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I got the new issue of Tape Op (kudos to deadly for recommending this magazine. I don't know know most of the people in the interviews, but I read it cover to cover) and there's an interview with Bruce Swedien. He's recorded Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Oscar Peterson and Herbie Hancock. Oh, and he was the engineer for Michael Jackson's Thriller.
In the interview, he says "I hate compression. [laughter] I have a favorite saying, "Compression is for kids."" "You don't work with half-assed musicians, because then your product is going to be that way."

So whether you're recording your own samples or using someone else's, it pays to have quality to begin with. It also struck me that this is coming from a guy involved with the best selling album of all time.

Although he might've reduced dynamic range by recording hot with tape?

Or he could be used to riding the faders on a nice big expensive board rather than relying on a compressor for automating his dynamics.

The interviewer asks him that too, but he says "First thing you learn to do is hire good singers." Must be nice working with people who can actually sing :/
That is a good technique to mention though. In the last issue I read, a guy talked about doing that during certain parts for singers who lacked dynamics.
So when they are riding the faders, they are bouncing to new tape?

for christmas im going to ask the rents to get me a subscription to computer music. is this tape op better than CM?

Yeah, he did automate volume for Thriller. Jazz is about that dynamic range.

Hypercompression is for kids.

Artie Fufkin wrote:The interviewer asks him that too, but he says "First thing you learn to do is hire good singers." Must be nice working with people who can actually sing :/
That is a good technique to mention though. In the last issue I read, a guy talked about doing that during certain parts for singers who lacked dynamics.
So when they are riding the faders, they are bouncing to new tape?

It's a different situation really since he's not also making the music, and often records session musicians and such. And yeah most likely is using natural compression instead, so no doubt he uses compression but when I read it I figured he meant overcompressing and using either analogue or virtual dedicated compressor units. Riding the faders can mean a few things, but usually it just means moving the faders (gain) on the mixer up and down throughout the mix and/or recording where appropriate. I prefer doing that as well, it gives you a much more 'organic' sounding recording, it's a good way to inject some feeling and presence. The definition of dub mixing really.

deadly habit wrote:Or he could be used to riding the faders on a nice big expensive board rather than relying on a compressor for automating his dynamics.

this.

this has been rumbling around on gearslutz for a while.

Its fine if you have the best session musicians in the world, who are as tight and 'level concious' as possible, but if you're recording some crappy band with levels all over the place, on a limited budget (BS had months to record and mix the albums he works on), then a compressor is a essential.

That said, going OTB i use hardly any compression now, the built in compression you get from saturating inputs and tape is effective enough in most instances.

Eat Bass wrote:for christmas im going to ask the rents to get me a subscription to computer music. is this tape op better than CM?

nah, its cool but its a way more sophisticated approach to music. Mainly for gear heads. Us laptop and desktop producers (like you and me) would like computer music better.

Tape Op is free though if you wanna give it a go. my subsciption just ended.

SoS is the one.

Also who is saying compression improves the sample/sound quality?

Found this on the TapeOp forum;

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=60547

A higher/more nerdy class of troll thread

yes, room treatment. fill the entire room with sand.

Epic

deadly habit wrote:Or he could be used to riding the faders on a nice big expensive board rather than relying on a compressor for automating his dynamics.

Its a good point! But Id love to see him do this on drums, his fingers would be on fire

iv always disliked compression, automating volumes and distortion (light or heavy) does it for me no matter what the source is.
i do sidechain a lot in FL with peak controller but i dont like results from standard compression techniques regardless of how many times iv done it over the years.
compression usually leads to loss of quality to my ears. also heavy limiting/compression might sound ok on headphones and some systems, but say if i play a knife party song at the club i dj at, it always sounds insanely distorted and sounds terrible :/
only time iv made good use of compression is on guitars and maybe drums but other than that it sucks for most things IMO.
even on youtube on a few compression tutorials iv seen, i always dont like the results others get when theyre trying to show the good use of compression lol.

sunny_b_uk wrote:iv always disliked compression, automating volumes and distortion (light or heavy) does it for me no matter what the source is.
i do sidechain a lot in FL with peak controller but i dont like results from standard compression techniques regardless of how many times iv done it over the years.
compression usually leads to loss of quality to my ears. also heavy limiting/compression might sound ok on headphones and some systems, but say if i play a knife party song at the club i dj at, it always sounds insanely distorted and sounds terrible :/
only time iv made good use of compression is on guitars and maybe drums but other than that it sucks for most things IMO.
even on youtube on a few compression tutorials iv seen, i always dont like the results others get when theyre trying to show the good use of compression lol.

Sidechaining in FL doesn't necessarily mean sidechain compression...I use sidechain ducking on the EQ bands a lot more than I ever compress anything with it.

wub wrote:Sidechaining in FL doesn't necessarily mean sidechain compression...I use sidechain ducking on the EQ bands a lot more than I ever compress anything with it.

tbh yeah i never seen it as a compression technique not sure why i mentioned it & lol yeah i was refering to ducking eq points and other things for mixdown purposes.
but compression in general i don't like, the only compressors iv ever liked are ones for adding character like the compressor in camelcrusher and AD rough rider (sounds more akin to saturation IMO)

Depone wrote:

deadly habit wrote:Or he could be used to riding the faders on a nice big expensive board rather than relying on a compressor for automating his dynamics.

Its a good point! But Id love to see him do this on drums, his fingers would be on fire

To be fair most of the recordings he's associated with have a wide dynamic range, that and recording to tape hot which might as well be compression.

"you don't work with half-assed musicians"?
"the first thing you learn is to hire good singers"?

He really sounds like a mean guy to me.. what if I can't afford singers at all? What if I don't know any musicians to work with?
To him it sounds like something everybody can do.. hire top notch instrumentalists and singers and then just record whatever floats your boat and only use EQ to mix it. Yea, sure, you can do that if you have all the hardware and money in the world.
I only have Cubase 6 (cheap version of it), Massive and Nexus and that's about it...

It's the same thing that happens when you've been watching Pensado's Place for a long time. You start realizing that these guys are working on a whole different mindset than most bedroom producers. I think I even remember CLA, or the guy that recorded Gotye, saying once in the show that a lot of stuff he did (or didn't do) wouldn't apply to most electronic (bedroom) music producers. Especially if you work in the box and/or are an amateur, all this stuff is fun and good to learn, but not really applicable from the get go imo.

Yea these guys are recording and mixing engineers, not producers or for a lot of them musicians at all. Tape OP is geared toward traditional recording, mixing, mastering etc, bands and such. They rarely have anything on EDM, even their lil thing with Squarepusher a few months back was more about his playing and such than the electronic side of it.

sunny_b_uk wrote:

wub wrote:the only compressors iv ever liked are ones for adding character