Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

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Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby sean.boyer » Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:22 pm

Hey gang,

I just wanted to start up a discussion on using Limiting with minimal gain compensation on vocals. From what I understand, this is done frequently, but I almost never read about people doing this in articles and blog posts and the like when people talk about their workflow for vocals. Usually these days it consists of "First, I auto-tune the balls off of the vocal. Then, I apply so steep mid cuts and boost - so steep you could turn the last remaining enginless K car into a roller coaster by poising it at the top of the slope and blinking lightly - then, for good measure, another layer of auto-tune, and then I jam that through a Sonic Maximizer and a brickwall limiter to get them up at least 2-3 times louder than the mix.)

I'm not talking about using a brick wall for gain... I'm talking about using something like a 1176 - something with an impossibly fast attack and release, with a smooth and transparent knee, and minimal gain boost at the end. Not taking the dynamics out of a vocal passage, but certainly taking the "ouch" off of them the the singer leans in as they double or triple their output, instead of leaning back.

On a recent mix I worked on, the vocals went from extremely quite (intended), to slightly less quite (intended to be the "normal" reference point) to less than slightly less quite (a little quitter than "normal"), to ear smashingly loud. Instead of getting into the fray and chopping away with the clip splitter and gain reduction envelope, I decided to just try an 1176, and set the reduction as low as required to a) not drastically affect the program level I have determined, and b) smash the living hell out of the outrageously loud peaks, again, without sounding like it had been hammered with a mastering software preset entitled "Loud as F@%ing Balls".

I don't think I'm alone in this practice, but though I'd put the question out there: what do you guys like to do for wildly dynamic vocals?
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Thu Sep 13, 2012 12:14 am

I can't think of anything that I vary more than compression on voice. Especially with digital, I find that the palate of tones available with the turn of a dial and press of a button to be outstanding.

Although settings and types vary huge for me, I definitely favour fast attack and release, and 4:1 medium knee kinda stuff when just doing typical average processing. That would be my go to setting that would probably get me there for most average sources. Great, technically aware singers, you can just have the thing thresholding and be right in the game. I'm fairly certain this is a pretty common setup for voice, and is because it's a great starting point.

One thing that I like to do for "wildly dynamic" voice is one comp with 2-4:1 medium/slow attack and fast release, into another comp with fast attack and release and 4:1 or higher ratio to get the edgy stuff that blats by the initial comp. This is when I'm doing what I would consider fairly aggressive amounts of gain reduction for tone and attitude.

When talking about passages from soft to loud, I prefer to compress for tone and ride the fader to keep things in the sweet spot, as opposed to trying to get compression to "do the mix". Often misunderstood practices.

Great topic... Hope to hear from some others on this.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Alain Benoit » Sat Sep 15, 2012 9:17 am

Cereal compression.
STC-8,
1176 -> Distressor.

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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Mon Sep 17, 2012 12:58 pm

Very interesting discussion. I could talk about compression and limiting options on lead vocals all day long without running out of things to say. I've tried so many different things to fit so many different types of situations, that I end up throwing out the rule book of "standard practices" more often than not.

I'll preface my comments by saying that I can only speak of studio application as I have very little actual live sound experience. My only experience dealing with live sound is more of a game of damage control so I tend to make a lot of compromises.

When it comes to trying to deal with wildly dynamic vocals (or anything) I typically try to deal with it using fader automation. That being said I can totally see something like what Sean describes as working well too. There are so many different ways to achieve the same results that it's difficult to fault any particular methodology as long as the results work.

My usual approach with vocals lately has been to compress the crap right out of them, all the while not making it too obvious in the mix. I think that's just from watching Alain and Andrew for too many years. It's not so much for volume though, but mostly for the envelope shaping. Like Alain said, daisy-chaining compressors is fairly common for me. We have a lot of good quality outboard compression so I'll typically do a print of the vocals after running them through a series of outboard gear. From there if I need to do any "fine tuning" I'll do it ITB. I like working ITB for the ease of recall-ability but there is so much good outboard gear to use here that I'd be a fool not to take advantage of that.

I have a limiter however that is ITB that I absolutely love for a ton of different applications. It's the Massey L2007. I've used it for everything from subtle limiting (similar to what Sean is describing) to totally demolishing the program to hell and back and it stands pound-for-pound the best money I have spent on a plugin.

What kind of limiters/compressors are the rest of you guys using nowadays? Mostly ITB or outboard? Not that I'm running out of channels of good compression/limiting to use, but I'm always curious to hear about what others are having success with.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby sean.boyer » Wed Sep 19, 2012 7:41 pm

My two fav ITB comps right now are the Sonitus:fx Compressor to get the 1176 type limiting. Ratio around 10, attack like 2ms, release like 75-80ms, hard knee, compensation low, thresh to taste.
The other one, and I've been using this on like every recording, is the Density MkII. It's a freeware buss compressor with fixed a/r ratios, and I just love it for doing buss limiting, and even more so for buss "gluing". It's free, too!
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:02 am

I use the Sonitus comp for 95% of my compression needs ITB, including the multiband variety. For some other stuff I have a thing for Vintage Warmer, as well as the "Vintage Channel" comps in Sonar. Tweaking 2 mix stuff I do like the iZotope Mastering Limiter in Sound Forge.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Thu Sep 20, 2012 9:50 am

For ITB compressors I like the Avid Smack! and the Massey CT4 (of which I have the demo version.) I heard Massey released the CT5 recently, so I'm gonna want to try that one out too. That is pretty much it for compression ITB for me, they are both "1176-style" compressors. For actual brickwall limiting, the Massey L2007 is pretty much unbeatable ITB for me. Especially considering the price.

Anything else is all outboard for me. We have an 1176, 1178, LA-4, LA-5, a pair of Distressors, and the STC-8, and even a pair of DBX 160x (although I rarely use the DBX.)

sean.boyer wrote:The other one, and I've been using this on like every recording, is the Density MkII. It's a freeware buss compressor with fixed a/r ratios, and I just love it for doing buss limiting, and even more so for buss "gluing". It's free, too!


For the two-buss, I run the STC-8 into the SPL Tube Vitalizer. I mix going though that chain right from the word "go". I'd be interested to try something ITB that would work well for two-buss but I'm not exactly unhappy with what I've been using. That being said, does Density MkII come in RTAS or TDM? I'll totally give it a spin.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Thu Sep 20, 2012 12:02 pm

Apparently MKIII is out and the reviews are very positive. People are saying it is a huge improvement over MkII.

Density MkIII

Sadly for me it seems to be VST only from what I can tell.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby macrae11 » Thu Sep 20, 2012 6:41 pm

The FXpansion VST to RTAS adaptor is worth the price of admission even just for all the free VST plugins out there. Opens up lots of options.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Mathieu Benoit » Thu Sep 20, 2012 8:04 pm

macrae11 wrote:The FXpansion VST to RTAS adaptor is worth the price of admission even just for all the free VST plugins out there. Opens up lots of options.


First post in a while and it's a good one.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby macrae11 » Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:16 pm

So on topic. I love compressing vocals. Pretty much everything I do has been mentioned, but I will +1 on Alain's comment as that's one of my favorite chains, although I'll often do an either or with the distressor/1176, and I'll change the order depending on what I'm looking for. The STC8 can do just about everything, but it doesn't add much of it's own mojo to things, which is what I'll use the 1176/distressor for. So sometimes the STC8 will come first and steamroll everything and then the 1176 just gets used for some envelope modulation and mojo. Or I might use it more as a limiter and just level off the tops. Conversely sometimes I'll use the 1176 first which will be set fairly fast and have quite a swing, often not compressing at all for quiet passages and then going nuts on the loud parts with the STC8 then either doing compression for actual compression's sake(gain reduction) or bringing up the quiet stuff to make things breathier and more in your face.

I approximate this workflow ITB with the Waves H-Comp and V-Comp. While these aren't parallels to the hardware pieces, they can create a somewhat similar effect. Then throughout the chain there are various de-essers, EQ's, tape sims, etc that affect how the compressors are working.
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Re: Limiting Vocals vs. Compressing vocals

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Mon Oct 08, 2012 2:15 pm

As much as I know that digital compression/limiting isn't going to have identical characteristics as the hardware counterparts, I knew we were on the right track when I used some digital comps in the same way as I would analog and got a similar pleasant result.

Many times, especially live, with great singers I would have an over easy 4:1 comp on a vocal, and just have it thresholding on punchy words and such which creates a nice tonality that otherwise is just perceived as harshness. Not gain reduction per say, but more of a smoothing. When I got to use decent digital comps, and was able to create the same effect, it was proof to me that the designers were on the right track.
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