Once a signal has been boosted to line level, it will be strong enough to drive the line input of a hardware compressor, breach the compressor’s threshold level, and trigger compression. When tracking vocals through a standalone hardware compressor, you need to connect your microphone to a mic preamp-this lets you to boost the mic signal produced by the microphone to line level. However, if you dial in your compressor’s settings effectively, and choose a compressor well-suited to the type of vocals you're recording, you’ll reap the benefits of tracking through a compressor and save yourself a lot of tedious mixing work.
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Tracking vocals in this way is high-risk if you’re new to the concept of compression, due to the fact that if you use inappropriate compression settings, the processing gets baked into your recordings-there’s no going back.
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You can get your vocalist to stand a set distance from the microphone to capture a consistent tone, and then hit their vocals with a compressor during loud segments to even out the signal level. Although, if you don’t want your recordings to contain the tone associated with moving closer to, or further away from the mic, tracking through a compressor may be a better option. The proximity effect provides a number of stylistic recording options. Many vocalists will move closer to the mic during quiet passages, in which they may be whispering, and step back during loud passages, such as when they’re belting a chorus-this is referred to as “working the mic.” Working the mic can help smooth out the level of recordings naturally, but there’s a potential issue associated with doing this.Īs a result of a phenomenon known as “the proximity effect,” when your vocalist moves closer to the mic, you’ll capture more low-end and less room tone, and as they move further away, you’ll capture less low-end and more room tone. We'll take a look at three popular hardware vocal compressors and then dive into some recommended vocal compression settings.
HOW TO USE CLA 2A COMPRESSOR VOCALS HOW TO
In this article, you'll learn how to record vocals through a hardware compressor. On top of this, when your performer can hear a compressed version of their vocals, they’ll have a more accurate idea of how the final product will sound-this lets them optimize their performance accordingly in real-time. Recording vocals through a hardware compressor can significantly speed up the production process by reducing the amount of compression you need to apply in-the-box, resulting in a reduced load on your computer's CPU.