Because when you master you’re affecting the entire signal. On individual tracks, you’re going to be able to apply it without making the entire thing sound like a mess. It can make a snare drum crack, but when you’re doing that to an entire track, that crack you’re adding there is going to get lost among the other things also being compressed, making the effort both futile and unfocused. The life of an entire track is in the peaks rendered to it, if you excessively compress any track individually it’s going to sound bad, but in moderation on single tracks you’re just adding flavor. The amount of compression used like I said should be determined by the mixing and not the mastering engineer.
Im not the expert on analog recording here, but the tape machines have compression by themselves, don’t they? So some sort of compression happened nonetheless. Second, the performers needed tremendous amount of technique to record without compression at all. Your information is hard to believe @doubletrackinjive because i doubt that genres as chaotic as hard rock or metal where is easy to get carried away do not use compression. Bob Marley, and other calmer genres i may believe just because not much…well, chaos happens.
I’ve heard about Christina Aguilera that does not need compression for her vocals, but that’s about it.
EDIT: Checked for info on google and Guns and Roses engineer said [no compression was used for loudness…] With this philosophy i agree.
AT the end of the day, i’m still tempted to try to mix a song without using compression, just out of curiosity about my performing technique!
@BigAlRocks It’s good advice, i tried it and i like it so far!
@Pingafuego I’m also new to forums too! Are you in the BOZ mixing contest, yet?
I think using compressors on the mix bus should be based on your workflow. If you are not comfortable using it, don’t. I started using one a couple of years ago. Since I do my own mastering these days, I partially do that process during the mix. Prior to this, I found myself constantly going back to my mix making adjustments to the mix as the mastering process influenced the final mix. Now that I have the compressor on the mix bus, there are no surprises at the end. I feel my overall mixing has improved with this workflow change. If I have a client that will be sending the mix off for a third party mastering, I can always remove the processing prior to printing the mix.
from a discussion standpoint its not like its an all or nothing thing. OMG A COMPRESSOR!!! yeah, but it may just be the mildest of settings lol
I have generally done what mixing I have done without anything on the 2 bus. I do all my mixing etc and then at the last minute I slap on a compressor and/or limiter.
BUT going forward I’ll probably just start putting a compressor on the 2 bus from jump. It seems kind of silly to spend hours doing a mix and then all of a sudden slap a compressor/limiter on the 2 bus at the end because essentially you’ve just changed ALL of your previous work. your ear was telling you its good and now you slap on a new ingredient.
And again, the point has to be made. We say “a compressor” as if its a static entity. i mean I dont know doodly about compressors but even i know that you can do for instance “NewYork” compression, which at least in the ReaComp is a parallel type compression with a lot of dry signal coming thru. So its not like a compressor HAS to be some extreme setting
Lets take a vocal bus. Inside that bus may be 2 other busses, for lead vox and bgv. Well a lead vocal track may be compressed, then the lead bus may be compressed, then the overall vocal bus may be compressed, then the 2 bus may be compresssed.
Id rather have it like that, say 2 db of compression at each stage rather than 8 db all at one stage.
And people much smarter than me can probably make great artistic statements by combining highly compressed material alongside UNcompressed tracks.
So i dunno if it really has to be an either/or thing
Back on RR, not long before it cratered, we were talking about the general approach of having stuff on your master-out very early in the process and “mixing into it”. That’s definitely what I do for the reason JJ said, so that I don’t get near-finished and then apply stuff on the master, only to have it really change the way things are working together. But that’s more general, not specific to compressors per se.
Keep in mind that zero compression during the MASTERING STAGE is what I was referring to. During the mixing I’m sure they did use compression, but the guy who mastered the releases I listed implicitly states that he never ever uses compression or peak limiting when mastering CD’s.
From Barry Diament on Appetite for Destruction:
“The original tapes (i.e. the mixes) were analog.
Like all CD masters created back then, what I sent the plant (or the label in this case) was a CD master in the form of a 3/4” u-matic video tape.
To the best of my knowledge, the plant used this tape (or possibly a clone made at Geffen/Warner) when generating the glass master used for disc replication.
I would imagine global production was from other u-matic clones made at Geffen/Warner. (I certainly hope DAT tapes were not involved.)
“Digital compression”? Not me, ever.
Analog compression? Outside of two instances, both at the insistence of the producer (Freedy Johnston’s “Learning to Fly” CD and the cassette - but not the CD - for Pete Townshend’s “Psychoderelict”) I have never used compression, period.
Of course, I’m pretty sure compression was used in the mixing stage but none at all from the time “Appetite…” got to my hands."
Interesting. It took a long time before I grasped what compression was about.The way I understood it was that in the good ol’ days of cutting vinyl records compression on the master was an absolute necessity, just to avoid the needle from jumping out of the groove. That’s why it was developed in the first place. So I would venture that the Beatles masters were quite heavily compressed. Is that a wrong assumption?
For the record, I also mix into about 1,5 dB of compression on the mix buss (and also using the Focusrite Red 3).
