Compressor Blocks

dannyp64

dannyp64

Member
Can we discuss Compression? I find it is the magic that makes a tone sound full and professional.

Couple of thoughts…

1. I use one right after the “In” block in front of all other blocks, but is anyone using one at the end of their chain instead and feel it’s the way to go?

2. Is anyone using two compressors in their chain? One at the beginning of their block chain and one at the end of it? If so, how are you setting up your compressor parameters?

3. I’ve been searching long and hard for someone to walkthrough how compression parameters change the tone of a guitar. I see a ton out there describing how compressors work but nothing from someone who takes the time to actually walk through each dial and allow us to hear how each dial is affecting the tone. Does anyone know of a good place to find someone walking through compression dials on YouTube? So I can hear what each dial is doing…

4. I know the distressor is a popular compression that apparently “colors” the sound in a magical way. Has anyone figured out a compressor in the Fractal world that compares to the Distressor? Which one, and how are you setting the dials?

5. Not sure what else :)
 
Bass player here - I use a THREE in my main preset, shown below - Start and finish. This is a modified version of the @austinbuddy "Studio Giants" preset. The original Austin Buddy preset had the first two compressors, I believe. With those, I shoot for a couple dB compression under "normal" finger style playing, which helps level out the transition to slap early in the chain. I think the second comp (just after the cab block) turns on/off depending on the scene.

I added the third compressor after taking some raw tracks of my band to a studio for a higher quality mix. The only thing the engineer did was add some parallel compression to my track with one of his high end external units, and it really made the instrument so much fuller and louder. I basically replicated that. This is done in parallel to 1) Allow me to squash bass with a very high ratio, achieving a certain evenness in volume while passing the more dynamic signal through to preserve transients. Seems to do the trick, since now when I mix our performances, the bass track sits at unity, with no processing whatsoever - an exact copy of whatever I fed into the mixer from out2. Out1 is just for my IEMs, which are powered by the AXE headphone jack.


BASS PRESET.png
 
I usually have one on all the time at the beginning of the chain with light compression (mostly less than 3:1) and with Mix between 60-80%...

Not too long ago I discovered the Andy Timmons runs a compressor after his Drive pedals in some cases, so I tried that and like it as well.

I've also started turning it off for my lead tones in some cases.
 
dannyp64 said:
3. I’ve been searching long and hard for someone to walkthrough how compression parameters change the tone of a guitar. I see a ton out there describing how compressors work but nothing from someone who takes the time to actually walk through each dial and allow us to hear how each dial is affecting the tone. Does anyone know of a good place to find someone walking through compression dials on YouTube? So I can hear what each dial is doing…
Click to expand...
I made a video a few weeks ago (in Italian but with English subtitles) about the compressor block, I didn't show what each parameter does to the sound, just some of them, but I went thru each parameter to explain what it does, thru each model to show the differences and also talked about the different positions in the chain, I hope that's comprehensive enough to clear your doubts.

 
DLC86 said:
I made a video a few weeks ago (in Italian but with English subtitles) about the compressor block, I didn't show what each parameter does to the sound, just some of them, but I went thru each parameter to explain what it does, thru each model to show the differences and also talked about the different positions in the chain, I hope that's comprehensive enough to clear your doubts.

Click to expand...

Great! Thanks for the detailed information about compressors for guitarists.
 
I use one at the beginning of the chain and one after the amp/cab but before the time effects. Like others have already said, the first one doesn't do a lot. I think I'm using the opto type with LED for both compressors. The release time on them is key for controlling the perceived mids in single notes after the initial spike. In other words, to me, I like the initial strike to be quite bright so it cuts through, but then I don't want that brightness continuing or it sounds thin. So I try to adjust the compression to bring out the lows while the note rings out. Generally a release time of around 100mS does that. Shorter release times can be used for lead tones when you want all the juicy mids to come forward.
 
There was a time I was really into compressors, usually running two at a time, 1st for playing dynamics and 2nd basically as a soft limiter.

I've been getting away from the 1st one though. It can be handy and make sloppy playing a little more forgiving at times, but I could never really get along with the 'spank' thing it does to your attack... not what I was after (except when trying country stuff, which I'm not particularly good at). For higher gain, it actually seemed to work against me in a lot of cases.

I still like the 2nd comp (after amp block) for the soft limiting... something just to take the edge off a volume spike and help even things out a bit. It's not 100% necessary and could be achieved in other ways by really getting into the weeds of gain staging. Even for this comp, I've started using the output section of the amp block instead of a dedicated comp block to save processing power and simplify layouts. Plus, I'm talking about very modest settings anyhow (0.5-2.0, usually 1.0 or less), so the comp block is kinda' overkill for me.

Now, I do have a synth-like preset (all the fuzz + pitch shifting + reverb) with a hard limiting comp, using it more as an "effect" with extreme settings, but that's a unique situation.
 
DLC86 said:
I made a video a few weeks ago (in Italian but with English subtitles) about the compressor block, I didn't show what each parameter does to the sound, just some of them, but I went thru each parameter to explain what it does, thru each model to show the differences and also talked about the different positions in the chain, I hope that's comprehensive enough to clear your doubts.

Click to expand...

Excellent Video!! Thanks for sharing this
 
Rotti said:
There was a time I was really into compressors, usually running two at a time, 1st for playing dynamics and 2nd basically as a soft limiter.

I've been getting away from the 1st one though. It can be handy and make sloppy playing a little more forgiving at times, but I could never really get along with the 'spank' thing it does to your attack... not what I was after (except when trying country stuff, which I'm not particularly good at). For higher gain, it actually seemed to work against me in a lot of cases.

I still like the 2nd comp (after amp block) for the soft limiting... something just to take the edge off a volume spike and help even things out a bit. It's not 100% necessary and could be achieved in other ways by really getting into the weeds of gain staging. Even for this comp, I've started using the output section of the amp block instead of a dedicated comp block to save processing power and simplify layouts. Plus, I'm talking about very modest settings anyhow (0.5-2.0, usually 1.0 or less), so the comp block is kinda' overkill for me.

Now, I do have a synth-like preset (all the fuzz + pitch shifting + reverb) with a hard limiting comp, using it more as an "effect" with extreme settings, but that's a unique situation.
Click to expand...
You can get rid of the 'spank' thing by using lookahead.
 
dannyp64 said:
Can we discuss Compression? I find it is the magic that makes a tone sound full and professional.

Couple of thoughts…

1. I use one right after the “In” block in front of all other blocks, but is anyone using one at the end of their chain instead and feel it’s the way to go?

2. Is anyone using two compressors in their chain? One at the beginning of their block chain and one at the end of it? If so, how are you setting up your compressor parameters?

3. I’ve been searching long and hard for someone to walkthrough how compression parameters change the tone of a guitar. I see a ton out there describing how compressors work but nothing from someone who takes the time to actually walk through each dial and allow us to hear how each dial is affecting the tone. Does anyone know of a good place to find someone walking through compression dials on YouTube? So I can hear what each dial is doing…

4. I know the distressor is a popular compression that apparently “colors” the sound in a magical way. Has anyone figured out a compressor in the Fractal world that compares to the Distressor? Which one, and how are you setting the dials?

5. Not sure what else :)
Click to expand...
I have run just one at the input and like it. Currently I run one at the beginning and one at the end. The one at the end is only doing one to two db of reduction.
I have run two compressors in series which feels odd to me, but really ups the sustain on single coil guitars when used live.
 
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