Custom Search

Compression

Technical Reasons to Avoid Overall Compression on Your Album.
Save decisions on overall compression and individual tune equalization for an expert CD mastering house because:
1) The mastering house will have a more appropriate compressor with the proper attack, ratio, and release times exactly right for your music. If you mixed to digital tape, they will probably use a 24-bit digital compressor for the purpose.
2) They will likely be more experienced than you about the compromises, advantages and disadvantages of applying overall compression.
3) The mastering house can program that compressor with precision, adjusting it optimally for each tune in question. You're working out of context (without having the perspective of the entire album) by attempting these sorts of decisions during mixing.
4) The mastering house will be able to monitor your "CD in the making" using a calibrated monitoring system so that they know exactly how loud your "CD in the making" is compared to other CDs of similar music.
5) A good mastering house will be able to do all of this in a non-destructive, non-cumulative manner. In other words, after making a reference CD, they will be able to undo anything you are unhappy with, whether it be compression, EQ or levels. Whereas, most digital audio editing stations can only perform destructive EQ or compression, only with 16-bit word length, with a consequent loss of resolution as long internal words are either dithered (resulting in a veil if further processed), rounded (slightly better than truncated), or truncated to 16 bit.
6) For the same technical reasons, it is not a good idea to use a digital compressor (or any digital
processor) on your material before sending it for mastering. If you do feel the need to insert one of these boxes, for example, to give a demo CD to your client, be sure to also make a non-processed version to prepare for the mastering house. It is likely that the mastering house will have a fresher-sounding, more effective approach at polishing your material, and it's self-defeating if they have to try to undo what was done.
7) If you apply overall compression to your music, and your choice of compressor was wrong (e.g., the compressor you chose caused subtle pumping or breathing, loss of transients, loss of life or liveliness, etc. These are typical symptoms of "compressor misuse" on tapes I have received), the mastering house will have a difficult or impossible time attempting to undo the damage. As I've mentioned, mastering is like whittling soap; it is hard to undo compression.
This article is taken from http://www.digido.com/bob-katz/compression.html
Get cash from your website. Sign up as affiliate.