FabFilter Pro-C 2 Compressor

[TBman]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Barry, is this your recording and playing? If so it's the cleanest, most solid performance I have heard of yours - plus a fine sound.

Derek,

Yes, it's me, thank you!

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Just wanted to say how much I like all of your Slide show you tube presentations TBman! Not only do you play and record so beautifully, but the turning pictures are always of interest and in good presentation.

Exossaise Op. 33 no 2. Extremely beautiful composition. I had the great pleasure of being taught by the number one understudy of the -second to the last picture person in your video. Back in the mid 60's that is. And got to meet him several times a small parties. Unfortunately, I only studied classical for a very short time. The desires of youth made me quickly seek out melodic Rock and Roll. But I did keep much of the fingering and merged it with heavy strumming.

Back to compressors of which I am a novice as well; One way to look at the difference in compression for fingerstyle and classical might be your typical solo single notes on a nylon guitar in Movie soundtracts. You can hear a total loudness level evenness that makes it jump out. That heavy type of compression would most likely be way to much for a fingerstyle player.

My personal take is that I feel it was so easy for me to get a reasonable sound for acoustic guitar back in the 70's going into tape. Tape offers a mild compression on its own. In today's world my guitar is 5 times better sounding than what I had back in the day, yet it is harder for me to get the sound I desire in the digital age. Why? That is because recorded raw digital does not do any of the Compression-saturation effects that tape offers. Compression is one part of getting sound I desire. Also room acoustics can also form a type of leveling. As the sound is bouncing off the walls and coming back to you is at less of the initial volume in which you hear as the player.( unfortunately rooms causes other unwanted frequency problems as well though)

You play so evenly TBman that compression will be of less value to you. As I have learned from so many others input...only 2 db reduction for fingerstyle is generally all you will need. More than that and you might get some negative artifacts.

Thank you! I'll keep the -2db advice in mind.

[min7b5]

Originally Posted by TBman

Thank you! I'll keep the -2db advice in mind.

That's generally about what I'm after also, But I will say that I think ratio matters much more than threshold in terms of the compression being less noticeable. -2db at 4:1 sounds more noticeable to me than a lower threshold at 2:1. Lately I gravitate towards like 0.5:1 or less. But I'm still learning too

[rick-slo]

Anyone use a compressor plug-in as an expander?

[DupleMeter]

I prefer a dedicated expander, but I have used a compressor to achieve expansion on a track...but you need a compressor that has a "reverse threshold" kind of feature. They're out there. The one thing they tend to not have is the Hysteresis setting, like a real expander.

In terms of compression threshold, ratio, etc., you have to know what you want from the compressor when you set these things. a 4:1 ratio is very different than a 2:1 in the overall effect of the compressor. 2:1 will be much gentler & less effective at actually controlling dynamics. I almost never go below 4:1 in music. I will do a 2.5:1 ratio on dialogue tracks when I'm doing audio post projects (for video).

What I have found is that setting appropriate attack & release times with a threshold that is holding the compressor in "working range" is much more important to making the compressor feel natural than the ratio. Also, if you have a knee control that will change how the compressor kicks in & reacts to that threshold. Even better if you have a control that not only softens the knee, but also goes harder than "hard knee" and emulates a dog tail knee (like on the old LA2As or Fairchilds).

Compression is hard to hear, until you learn to hear it. Once you get there, you can really better understand how those settings change the behavior and sound of the compressor. It's just time, like anything else in life. The whole 10,000 hours thing.

It's funny, because I'm training a handful of engineers for a client right now and we're trying to crack the whole compressor thing. I watch these up and coming engineers struggling with hearing what part of the compressor is not right (ratio, attack, release, threshold, knee) and I remember being there. I also see them then feel frustrated when I walk up to the compressor and adjust one thing & it's all grooving. And I say the same thing to them each time "check in with me 30 years & I bet you'll be able to set a compressor in your sleep too".

I say that to encourage everyone. Just keep working at it.

[min7b5]

In case this is interesting/entertaining to anyone, from the university of Youtube:

I think this guys video is a nice overview for beginners using Mike Stavrou's approach, which is outlined in Mr Stavrou's great book "Mixing With Your Mind". And it happens to use Pro C2 https://youtu.be/8XBkQ91Q06U

Because maybe what we are doing with solo acoustic guitar mixing is comparable more to mastering in terms of using very gentle moves with compression and eq, Jonathan Wyner talking about compression in the "Are You Listening Series" might be pretty interesting. https://youtu.be/IyjlRiNiLBg

And then a quickie that demonstrates differences in transparency between leaning more on threshold vs ratio: https://youtu.be/xeWB-xlssbQ

[djlettierimx]

I've used the FabFilter Pro-C 2 compressor in my music stuff, and it's pretty handy. Using it could make your recordings sound more precise and even. So, your music will sound good whether someone's listening to it on their phone or speakers.

For your acoustic guitar recordings, the Pro-C 2 can ensure all the small details in your music come through nicely. It's not just about being loud but making sure everything in your music is heard well and sounds good together.

I learned a lot about using compressors like Pro-C 2 from https://faqaudio.com/. They have easy-to-understand tips on making your recordings sound better with compression.

[Sasquatchian]

The Fab Filter compressors, both the single band and the multi-band are great, both quite worthy of the name. They're both very clean and don't impart their own sound like the tube emulating compressor plug-ins. And the are perfectly complemented by the Fab Filter Limiter, which, when used in 4x or 8x oversampling mode are great in dealing with intersampled peaks, which is a whole fascinating subject on its own.

[SprintBob]

The user interface on all of the FabFilter plug-in’s are the big draw to me. The products seem elegant, more user friendly, and more intuitive in use.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by SprintBob

The user interface on all of the FabFilter plug-in’s are the big draw to me. The products seem elegant, more user friendly, and more intuitive in use.

I went ahead and purchased the C. I like their products too. I have the reverb and the eq as well.