 sounded the best, where i tried to get the same, great result with with my Kjaerhus GCO-1 - and it wasn't not possible to sound as clear as the URS - for THIS specific loop(!). I would have tried the URS1975 on other stuff as well to see if its really good on other material as well... so in a sese this comparison made sense for me as i tried to match the best result to my ears with my favourite plugin.

btw i wasn't criticizing alien leg or this thread...this sort of threads can be entertaining and alien leg invested some time to do it...but one compressed loop, done by somebody else imho doesn't tell that much...you have to try it yourself on your material with your settings over a period of time to really know a comp imho.

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....

Agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
other little thought: sometimes sidechain is not enought. A lot of "pumping" fx on commercial songs was achieved using daw automation. For example you cut every bass measure in quarters, and using fades you fade a bit the bass exactly when kick is playing. You do the same thing for pads, synths and the other tracks.
Using daw automation + sidechain + a bit of mastering compression you get easily clean and pumping dance songs. Just to make an example "hung up" or "togheter". There is nothing new here, this kind of compression is used in dance since a long time, especially in french house productions (stardust, modjo, superman lovers, sophie ellis bextor), then emulated sometime ago by italian productions (benassi), then from sweden prod (axwell) before her (jacque lu cont)

[jess123]

for Dance tracks you have to use the compression with side chain....

If you put compression over the whole track too much it sounds like crap....

Agreed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
other little thought: sometimes sidechain is not enought. A lot of "pumping" fx on commercial songs was achieved using daw automation. For example you cut every bass measure in quarters, and using fades you fade a bit the bass exactly when kick is playing. You do the same thing for pads, synths and the other tracks.
Using daw automation + sidechain + a bit of mastering compression you get easily clean and pumping dance songs. Just to make an example "hung up" or "togheter". There is nothing new here, this kind of compression is used in dance since a long time, especially in french house productions (stardust, modjo, superman lovers, sophie ellis bextor), then emulated sometime ago by italian productions (benassi), then from sweden prod (axwell) before her (jacque lu cont)

I never quite hear any mix engineer using side-chain on rock/metal mix (such as for the bass guitar and kick). Is this a fair statement? (Side chain in Cubase is hard, ...anyway).

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

I never quite hear any mix engineer using side-chain on rock/metal mix (such as for the bass guitar and kick). Is this a fair statement? (Side chain in Cubase is hard, ...anyway).

the topic is about a dance context. Dance projects are pattern based, so a daw automation is pretty quick and easy (in general a bass line loops every 2 or 4 measures). I use this tecnique since a long time. In a daw anyway you could copy automation easily between tracks and measures. In a smart daw you could select a single fade, move it and all the other fades change. I prefer daw automation because:
1) it is clean
2) you control that for example a track
is faded 'exactly' when your kick is playing
3) you make easily parallel compression simply doubling your automated track with the original with a different gain, so you control the effect in a simple way

after daw automation a bit of compression on your master buss will glue the result, but everything will be clean.

In a rock context instead (I mix pop too and it is really similar for something) the concept is a lot different. You start from the drum and the bass and you make them breathe tuning carefully attack and release. Reverb on the snare should stop before the next sample. Here tuning reverb decay time and synchronizing it to your song is very very important. Daw automation on rock doesn't make sense.
Here parallel compression is very important because you need controlled bottom frequencies, but without loosing punch. In any case you don't use sidechain too much, only good compressors (for example L2A, dbx)

[bmanic]

The thing is, for rock music and such, side chain was used quite a lot before there was full, sample accurate automation, but now with modern audio workstations there is really no need (except if you are lazy) to use side chaining as you can automate everything accurately.

Dance music and genres that need to pump to underline the main rythm it's easiest to use proper sidechaining. Remeber, the side chain signal doesn't even have to be heard. It can be a good idea to specifically synthesise a sidechain signal to ones needs. The lenght and "shape"/decay of the synthesised signal controls the way the sidechain reacts.

Just some thoughts on the matter.

Cheers!
bManic

[fgimian]

The thing is, for rock music and such, side chain was used quite a lot before there was full, sample accurate automation, but now with modern audio workstations there is really no need (except if you are lazy) to use side chaining as you can automate everything accurately.

Dance music and genres that need to pump to underline the main rythm it's easiest to use proper sidechaining. Remeber, the side chain signal doesn't even have to be heard. It can be a good idea to specifically synthesise a sidechain signal to ones needs. The lenght and "shape"/decay of the synthesised signal controls the way the sidechain reacts.

Just some thoughts on the matter.

Cheers!
bManic

This is very interesting advice, thanks bManic. I must admit that I've never used sidechaining in any of my rock or trance tunes, I don't really find it necessary + it's a PITA to do in Cubase ... and besides, SL3 can't do it lol ...

Would LOVE to see Marquis with sidechaining soon !!

Fots

[fgimian]

P.S.: The closest compressor I have found to the Marquis is the FREE Mdspcompressor which is one of the best compressors out there for free and beats a lot of commercial ones too.

Just doing some tests now and it comes relateively close to the sound of the Marquis, not quite as good, but extremely close in a lot of regards.

Fots

[Zaphod (giancarlo)]

Remeber, the side chain signal doesn't even have to be heard.

true. Sometimes is just a tool for glueing better tracks. There are interesting products from elevayta based on the same principle, but not only focused on dynamics (they works also with the frequency content). But you are right, sidechain today is less important than before, since daw automation gives the cleanest result possible (minimizing distortion)