Are you tired of singers who want you to keep adding more compression to their vocals?
Did you (or your client) hear a nasty rumor that ALL vocals are supposed to be slamming the meter on the compressor?
Rather than trying to accomplish all your “squishing” with just one compressor Fab Dupont shows you how to use multiple compressors, in a more civilized manner, to get a great compressed tone and level without such a smothered sound.
From peak limiting to gently compressing, Fab goes deep into the art of compression. He shows you how to compress vocals using both the classic holy chain of vocal compression (1176 into a LA-2A) and a powerful modern day compressor (the Dangerous Music Compressor).
Then Fab follows his ear and turns a compressor into a de-esser using the compressor's sidechain input.
00:00:09 Today we're going to talk about
advanced vocal compression.
00:00:12 Uh la la!
We're not gonna try and advance
the cause of compression.
00:00:16 It seems to advance it's own
cause very well by itself.
00:00:19 What we're gonna
do is advance our cause
in the realm of compression.
00:00:23 You might find yourself in
the middle of a mix,
when and unscrupulous
artist, probably a singer
will push you to over compress
their vocal.
00:00:32 What does one do?
Does on react, push back,
scream, form a union, give up? No.
00:00:39 One does like the bamboo,
pushes back gently
but sways with the wind.
Let me show you.
00:00:45 Here's a vocal, uncompressed,
by the amazing Will Knox.
00:00:54 The number one vocal compressor
in the history of the universe
is the 1176.
00:00:58 Here's a fantastic rendition
by Universal Audio.
00:01:01 So, let's over compress it.
00:01:04 Let's over compress it more.
00:01:12 Without.
00:01:18 And with.
00:01:23 Without.
00:01:29 And with a lot of compression
from the 1176.
00:01:37 There's a smothered
quality to it.
00:01:39 Listen to the first phrase, the
thickness of it, and the last phrase.
00:01:48 So it's compressed, and it's there.
00:01:50 But it doesn't have any texture.
00:01:52 And my attack is not even
at the fastest setting.
00:01:54 I see a lot of people compressing
vocals this way.
00:02:01 It's just not happening.
00:02:03 So if you open it like this,
you get a little bit of presence.
00:02:10 But then it creates artifacts.
00:02:12 As a reminder, the clean
version is like this.
00:02:19 See that presence, that texture?
That's all gone.
00:02:22 So, you can compress the
hell out of this and get a steady level.
00:02:26 But it doesn't have
the same feeling.
00:02:28 Other people use an LA-2
instead. It sounds like this.
00:02:33 Obviously it's too loud and
doesn't compress enough
let's compress for real.
00:02:42 Raw.
00:02:47 With.
00:02:54 So the warmth is interesting
but all those artifacts and the attacks
are not interesting and this
thing is stuck with one attack.
00:03:01 Well, over the years people
have tended
to over compress the hell out of
their vocal with an 1176.
00:03:06 Flatten it like a pancake, put
it out and move on to the next record.
00:03:10 But we're not that kind of people.
00:03:12 The more discerning people
said: "Wait...
00:03:15 what if we combined both?"
The flattening capability
of the 1176
and the warm fuzzy
feeling of the LA-2.
00:03:24 So here I have an 1176 that
I set up as a peak limiter.
00:03:28 The attack is very fast,
if you remember,
7 is fast on an 1176.
The release is fast.
00:03:35 And the ratio is at 20:1
which means
all those peaks are gonna get
slapped really quickly.
00:03:40 And I'm just gonna do a little
bit of slapping like this.
00:03:47 Without.
00:03:52 With.
00:03:59 Notice that we gain a little bit
of body. Why is that?
Because at the same level,
the peaks are tucked in
and I'm able to push
it in a little bit.
00:04:06 And I'm attempting to listen to both
more or less at the same level.
00:04:09 So that's a good first step,
but it still kind of
hovers a little bit.
00:04:13 So let's put a LA-2 after, in series,
right after the 1176.
00:04:25 That's nice.
00:04:26 I'll play it again with just the 1176
in peak control mode
than 1176 and LA-2.
00:04:43 So we get the peak control
and we get this body,
the steadiness from the LA-2
on top of the 1176.
00:04:49 This is great, let's listen to
the raw versus both in a row.
00:04:54 This is raw.
00:05:01 Listen to the space
in between the word,
the steadiness of the whole phrase
and the consistency from
phrase to phrase.
00:05:08 Flat.
00:05:16 With.
00:05:23 You get the steadiness,
you get the peak control
but you get color too.
00:05:27 Even if you compress a little
bit less here on the LA-2
you're still gonna get color.
00:05:36 Without anything.
00:05:42 With the two of them.
00:05:49 That's very useful and
it does the trick.
00:05:52 Color notwithstanding.
00:05:53 But this is how people have been
doing this for years on pop records.
00:05:56 If you have a transparent compressor
you can do the same thing
without the color, let me show you.
00:06:02 For this purpose I'm gonna use
a Dangerous compressor,
which is a piece of hardware
that I love dearly,
and for disclosure, I had a
hand in designing it,
so it does exactly what
I want it to do.
00:06:13 So I inserted my Dangerous
compressor onto my vocal,
using a Pro Tools
Insert I/O thing.
00:06:19 And what I did is I ran a vocal
first to the top compressor,
which I'll use as my limiter,
and then, back in the same box,
to the bottom compressor.
00:06:29 Because this is a dual mono
or stereo compressor
I'm gonna use it in dual mono.
00:06:34 So the top will be my limiter,
replacing my 1176,
and the bottom will be my
compressor replacing the LA-2.
00:06:41 The difference is that this is
a very transparent compressor
so I should be able to
do the exact same trick,
get the same control,
but not get the color.
00:06:49 So, let's just set up
the limiter. Like this.
00:06:52 And I'm gonna leave the compressor
on 1:1 ratio with no gain.
00:06:56 That way, I don't have to hear
what the bottom does.
00:06:59 And you can see here,
with that little...
00:07:02 Comp LED when this comes on,
the detector is being triggered,
so you know when it sees level
that concerns it.
00:07:15 Obviously that's too much.
00:07:16 So I'm gonna let it go.
00:07:22 And with.
00:07:28 It gets a little steadier, right?
I'll play it again without.
00:07:35 With.
00:07:41 I should give it a tiny
bit of gain.
00:07:48 Without.
00:07:54 So there is absolutely no
difference in color
because it's transparent but
you get that steadiness going on.
00:07:59 So now let's set up the bottom.
00:08:02 I'll choose 2:1.
00:08:09 I'm gonna add some gain
to compensate for the loss of gain
from the compression. Right?
Without.
00:08:17 With.
00:08:23 So this is raw.
00:08:37 I could compress a little more.
00:08:48 Without.
00:08:54 Listen to the texture of the vocal
without compression. Check it out.
00:09:02 And with.
00:09:09 Amazing presence, right?
It's right there but
there's no color.
00:09:13 It would be interesting to compare
the hardware and the software,
not in a competition spirit but just
to see the difference
between a colored path
and a clean path. For example,
this is the Dangerous
we just heard.
00:09:28 And this is the two old school
compressors in a row.
00:09:37 Interesting, isn't it?
The Dangerous was a little softer
so I'm gonna raise the level a little.
00:09:41 Check it out.
This is the vintage.
00:09:50 Modern.
00:09:57 Interestingly enough,
in this case,
the modern device
is fatter and steadier
than the combination of the
two old school devices, which is
probably counterintuitive and
contrary to whatever you read online.
00:10:09 Listening to this makes me
wanna show you another interesting
advanced compression trick.
00:10:16 If you listen carefully
to this vocal...
00:10:18 Raw...
00:10:20 The main problem is the S.
00:10:27 The Ss are so loud they are disconnected
from the actual body of the sound.
00:10:32 It's S and it's band.
00:10:33 And I don't like that.
00:10:34 And it's gonna be
a problem in the mix.
00:10:36 It's already a problem in compressing
so I can't even imagine when I start
Eqing to match with other bright stuff.
00:10:42 So what I'm gonna do is set up this
compressor as a super nuclear de-esser
to get rid of those Ss.
Let me show you.
00:10:50 This compressor has
and external side-chain function.
00:10:55 So I duplicated my vocal track,
I called it side-chain.
00:10:59 I put an EQ on it, I'll tell
you why in a second,
and I'm sending the
output of that track
to a different output of my rig.
00:11:06 Which is fed to the input
of the side-chain of this compressor.
00:11:09 Since this is advanced
vocal compression
I'm assuming you know what
a side-chain input is for a compressor.
00:11:17 You go refer to that video please
and come back our way.
00:11:21 OK. So...
00:11:23 Now.
I have my vocal,
I have duplicated my vocal,
which I'm sending
to the side-chain.
00:11:29 I'm gonna hit external
side-chain here.
00:11:31 So now, the compressor
is no longer listening to
it's input
to figure out what to do.
00:11:36 It's listening to an external
input and that external input,
I have control over.
00:11:42 So...
00:11:43 I'm gonna zero the
bottom channel
and just work with the
top to keep it simple. OK?
I'm gonna still use the limiter.
00:11:50 Now I'm gonna set up
my side-chain.
00:11:52 I'm gonna hit external side-chain
and then I'm gonna listen
to my side-chain.
00:11:56 And that is this signal
EQed the way I want.
00:11:59 So, I don't need
to listen to the bottom
because I'm
interested in the Ss.
00:12:08 A little more.
00:12:11 I'll just push exactly where
the Ss are gonna be.
00:12:15 That's obnoxious,
that should do it.
00:12:19 So what am I hearing?
I'm hearing what I'm sending the
compressor and telling the compressor:
"Yo, that's what I don't like."
Than I'm removing
the side-chain monitor.
00:12:27 I'm now listening to just to
what the compressor is doing
to my regular signal while listening
to this awful side-chain I just sent it.
00:12:37 It's compressing Ss.
00:12:42 You can see it right here. Right?
Without.
00:12:52 With.
00:12:55 I can do a little more, actually.
00:13:00 It's so fast and so transparent
I can actually take 10 dB of the
Ss and you don't hear the problem.
00:13:10 And with.
00:13:14 Maybe not that obnoxious.
00:13:19 Magical.
Without.
00:13:22 With.
00:13:26 Let's listen to the next
phrase which is insane. Without.
00:13:31 With.
00:13:35 It's kind of perfect.
00:13:36 If you think it's a little
too fast,
or a little too obnoxious
or discernible,
you just go to manual mode
and slow it down a little.
00:13:46 As a reminder, without.
00:13:50 With.
00:13:54 And it's so fast and so transparent
that you don't hear the rest.
00:13:57 So that, essentially, is a way to turn
your compressor into a de-esser
without having to sweat
too much.
00:14:03 In real life, you probably will
have to de-ess before you compress.
00:14:07 Which means you're gonna need
a lot of gear. Isn't that wonderful?
Or a lot of plug-ins,
which is also wonderful.
00:14:12 However, I don't think
that patience is a problem
because you decided to make
music for a living
so you have plenty of that.
00:14:18
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Alo Fab! how did I miss this video? I am now de-essing through my Dangerous compressor as you suggest, with a side chain (And being very careful with the color circuits of the Dangerous 2 Bus Plus, lest you put a curse upon me for seven generations!
Au Voir!
Cindy
soundspace2001
2016 Dec 08
Very helpful. Unfortunately I do not own a Dangerous Compressor. Is the UAD Manley Stereo Variable MU Limiter Compressor Plug-In also regarded as a transparent Plug-In compressor? What I did not understand Fab: you suggest to double the vocal track and then De-ess the doubled track. Does this mean you leave the original track with the 1176 and the LA-2A untouched concerning the S-sounds?! Aren't the S-sounds still hearable in the original track? And why not put the De-Esser on the original track instead of making up a second track only to De-Ess? I did not catch that up ... :-(
styner84
2016 Aug 30
Fab, you are the best audio production teacher ever. you give us exactly what we need to know and nothing else! thank you
cmbourget
2016 Feb 10
Excellent! However, contrary to what Fab said, I believe that the volume of Dangerous was a little stronger than that of DSUs. We still feel superior clarity of Harware side (at least in video, so mp3). But that does not change the lesson.
.............................
Excellent ! Toutefois, contrairement à ce que dit Fab, je crois que le volume de Dangerous était un peu plus fort que celui des UAD. On sent tout de même une clarté supérieure du côté Harware (du moins en vidéo, donc mp3). Mais ça ne change rien à la leçon.
miguelroja
2016 Feb 08
Is a genius! and very fun teacher
Saul Santilli
2015 Dec 14
Great video, thank you.
alfranchi
2015 Oct 13
Please in Spanish or Portuguese! =)
69bluesman
2015 Aug 06
Both methods work great for me! And Fab is right...the Dangerous Comp IS pretty magical, if you can bite the bullet and get it.
Never tried the dbx160 on vox...interesting.
davpla
2015 Jun 04
Thank you Fab. Actually it works great for me with the Dbx160, but now I'm going to try various pairs. The dangerous comp seems really awesome.
PSW
2015 Jun 04
Awesome vid, Fab.
Fabulous Fab
2015 Jun 02
@davpla: it's a question of taste if you like the DBX160 better go for it. I enjoy being able to adjust attack and release sometimes so 1176 works for me.
The smart dyn circuit of the Dangerous comp has pretty much let me forget about attacka dn release ont hat comp. Unless I'm struggling with something particularly adverse. It's pretty magical.
davpla
2015 May 30
An idea: why not using a dbx160 instead of the 1176?
Still for catching the peaks, but in a more transparent maner.
Maybe the result would be somewhere between the two ways Fab demonstrated???
Also I have a question
When you've done it with the 2 dangerous
The 2 dangerous comps have pretty much the same settings ( attack and release parameters).
Fab why havent you put a fast attack on the first comp?
mataran
2015 May 25
Hi
I've used the technique with the two compressors, the peak limiter (1176LN) and the "color & texture" (LA-2A), it's great! Thanks Fab!
Kv00508
2015 May 20
well nice video with the UAD compressors however
normal people like me doesn't have access to Dangerous Compressor cause it's way to much money
i feel like the focus was more on the Dangerous Compressor
I expected more from the UAD
how about a video on the Avalon 737 that would of been nice
