Compression As An Effect?

I have a modded MXR compressor pedal. it is a sound effect and I have found specific purpose for this pedal.
on guitar, it evens out all the strings. useful for that nashville tele plucking twang. when I increase setting my guitar sounds squishy, almost shimmery.
I do see a need of compression in recording. however, todays popular use of compression is too much. high output with compression is just a wall to my ears. I like the recordings from the earlier years. presence, separation are important to me.

IMO, the popularity of compression as an "effect" is related to the popularity of tapping as a technique. The more compression, the sloppier you can be in a tapped line.

Oh yah, I can see where it'd help in tapping. It also definately makes sense about evening out the strings. I've noticed before, when playing power chords, that the lowest string was more prominent, so compression would probably even that out. I guess I just need to keep experimenting with different compressions until I find one that actually changes the quality of the sound. I'm just not hearing it.

Update: Wow, I've been trying out different compressor plugins I have, and I just tried one out called "Classic Compressor" but I don't know where I got it from. Looks like it's from "Kjaerhus Audio." Anyway, there is a preset called "Vocal Definition" and I tried it on a recording of myself talking, and there was a VERY noticable difference in the sound. It wasn't just louder or quieter; the syllables jumped out at me more and there was definately more definition to my words. Hmmmmm interesting.... I'm gonna try this plugin out on guitar later. Stay tuned! haha

There's a lot more going on than just levelling. Consider how the parameters affect the outcome. Attack can be adjusted to squash plosives/transients to soften the output or the attack can be set slower to allow the transient through and compress the rest of the signal. So, you can diminish or accent the transient.

In regards ot the Vocal Definition effect: This is better used as a parallel effect than on the entire signal. You could do this by either copying the track or using compression via auxilliary send. I prefer the prior.

Consider also that when you compress a signal, you're not only amplifying and attenuating levels. You are also amplifying and attenuating frequencies. A de-esser is based on compression. Sometimes you might want to bring up certain frequencies in a track but if you're compressing , sometimes the more you compress, the quieter those frequencies will get because of course the compressor kicks in and attenuates the signal. So sometimes you think your adding bass but in the end, you have less bass than you started out with.

Needless to say, compression can be a dangerous tool. it's great if you know what you intend to do and how to get there but careless application can result in unwanted results.

There's a lot more going on than just levelling. Consider how the parameters affect the outcome. Attack can be adjusted to squash plosives/transients to soften the output or the attack can be set slower to allow the transient through and compress the rest of the signal. So, you can diminish or accent the transient.

In regards ot the Vocal Definition effect: This is better used as a parallel effect than on the entire signal. You could do this by either copying the track or using compression via auxilliary send. I prefer the prior.

Hey there Hueseph, long time no see. Wow, so you're talking about using the compressed track almost as an "effect track" added to the regular vocal? Yah, I still haven't been able to hear much difference with the attack/release transients with past software, but I'll try it more with this new plugin. Any advice on how I can test it out?

If you really want to figure it out. Work one parameter at a time. record one guitar track and copy it over a succession of tracks. Apply compression to each track using different settings. Start with attack since it is the predominant effect you will hear. Set the attack as short as possible then progressively longer for each additional track(increments of 10-15 ms should be ok.). Set the compression ratio to a good 4:1 so that you can really hear what it's doing. You probably only need 4 to 8 tracks for this. Listen to how the attack changes the way the guitar sounds. Eventually you will get to the point where it will be obviously unuseable.

Set the attack to a point that you like it. Now play with ratio and see how that effects each track and so forth. I can type about it but you won't really get it till you try yourself.

In general you don't really want to use compression on a send. It's USUALLY best to use it as an insert. There are times however when you might want to use parallel compression that is, using a copied track and heavily compressing the signal. Using the fader to add that copied track as an enhancement. Specifically, this works well when you want to add vocal definition.

Wow that's a good idea Hueseph! I'll try that tonight when I get home from my friend's house. I'm sure I'll be able to hear something after I do that. But you're right, I think people do get compression-crazy these days, as others have mentioned. I've heard the pro's say "Yah, I used like ten different compression effects on that track" and I'm thinking, "well if you had to use ten different ones, then they must not be doing very much, and if they DO, it's probably overkill at that point."

I misswed one step. You of course need to solo each track to hear how each track is effected individually and comparitively. IE: A/Bing