Compression on acoustic mixes lessen "height"?

[Obsolete462444]

I have tried several compressors on the mix bus at various settings (e.g., ratio 2:1 or less, -1 to -3 dB gain reduction, 10ms or greater for the attack to preserve transients) and my general conclusion is that my mix of acoustic instruments sounds more open, particularly in highs without a compressor. Out of the few I tried, TDR Kateinikov sounds the most transparent but still squishes the highs a bit, at least to my ears. In other words, the openness of the track becomes "compressed", losses some of its "height" in the act of adding that so-called "magic" gluing effect of compression on the mix bus.

I am curious if others have experienced the same and generally avoid compressors on the mix bus for acoustic mixes (e.g., Jazz, folk) or have suggestions on a particular compressor or settings for acoustic music. Perhaps, I should stick with saturation plugins to tame the peak levels. They tend to sound better to me than compressors for acoustic music, although not as effective for controlling dynamics. For that, I could rely more on manual volume automation of individual tracks. Thanks

Obviously, you will lose some of the natural dynamic range of your material if you use compression. Slight amounts of compression can still benefit your material though, to make it sound more cohesive. The goal is to glue the elements together, without completely killing the natural dynamics.

If you work on very musical material with many different sections of different loudness, it can make senset to adapt the compressor's settings to the characteristis of each section (for example: relaxed intro with only a piano playing, very low amounts of compression, main part with piano, drums, bass and singer all at the same time: may require more compression to "gel" the various elements...). So if you use 2-Bus compression on the Master channel, adapt the treshold and the other parameters to the needs of the section within the song (you can write automation). Don't just use one compressor setting for the entire song in very musical compositions with many changes.

And also try the free Fircomp. That and Kotelnikov should cover your needs for clean compression.

[Skyfall72]

I could think one compressor plug-in that is excellent with acoustic material ie Sonnox Dynamic. It has an excellent side chain option.
This one you can hardly tell whether the reduction is applied because the sound is still so dynamic even down to 4-6 db gain reduction depends on the material.
Or
Try the Tone Empire Red aka. their version of LA2A this one is very transparent and gentle

[sambaji]

I could think one compressor plug-in that is excellent with acoustic material ie Sonnox Dynamic. It has an excellent side chain option.
This one you can hardly tell whether the reduction is applied because the sound is still so dynamic even down to 4-6 db gain reduction depends on the material.
Or
Try the Tone Empire Red aka. their version of LA2A this one is very transparent and gentle

Sonnox Dynamic is out of my price range. OptoRed, as you suggested, has a nice warmth to it.

[cantaloupe]

Parallell compression is good for maintaining some of that original openness.
Same with unlinked compression.

Try FirComp2, unlinked, and play around with wet % (no lookahead).

But reducing height is literally what compressors do, that is the entire point of a compressor. Height is a property of dynamic range.

[Hermetech Mastering]

Acoustic instruments aren't compressed in real life, so compressing them will make them sound less natural.

It all depends on the mix really. If it's full acoustic Jazz, and it sounds bad to use compression, then don't use it. If it's getting some double tracked, hard panned, strummed acoustic guitars to sit well in a busy electronic pop mix, then compress those as hard as you like to get the sound you are after. Source and mix dependent, innit.

We do fairly stripped back Psych Folk stuff (see my sig) and I use my hardware compressors all over those acoustic guitars with great results, but more for spice/tone than levelling.

[jens]

We do fairly stripped back Psych Folk stuff (see my sig) and I use my hardware compressors all over those acoustic guitars with great results, but more for spice/tone than levelling.

I think using compressors for levelling typically isn't the greatest idea anyway... I'd call that most likely more of a beginner's mistake than anything