Recording - October 2013 - 67

often shifting between brushwork, side
stick, and full snare in the same song.
Compression can also help smooth out
musical issues. Less-than-pro performances, ripe with poor timing, bad
microphone technique, and over-eager
dynamics typically benefit from the effect.
Pour some compression on me
In the aforementioned uses of compression, namely loudness increases, clip prevention, noise reduction, and mix control,
you don’t normally want to hear side
effects of the processing. In these situations, transparency is the goal and the
effect itself should not be heard. In mixing,
however, compressors are frequently
employed for the very sonics they can add
to a source. Compression can make drums
punchy, synths fatter, guitars sustain, and
pianos thick and aggressive. In this manner, compression has become one of the
favorite tools of the modern mix engineer.
Not surprisingly, pop music productions are ripe with fantastic examples of
obvious compression. Check out the
aggressive drum squish on Led Zeppelin’s
“When The Levee Breaks,” or the overthe-top vocal limiting on The Red Hot Chili
Peppers’ “Scar Tissue.” In both of these
examples, the effect does more than

make single instruments louder. It adds
tone, character, and rock and roll intensity to the overall productions.
Another great example of compression
as an effect is “She Said, She Said,” from
the Beatles’ album Revolver. If you are not
familiar with this recording, it’s worth a
download from iTunes to check out. In the
track the drum set is severely slammed, creating a situation in which all drum and
cymbal hits are nearly equal in loudness.
This lends a fantastic breathing effect to the
cymbals and brings up in level the lightest
of snare dribbles. Slightly less obvious is
that other instruments in the track are also
very compressed, including the vocals,
bass, guitars, and organ. The song and its
sound are very cool, and it and other
Beatles productions have inspired decades
of musicians, engineers, and producers to
chase the Ringo Starr drum sound.
Particularly notable about the “She Said,
She Said” is that the drum compression
can be credited to one particular processor: the Fairchild. Originally introduced in
the late 1950s as a mastering limiter, the
Fairchild 670 is now considered the most
desired vintage signal processor in the
audio world. Weighing in at sixty-five
pounds and sometimes fetching more than
$30,000 on the used market, Fairchilds

look and sound cool, oozing vibe on whatever signal they touch.
The popularity of the Fairchild highlights
how decades of important recordings
have made particular processors famous.
The Universal Audio 1176, the dbx 160
series, the Teletronix LA-2A, the Neve
33609, and the Empirical Labs Distressor
are just a few examples of compressors
adored for both their sound and legacy.
Of course, for many of us, these processors are simply too expensive to find their
way into our project studios. Luckily a variety of modeled plug-ins exists to emulate the
real thing. Yes, software versions rarely
sound exactly the same as their hardware
counterparts, and they certainly don’t earn
your studio street cred, but modeled plug-ins
are effective in teaching how to use and
choose vintage compressors.
Stay tuned for next month for an
overview of processor parameters and an
introduction to both simple and advanced
compression techniques. See you then.
Eric Ferguson (ferguson@recordingmag
.com) spent a dozen years as a freelance
audio engineer in Los Angeles, and is
now on the faculty of the New England
School of Communications (NESCOM) in
Bangor, ME.

http://www.Auralex.com/PRAF http://www.Auralex.com/PRAF

Recording - October 2013

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