How to Hear Compression with Vince Welch - Ben Levin
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- čas přidán 6. 08. 2024
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I read a meme that helped me understad compression:
"A compressor is like your mother"
Threshold is the level of volume when your mom tells you to turn down the music.
Ratio is how much you turn it down
Attack is how fast you turn it down
Release is how quick you turn it back up as she walks out the door.
What a clever way to think of it
oh my god it all makes sense now
Imagine going through every track on every song of an album adjusting stuff for every little part. And then doing it again for whatever else you want to change; much respect to the producers of the world
Yup, fun stuff yet hars work haha
@@22222Sandman22222 It really explains a lot when a band says it's in the mixing stage and it ends up taking 4 to 6 months before it's released
i want ben to sit on my lap and play guitar too
Joel Medina A dream would come true
I'm going to sit on my producer's lap from now on.
This is by far the most comprehensive compression tutorial I've found yet.. After all of these mindless tutorials over the years, I would never have guessed that understanding how to HEAR the compression is the first step towards learning how to USE the compression. Absolute gold mine of a channel!
this is true for a lot of music, i think :v
Yeah this was brilliantly done, I appreciated how this guy kept moving along. He spends his time appropriately talking about each aspect.
Little does he know my pants were already off
This video was a lightbulb moment, i felt pretty confident with compressors, but idk something just happened that made my brain understand alot more.
Hearing compression and doing it right is still such a skill, demanding a lot of experimentation and experience to learn, but this video is a very good, intuitive starting point. Compressor and EQ are two fundametal sound sculpting effects, but EQ is something probably more visual, intuitive (at least, everyone has some experience with bass/hf tweaking at some boombox/magnitola/anything, even probably multiband graphical EQ), but no one is really dealing too much with compression in everyday life. Also, frequency spectrum analysers/visualisers are much more common/intuitive, than any dynamics vis. And "perfect pitch" is far more common amongst people, than "perfect dynamics sense" (it doesn't even have proper name).
Илья Лагуткин I think it was really over compressed. The threshold of the compressor is super low and can't be changed and the ratio is too high for my tastes. Proper compression shouldn't be that noticeable under most circumstances in my opinion.
"Jonesing for attack/release" is an accurate description. Great tutorial, thanks for sharing it.
Compression will never sound the same to me again. Thank you Vince and Ben! :)
Great video! Easy to follow and would love to see more stuff with Vince
I remember, you wrote a song and performed it on berkeley back in the days.. It was something about like being naughty or making love something like that. I remember that was a beautiful piece but I can't find it anywhere.. Where is it Ben? :)
Such a perfectly succinct explanation and demonstration of how to apply compression, thank-you for the video Vince! And thank-you Ben for sharing this on your channel!
This was excellent! Thank you! Definitely looking forward to more like this
Y'all just changed my life forever thank you for sharing from Namibia south western Africa...
Thanks! Such an intuitive way to think about it :)
Insane. Useful tutorials. There are too many videos of people who don't know what they're actually doing.
Ben, Vince (and Adam for redirecting to this channel which is a lot more useful for me than Adam's channel since I am a guitarist) huge thank you!
Jan-Paul Boelcke a lesson on compression without a threshold control isn't very great. It's a fine explanation for a guitar pedal type compressor, but you wouldn't want to use this compressor in this tutorial because you lack control of all of the parameters.
Awesome video! I like how Vince made sure not to repeat what's already been said on compression on YT.
These videos are super helpful for me. these are things ive been doing wrong for like a year
Fantastic video! Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you so much, you really gave a great in depth and easy to understand lesson.
Never thought about compression this way. Thanks Vince and Ben!!
wonderful video! this has helped me immensely!!
This is super valuable. Thanks guys!
Ben, thx for sharing!
Ive always needed this lesson
Really great, more of this!
Thanks Ben and Vince.
More of this!!! Awesome vid
Great explanation 👍
At last! The definitive video on compression...
Thanks. I understand compression better now
Thank Vince! It was quite good
This is very nice! Thank you!!!
this is great, is vince going to make a channel or push towards private lessons?
Both!. I plan to start uploading mixing videos to my own channel in the coming months. And I'm offering private lessons, which you can email me about using the link Ben provides in the description!
@@vincewelch "This channel doesnt have any videos" / "2 years ago" hopefully everything is going alright with you, thanks for the video either way!
Fantastic! Thank you!
Thanks for sharing ben
Not gonna lie, by far the most helpful compression video on youtube. I'm a classical musician transitioning into music production and I've been struggling so much with the subtlety of mixing. I hope I get to see more Vince Welch and I'll certainly check out Bent Knees as well.
This might sound like a dumb question, I know what compression does to the audio, but are the musical purposes of using compression other than balancing the dynamics? I've seen compression used in so many ways throughout many pieces I've been listening.
Thanks a lot! The short answer to your question is yes, there are numerous reasons to use compression besides controlling dynamics. It's a very complicated topic though, and a little bit more than I want to try to fit into a CZcams comment. I hope to do a video on that very question someday.
Vince Welch awesome! Thanks for replying. I'll certainly subscribe and look forward to your video.
The threshold is the most important setting on the compressor. This plug-in lacks that control. You need to understand the threshold to really grasp compression.
Wes Tolson the input equals the threshold in this plugin I think
Souel Productions it's not. It's input gain.
great lesson with a classic Bending
thanks! we want more vince!
at least, i do
this helped me fix a problem in my rap song because i understand how the attack know works better now. thanks!
Finally!!! Thanks man
I had no idea the attack was faster at 7 than 1. I guess its good I use the ear and not the number. Still, revisiting some tracks I have used this compressor on. Great job making this tutorial about ears and not eyes and knobs.
great vid!
Best compression video
wow i understood it for the first time - finally!
This video is perfect..
S-Gear ! Great amp simulator. Great video as well !
Great lesson, but one thing about production of this video:
Each time I cranked the volume to hear sound a bit better (and get the details), Vince's voice punished me for doing so. Could you *use compressor* for you next video please (or just lower dialog bit, so actual level of the video is consistent) ? Also what phenomenological properties compressor adds to the sound (i hope I use the term correctly)? I mean sometimes its like I flat my ear against a wall and listening to something really close, but other times it "opens up" material , and I'm not sure what settings contribute to what quality. Its an invitation to go deeper into this route
You make a good point. If compression *was* used on the video, would we still be able to hear the effect of Vince's twiddling?
@@richardbradley3684 I'd say limit dialogue track really hard, ao it would not get much above music. Also making voices radio-like helps
thanks dude
Interesting discussion of compression. I've tended to dislike the idea of compression ever since the "loudness wars" started and engineers started compressing tracks to make them as loud as possible at the expense of wiping out some of the dynamic range of the music. However, I found this you tube video on hearing compression very informative.
Race Jones that's a specific type of compression called a limiter. Limiters have a very high ratio, like 10:1 and above. Limiters are typically added to the master of a mix to keep the overall level of the song below a certain level. This is part of the process known as mastering. During the loudness wars engineers would crank the threshold down way too far and output gain of those limiters through the roof to as loud as they could reach without clipping. This was because they wanted thier songs to stand out more when they played on your radio. If the previous song was significantly quieter than the next one it would certainly grab your attention, but it does really ruin the mix. Nowadays streaming music is the most popular format and apps like Spotify introduce their own limiter to achieve an overall average level of -14 dB so it's now become standard to master to -14 dB. That way your mix isn't altered by the app your listeners are likely to hear you on.
Okay. Thanks for the information. Your comment was informative too. Is there any dynamic range lost in the music if you standardize the decibel levels to -14db?
thank you
i thought about lights when i was visualizing the sound, like it kept getting brighter
Informative.
Really interesting take.
Wow thank you
nice!! you could do a similar video, but talking about equalization!!
Why would you use a compressor on a synth when you have a literal ADSR envelope generator to shape your dynamics. The only thing I can think of is if you like the color of a specific compressor.
Great video! He should make a channel
Hell yeah
I just love how the organic image of the guitar sample perfectly depicts, that notation with all the good things it encodes does not really tell us where a note is supposed to be located exactly. One would expect a score to tell us which point in that array is the longest, the faintest, the exactest, the loudest, the longest to remain in the room, and what not. It cant. But any other choice and the Rythm is going to be something else. Worse, better, wrong, right? Why dont you tell me, Note? its important! Not if I play it and decide over every further step from there to final form and noone else gets a vote before release. Otherwise, especially when digital and analog pipelines intersect at some point during a collaboration...I'd never imagine I would ever have anything like the two hour discussion, who is in Charge of what and what is essential and what lethal and what is it supposed to be anyway? Why not quantisze it all on the beat, and why not just use it as recorded....ever with someone i wanted to make music together. So now I need to ask this: What about an additional Envelope VST. Is that redundant in case I use the Compressor for Dynamics, does it make sense or is important in some cases, or not? And if: why, god, why? Do hate me, or do you hate music, What do you want me to do? louder? you want it louder? Or am I just too ignorant to really get the very obvious thing to do? Get some Audioengineer in the room and be back to business within minutes? I need to know before I touch that knobdial again
good video
Hey Ben, quick question for you or Vince : why is the slower attack on the compressor labelled with a lower number? And vice versa. It seems kind of counter intuitive 🤔
There is no technical reason for it. This particular compressor is a reproduction of a classic hardware compressor, it just so happens that the original engineers of the device made it that way. The software engineers who tried to reproduce it kept it so for the sake of authenticity. Other compressors often have it the other way around, just make sure you look at your compressor's user guide to know for sure!
I was gonna comment on that. The 1176 is the only compressor I know of in which the attack and release controls work in the opposite directions of all the other ones. Usually faster action means turn the knob counter-clockwise.
Thank you so much
You are right, however, speed is not as technical of a term as time in milliseconds, so maybe the engineers of this particular piece of hardware tried making an equipment that was more intuitive to musicians, too bad it causes some confusion since it is the only or one of the few that follow this logic.
Tony- Atkinson
In terms of time (ms), the higher the number = more time = slower
And the lower the number = less time = faster
Just to ease any confusion
Around 6:30- what would you do to raise the volume of those quieter notes?
does anyone know of any youtubers that educate about mixing like Vince?
There's a producer called Underbelly with a series called "You Suck At Mixing."
Ben, what are your thoughts on that ibanez Jem 555??
What about threshold and ratio?
how'd he make the warble at 3:12
"Try to see the note"
Everyone with aphantasia: "....?"
is youtube adding something over this audio that makes it hard to hear? I hear no difference other than the volume being louder or softer.....attack, release, I hear nothing.
its just difficult to hear
@@lincolnpepper816 I was thinking that maybe it's harder to hear since youtube normally compresses videos? or is it normally this hard to hear?
y'all are so cute and positive
CZcams compressed this video. Its hard to hear the diffrences in dynamics :((( but still grate video!
I was wondering if it's something wrong with me so I can't hear it.
I am used to compressor models that have a ratio control, with tweaks like threshold, knee, and makeup gain. I'm a little puzzled by these input/output knobs; i suppose the output is like makeup gain, but the input sorta baffles me.
And thanks a million, Vince. It's really cool to hear from you!
Input essentially is doing the work of the threshold, but instead of pulling the threshold down to where you want the compression to start, you’re pushing up the input gain to meet a static threshold.
Thanks for the info.
What about ratio?
I'm actually a little surprised at the clunkiness of this compressor design. A VU meter showing attenuation?
The Ableton compressor shows you attenuation, input and output level, threshold, and curve, all on a sliding window display. Much easier to see what is going on.
Ah i see the ratio radio switch now: just fixed values 4, 8, 12, 20?
Where can I get that compressor?
It comes with Pro Tools. If you're using a different DAW, my favorite 1176 plug in is the one made by UAD. Slate and Waves make pretty good ones too.
О боже, я столько всего читал и смотрел про компрессоры, но только после этого видео я понял, что они делаю на самом деле. Спасибо!
please tell me how to hear compression without Vince Welch. Don't always wanna carry a Vince Welch with me
Your guitar says “know” in Japanese. Why?
yayyyyyyyyyy for da squishy squish!!!!!!
i dont hear any difference what s wrong w me :'(
You're just untrained. Continue to listen critically, and try to use headphones or really good speakers. You will get an aha! moment eventually.
I'm not bored if you're sharing secret sauce
Two of the most over compressed albums I have ever listened to are David Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" (especially the beginning of "Sweet Thing"), and Frank Zappa's "You are what you is" album, which really bothers me, because IMO, Frank would've NEVER let that album be released sounding that badly compressed.
Are my ears dysfunctional? I hardly hear any differences at all.
No, you're fine, it's just subtle! If you are listening on a phone, laptop speakers, or on a tablet it will be really hard to tell what's going on because those devices already compress the audio. The best way to get the effect is with headphones.
Vince is a bad ass motha fucka!Thanks for making this video!
I'm starting to worry about the state of my hearing because I simply can't tell any difference between most of these things that are supposed to be very different.
They are actually pretty subtle, so don't sweat if you can't really hear the differences at first. It takes hundreds of hours of using compressors before these kinds of differences become obvious.
Thank you for exercising restraint. Too many pop producers over compress tracks. It makes the songs sound boring and flat.
I like your teaching method, but what is the point of compression? It doesn't sound better, not to my ears anyway. Why have equipment with a wide dynamic range if the notes are just going to get squashed like a bug?
Am I the only one that doesn’t really hear any differences between compressed and uncompressed? I feel like my ears are still not trained enough to hear the subtle differences
I was thinking of overly compressed mp3 files
Haha, "soulless button mashers"! Lol
It's not good to think of a compressor as making quieter notes louder. The compressor reduces the volume of a sound by a particular ratio specified once the sound crosses the threshold of the compressor. Attack is how quickly the compressor engages once you reach the threshold, release is how long the compressor stays in effect after the sound goes back below the threshold. Make up gain is a feature that turns up the entire track if you want to compensate for the decrease in relative level of the louder parts. Make up gain makes everything louder, not just the quiet parts. This plug-in isn't very good to use as an example for compressors because you lack the control of adjusting your threshold at all and you can't be specific with your ratio. It's like a compressor for someone who doesn't know how compressors actually function. Like guitar players. ;)
thats a limiter bud