1 00:00:00 Good morning, children! This is the follow-up to the much loved How To Listen video, and so we called it 'How To Listen: Compression Edition'. 2 00:00:08 Let's go! The purpose of this video is for you to learn how to listen for compression or listen for what to compress. 3 00:00:24 It is not to learn how to compress things. 4 00:00:27 That's other videos. 5 00:00:28 This is solely to help you focus on what needs dynamics or not. 6 00:00:34 For example, let's talk about vocals. 7 00:00:36 Vocals are some of the most compressed tracks in the history of 'compressionkind'. 8 00:00:40 They are front and center, and they define the mix. 9 00:00:43 One must be very careful with how much to compress your vocals, because an overcompressed vocal will actually lead you to overcompress everything else, and then it's the end of the world for you and all your offsprings for seven generations down the line. 10 00:00:54 So, let's listen to Will Knox without compression. 11 00:00:58 I'm going to listen to just two phrases so we can really focus on something and I can really show you what the problem is. 00:01:04 Check it out. 00:01:18 I'll play it again. 00:01:33 So, "SHE's dropping me I'M a leaf in her BROken breeze Trying to clear the treetops..." Right? There's this stuff going on. 00:01:45 Check it out. 00:01:59 This is uncompressed, right? So, did you hear that? Listen for not only dynamics as levels, but also frequency changes, especially, like, "treetop." Listen to the word "treetop." Right? You heard that? I'm going to play it in solo so you can really memorize the shape of the vocal and just make a mental picture of it, so this is, focus a lot on all the peaks and valleys, and the shifts in range. 00:02:50 So now I'm going to compress. 00:02:51 I'm not showing you the settings. The settings don't matter. 00:02:54 I'm going to play it to you once compressed, and then I'm going to be kind and play you the uncompressed again so you can really hear the difference and really learn what kind of difference the compression makes. 00:03:34 All right. So I level-matched uncompressed and compressed, and I made sure that I used a very transparent compressor. 00:03:41 Did you hear the difference? Let me point it out to you. 00:03:44 This word right here, listen to it in the context without compression and with compression. 00:04:04 So now the compression just brings that level down but touches very little else. 00:04:08 I can show you the settings now. 00:04:11 Check it out. 00:04:27 So you hear all those little things being flattened a little bit, right? But not too much. 00:04:31 So, basically, if I just play this to you like this, compressed, but without telling you it's compressed, you probably would have not guessed it's compressed, or maybe you would have made the assumption I compressed it. 00:04:42 Now let's go a step further, and hide this, and go to the same compression but with different settings. 00:04:49 So this is what we just heard. 00:05:19 I'm going to give you a clue: it's the same compressor, it's the same Ratio, and it's the same Threshold. 00:05:25 What could be different? Option A. 00:05:55 Do you feel the vocal going further back a little bit and not being as present? Let's listen to that second phrase right there with the new settings. 00:06:13 One more time. Second settings. 00:06:14 Listen to "I'M a leaf in her BROken breeze." You don't hear a drastic difference, what you hear is a different vibe, right? You hear that the second compressor is actually pushing the vocal back quite a bit. 00:06:36 Here's a clue: I shortened the Attack a lot, so basically, the compressor comes in right away and catches the transients. 00:06:45 You hear that a lot on mixes where the compressor is on stun, especially if people are using the SSL compressor and they have the Fast Attack on. 00:06:52 Everything pulls back as the more you compress the faster it gets, the more the transient gets killed, the less presence and texture you have. 00:07:00 I'll play it again now that you've seen it, because if you've seen it, you'll hear it. Check it out. 00:07:04 So this is the first setting with a wide open Attack at 10 milliseconds. 00:07:35 Do you hear the difference in presence and grabbing? I would say grabbing, that texture thing. 00:07:40 So the lesson here is that the Attack of the compressor is as important as the Threshold or the Ratio if you have control over the Attack. 00:07:47 So when you hear something, either on the radio, Spotify, or a session that somebody sends you that you've got to work on, when you listen to something you can tell right away, "Am I crushing the transients? Am I crushing the transients because the Attack is too fast?" The first thing to do is to adjust the Attack of your compressor if you like how the compressor is doing the level. 00:08:05 So you have to train yourself to hear the difference between overcompression because of too much compression, or overcompression because of the Attack, and that's the difference. 00:08:13 Now, some compressors do not give you control over the Attack, like for example, this compressor. 00:08:19 Question: do you remember what this just sounded like? Aha! So I'm going to play it back for you. 00:08:25 Let's say, the more metrosexual compression setting, okay? Open Attack. 00:08:42 Here is a Fixed Attack compressor. 00:08:56 Notice what it does? It's even smoother, right? It makes everything more like a ribbon of sound. 00:09:01 As a reminder, this was the original uncompressed sound. 00:09:31 The thing here is you have no control over the Attack. 00:09:34 It's the Fixed Attack of this compressor. 00:09:37 I chose this compressor because it is the compressor that's been heralded as the vocal compressor for about 50 years, which is great. 00:09:44 Its Attack time is about 10 ms, and its Release time is program-dependent. 00:09:50 If you noticed, the Oxford also had a 10 ms Attack time. 00:09:54 They sound completely different, and that's what you have to pay attention to. 00:09:58 You can't just slap a compressor that everybody else in the universe has been using on vocals and hope that it's going to work. 00:10:04 That's the only compressor they had. 00:10:06 It was the best compressor that worked on vocals and it works on a lot of vocals, but not on all vocals, and you have to pay attention as to what it does to your vocal. 00:10:14 Check it out. 00:10:15 This is uncompressed. 00:10:33 Do you see how it crushes "I'm a leaf"? But it's basically at the same level. 00:10:36 Everything is level-matched for your entertainment. 00:10:39 Now, let's listen to the Oxford. 00:10:48 So the Oxford has about the same Attack... ish, but you have a lot more presence and a lot more definition and connection with the vocal as far as I'm concerned. 00:10:58 Check it out. 00:11:05 Especially "I'm a leaf in her..." That part. 00:11:08 With the LA-2A. 00:11:32 So, between the two, I would choose the Oxford right away because I get more of that distance, but that's my style. 00:11:38 You have to educate your ear — and this is part of what this video is about — so you can really hear what the compressor is doing to your sound both dynamically and sonically. 00:11:48 Check this out! All I'm doing here is opening the LA-2A. 00:11:51 Listen to the high end, the first transient. 00:12:01 The LA-2A is also adding a little bit of an edge due to the transformers and to the saturation inside the box. 00:12:07 You also have to pay attention to that. 00:12:10 Very important. More on that in a minute. 00:12:12 A lot of people use that other compressor on vocals. 00:12:15 Let's listen to it. 00:12:16 This is uncompressed. 00:12:43 Do you hear that? Check this part out. 00:12:51 Do you hear all that [mouth noises] on the "Trying to clear"? Listen again. 00:13:00 That's a sound you know. 00:13:01 You hear that a lot on major mixes. 00:13:05 I don't like that sound, but you may. 00:13:08 This is the uncompressed version. 00:13:15 So we can confirm that those 'Ts' were not like that uncompressed. 00:13:18 This is uncompressed. 00:13:24 This is that compressor. 00:13:32 You know that sound, right? It's the sound of this thing. 00:13:35 So, this is a setting that I see a lot of my friends use. 00:13:45 Lots of compression. 00:13:47 With a wide open Attack you can say, "Oh, well, those 'Ts' come out because of the open Attack, correct?" What if I speed the Attack up? It becomes a little bit of a mess. 00:14:03 Here's the whole phrase. 00:14:16 This is without anything. 00:14:30 And this is the metrosexual setting on the Oxford. 00:14:46 So, which one would you choose? Good question! Obviously you understood that an 1176 is an 1176 and it has a lot of color with it and the circuitry sidechain does what it does and now you can hopefully, you know, be more acquainted with its idiosyncratic color, shall I say. 00:15:03 LA-2A, same thing. 00:15:04 The Oxford is the quintessential clean compressor. 00:15:07 There are other options if you don't own the Oxford. 00:15:09 For example, the FabFilter Pro-C2 is bananas. 00:15:12 The built-in compressor in Pro Tools is great. 00:15:14 The Logic compressor is good, too. 00:15:16 A little more finicky, but it does the job very well. 00:15:18 It compresses and it's clean, and it has control over Attack and Release, and it will not impart any color unless you choose one of those new colors they added in Logic Pro X. 00:15:26 Or, was it 9? Or, well, using Logic above 8 anyway. 00:15:30 Let's do a quick recap, all in a row, so you can really feel the difference, okay? I'm going to do the original sound, I'm going to do the metrosexual settings on the Oxford, I'm going to do the fast Attack settings on the Oxford, then I'll do the LA-2A, and then I'll do the 1176 so you can really tell the difference. 00:15:50 And I will put up the interface of what I'm using, when I'm using it, so that you know what it is. 00:15:56 If you can avoid looking at it, that would be great. 00:15:59 If you can't avoid looking at it, it's your problem. 00:17:22 Any of these choices are valid, even the uncompressed one. 00:17:26 What matters is that you know what you are doing and you can hear the difference between the three. 00:17:31 You know you want something smooth with some dynamic control, but not transient control so you can still connect with the vocal and have this presence, or you want something very ribbon-y and very, like, smooth, or you want something that has a lot of [mouth noises]. 00:17:47 Those are your choices. 00:17:49 Once you can hear the differences and immediately identify the differences, then you're qualified to make the choice. 00:17:54 Until then, keep listening. 00:17:56 There is this myth going around that every percussion instrument has to be compressed to be in a mix. 00:18:01 I think that's not true. 00:18:03 It's only in the context of trying to compete with electronic instruments or trying to have a lot of in-your-face presence, but, if you record a drum set and the bass drum is compressed and the snare is compressed, maybe the hi-hat doesn't need to be compressed. 00:18:17 Or maybe the bass drum is compressed and the snare is not as compressed as the bass drum to give some distance. 00:18:22 It's not a rule of thumb. 00:18:23 However, if you're going to compress a percussion instrument, you have to be very careful about how you do it, especially Attack and Release. 00:18:32 So what I'd like to do right now is I'd like to show you different kinds of compressions on the bass drum, because the bass drum is the hardest one to compress. 00:18:40 It's hard to compress because you have to deal with level variations, but also, on an acoustic bass drum, a lot of sound variations. 00:18:47 And compression will affect both at the same time, so I'd like to help you educate your ear as to what's necessary and what's not necessary, and what different kinds of compressors do just like we did on the vocals. 00:18:58 So, first, let's listen to some real man's music. 00:19:01 This is ViFolly's "Face Your Fear," and I've isolated just the drums and bass. 00:19:06 I'm leaving the bass in here to give you some context, and then, when we go deep into listening, I will remove the bass, but for now, for you to understand what we are trying to do, here it is. 00:19:38 So for example, right now, I'm telling you, the bass drum is not compressed. 00:19:42 There is no compression anywhere on the bass drum. 00:19:44 It's just three microphones: a D112 inside, a Lauten Clarion on the outside, and a Yamaha SubKick. 00:19:51 And this is the balance between the three. 00:19:54 That's quite a bit of SubKick. 00:19:56 If you want to hear them in solo, this is the D112. 00:20:04 The Clarion. 00:20:09 And the SubKick. 00:20:14 And the combination of the three. 00:20:22 Now, here's an example that I felt was really telling. 00:20:27 I'm going to mute the bass now. 00:20:29 Listen to the bass drum very carefully. 00:20:31 Listen to the level and listen to the tone. 00:20:34 Not just the level, the tone; how some hits are fatter than others. 00:20:50 You can tell on that second hit. 00:20:52 Check it out. 00:20:58 That second hit is much fatter because when he played it he played 'BOOM Ka Boom'. 00:21:03 He didn't hit the second hit as hard and didn't choke the head as much, and that gives you a fatter bass drum. 00:21:09 So now we have a fat bass drum, a fatter bass drum. 00:21:12 The pickup is even less fat, and then a medium-fat bass drum, and then a standard bass drum. 00:21:17 It could be the sound you're looking for if you're looking for something natural, but for this kind of stuff, it's obviously not going to work. 00:21:23 Check it out. 00:21:34 Also, listen to the difference between the attack and the tail of the bass drum. 00:21:39 It kind of goes 'kop-mm kop-mm' because there's a little bit of like a... 00:21:43 a delay, if you will, on the arrival of that low end. 00:21:47 Check it out. 00:21:53 It goes 'boomf boomf'. 00:21:55 That also is a problem because you don't get that [knock sound] that you would get if you had an electronic drum. 00:22:00 Now, this is a good player, and it's well-recorded, so I have good control, but I think I want even more. 00:22:06 So once you listen to your tracks and you identify those things; identify the difference in tones in the bass drum and identify that kind of delay of the bottom coming later than the attack, you know, "Oh! I may be able to fix that with a compressor." Don't just compress. Listen to the problems first, and then you can fix them. 00:22:25 So I want to use a compressor. I'm not going to tell you what it is. 00:22:28 Here we go. 00:22:52 Did you hear the difference? You did, right? So now, the bottom is in line with the attack and there's not as much of a difference between the two different bass drums; the one that's hit hard and the one that's hit not as hard, and the levels were pretty even. 00:23:06 What the compressor is doing here is actually leveling the tone, if you will. 00:23:10 Evening out the tone. 00:23:11 I'll play it again. 00:23:13 Without, one round, and with, another round. 00:23:28 That's it! Do you want to know what it is? It's this. 00:23:32 Want to know the settings? These are them. Check it out. 00:23:40 It's important to be able to tell right away that this is a signature of this compressor. 00:23:45 Does a different compressor give a different tone to the instrument? Yes! But not always. 00:23:51 The built-in compressors like the one in Logic or the one in Pro Tools or the fancy clean ones like the Oxford or the FabFilter Pro-C2, those don't really have a sonic signature unless there's an option for it and then you put it in. 00:24:06 The vintage compressors, because the companies like UA or Waves or whomever have been modeling the actual circuitry before and after the actual gain reduction circuit, they have tubes, or they have transformers. 00:24:19 That actually changes the sound more than the compression. 00:24:22 So, this is the sound of an 1176. 00:24:25 Print it in your ear and then we'll switch to a different compressor. 00:24:43 Did you hear the difference? I hope so. Check it out. 00:24:46 If not, I will show you how to listen. 00:24:49 This is the 1176. 00:24:51 Listen to the bottom of the bass drum and listen to the transient, the attack. 00:25:08 Do you hear how aggressive and gnarly and clacky it is? It's a dbx 160, and it's actually level-matched with the 1176, if you can believe that. 00:25:16 So, now you can tell the difference between the two compressors, right? Now you know what you have in your ear. "Oh! I can tell the difference between an 1176 and a dbx 160," which is great! Now let's listen to a clean compressor like the FabFilter Pro-C2. 00:25:41 As a reminder, the uncompressed sounds like this. 00:25:43 Do you remember what it sounds like? That difference in arrival time between the attack and the bottom, and also, the varying of the tone. 00:26:21 So now we know that a clean compressor does the job and can be very close to a vintage 1176. 00:26:26 This is the 1176. 00:26:43 Where is the difference? The difference is in the Attack, right? First, the C2 doesn't high-pass like the 1176 does, and second, the Attack on the C2 is a little more aggressive, so the C2 would be in between the dbx 160 and the 1176 for the Attack, so what we're going to do now is we're going to do a blind test. 00:27:03 I'm going to play all four examples in random order and you're going to have to guess which order that was, and that's why we're going to go black because I don't trust that you will close your eyes, because I don't trust you, heh! Did you get it? As a reminder — and I promise I did not trick you. I promise! — there was the uncompressed, the 1176, the dbx 160, and the FabFilter Pro-C2, but not in that order. 00:28:00 What was the order? Did you recognize them? Are you 100% sure? Well, here's the answer. 00:28:15 One of the places where compression is most overused is 2-Bus compression, so I thought it would be a good idea for you to educate yourself on the benefits and perils of using 2-Bus compression. 00:28:28 So I have here the same song that we used for the bass drum, "Face Your Fear" by ViFolly, and I'm going to play the whole song and right now there is no compression on the 2-Bus. 00:28:38 It's very raw. 00:28:39 I'll play this song, and this is the live mix, and then we'll focus on the chorus when it hits hard because that's when you hear the 2-Bus compressor freaking out. 00:28:47 So, right now there is no compression. 00:29:52 So let's learn the dynamic profile of this song. 00:29:55 To do that, what I usually do is I listen to the relationships between the bass drum, the snare drum, and the vocal, so it goes poof, poof, poof, right? And check it out on the verse. 00:30:18 And then, on the pre-chorus there is this stuff that comes in and raises the energy. 00:30:22 Check it out. 00:30:34 Then, the chorus blows up. 00:30:58 You got a mental picture of that? Okay. So now I want to turn on the 2-Bus compression. 00:31:02 Let's listen to the verse again, pre-chorus again, and chorus again. 00:31:07 Listen to the difference. 00:31:08 Make sure you focus just on the difference, not what it does — just on the difference. 00:31:13 What has changed? How different does it feel? It sounds more like a record. 00:32:15 The reason why it sounds more like a record is because the records that you listen to have 2-Bus compression on them. 00:32:20 That's it! Not because records were born sounding this way. 00:32:24 It evolved into this over time. 00:32:26 If you listen to a record from the '50s, there is no 2-Bus compression. 00:32:30 The only 2-Bus compression there is is the tape freaking out. 00:32:33 That's about it. 00:32:34 So, let's listen to the first four bars of the verse without compression, and then the first four bars of the verse with 2-Bus compression. 00:32:42 Pay attention to the placement of the bass drum, the tone of it and the placement, and the placement of the vocal and the tone of it also. 00:32:49 Without, first. 00:33:15 Hear the difference? There is a lot more transient. What's going on? Well, what do you think? We looked at it on vocals and we looked at it on the bass drum. 00:33:23 What do you think is going on? What is going on is I have an open Attack on the 2-Bus compression and that's what makes that difference. 00:33:31 I'll play it again. Without. 00:33:57 Hear the difference? Now check out the transition in the pre-chorus. 00:34:01 Without. 00:34:25 Pretty well, isn't it? It's not even 1.5 dB. 00:34:28 Listen to the sides. The sides here are the most important. 00:34:54 It keeps everything in check, but most importantly, it evens out the tone, so when you're listening to a track you can hear if something is pushing back against the mix and the energy of the mix, and thus, creating more density. 00:35:08 That's what you have to listen for here, even more so on the chorus. Check it out. 00:35:13 Two bars into the chorus, without the compression. 00:35:43 I'd like to attract your attention to the sound of the bass drum in the middle right here. 00:35:47 Obviously, the bass drum is in the middle. 00:35:48 I'm talking about the middle of the spectrum for the bass drum. 00:35:51 Say, two hundred and... 00:35:55 210-220 Hz. 00:35:56 Check it out. 00:35:57 Listen to the sound of the bass drum without compression, listen to that 'mmm' thing, and then listen with compression. 00:36:30 It's cleaned up. 00:36:31 It's cleaned up because of the tone of the circuitry emulated by the plug-in, and also because everything is kind of like melded together and things kind of work together better. 00:36:40 Now, when you listen to a track, a finished track from your favorite band, you can listen for that stuff. 00:36:46 You can listen to something pushing back against the energy and you can tell how it was set up just by listening to it. 00:36:54 You can tell if the Attack was slow or if the Attack was fast. 00:36:58 As a reminder, this is what it sounds like slow. 00:37:16 And now fast, but level-matched, because obviously a faster Attack is going to compress faster, and thus more, and thus will be quieter, but I want you to hear the difference at the same level. 00:37:44 We know that sound, right? Again. 00:37:47 Slow Attack. 00:38:21 You know that sound, right? That's the sound of a lot of mixing, like, a lot of 2-Bus compression, and the music goes further back, the transients are eaten, the bottom goes away because the bottom is what gets hit first, and the vocals come out and become aggressive, and then everything sounds kind of like it's in a tin box a little bit. 00:38:39 And this is reasonable. 00:38:40 Some people go further. 00:38:42 It's not under malice, it's just they have a compressor parked there and they're having fun mixing and they've been into it for 12 hours and... 00:38:49 and, you know. 00:38:50 It's important to pay attention to these details. 00:38:52 There's not that much of a difference between just moving the Attack of the compressor, but if you pay attention, if you know those telltale signs, like I just showed you on the vocals, or like I showed you on the bass drum, and like I'm showing you here on the 2-Bus, you're able to identify the problems right away. 00:39:06 So you've got to train you ears, not just look and fiddle with the knobs. 00:39:11 You've got to train you ears so that when you listen to something without looking at settings, that transient-eating, the bottom going away, those clacky attacks just tell you, "Oh! I know what that is! I've heard it before because I listened for it." Compressor Edition. Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.