I accept this is a slightly contentious title, but as I hope you’ll agree by the end of this article – it’s an important question. What are you using compression for? I’m hoping you’ll have a completely different approach to compression in about five minutes. We’ll see…

The best way to look at the use of compression is to go into a bit of history. I’ll just scan over it so no need to dust off the books or anything. 

In the early days of broadcast, compressors (or rather limiters) were very useful in preventing the equipment from overloading and distorting. A broadcaster could strap something like the Western Electric 110 over their signal and the output would be fairly even whether a radio presenter was whispering, or the studio audience were applauding. As you can imagine, this ability to capture dynamic performances without distortion was very useful in the early recording process too, so those broadcast limiters found their way into recording studios.

If you look at the controls of these early studio compressors though (like the Fairchild 660 which came out in 1959 and the Teletronix LA-2A in 1965) they were limited to just input and output level, and sometimes a ‘threshold’ knob. Their job was to prevent distortion and to even out a performance. It’s worth remembering that it would be almost a quarter of a century before professional studios started installing desks with volume automation, so all levels to be adjusted during a mix were done by hand, and live as you printed the mix to a reel of tape. Mixing really was an all-hands-on-deck scenario where everyone available would have a few faders that they were in charge of, and moves would have to be remembered and then performed on the fly. You can see why a bit of gear that keeps an instrument’s level steady was incredibly useful – one less fader that needs manual control!

Attack And Release

A big step for compressors came in 1967 when Bill Putnam introduced the tube-based 176 and later the solid-state 1176 compressors, which quickly became very popular in studios all over the world (as they still are today). These were different because they gave the engineer control over the attack and release times, and all of a sudden you could properly shape a sound with the compressor. Now the use of a compressor wasn’t just a safety feature, and it wasn’t just an aid to control the levels in a mix - it was a creative tool in itself. 

Fast forward to today, and we are almost all making music in DAWs with the ability to automate and control absolutely every aspect of our mix. Not just volumes and balance, but we can automate effects in and out, an EQ’s gain and frequency etc. And yet, how many people are using compression to level out an instrument and keep it’s volume fairly consistent? And why? A century ago, this made a lot of sense as it was the only way to do this job, but now - if you look at the different ways you could even out the volume of an instrument - compression is probably the worst of your options. Adjusting the audio region gain, or using volume automation on the faders will level a performance with no artefacts. There are even plug-ins out there now that aim to do this job alone. So to set a compressor, which will affect the punch and power of an instrument, to do a brute-force job of level control seems… old fashioned. 

A Modern Approach

What would a ‘modern’ compression process look like then? Well, here’s what I’m suggesting. For any sound or group that you want to compress, first do the levelling work. Using clip gain, volume automation or whatever method you prefer, do the little bit of work that’s required to get the signal going into a compressor at a fairly even level. Then you can use the compressor for what it’s best at in today’s studio world – shaping the sound. Get some punch and dynamics out of the instrument or group, then once you’ve nailed the sound, you can use volume automation after the compressor just as you would on a desk’s faders to adjust the dynamics of the whole song as you, the mixer, see fit.

Maybe there are some people reading this who have also been doing this for years and are wondering why I’m saying this is something new, which is great. But I know many people are still using compressors to save them the job of adjusting levels, and I would say that the method I’m suggesting is a least worth a try – a small amount of effort will give you much more control of your mix, and much more life in your instruments.  

More Recording Resources From Dom Morley

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