Music Production and Mixing Tips for Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
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Music Production and Mixing Tips for Music Producers and Artists | Inside The Mix
#164: Mastering Vocal Compression: Unleashing the Power of 1176 and LA-2A Compressors
Ever wondered how to make a super compressed vocal stand out? Tune in to EP 164 of the Inside The Mix podcast, where I dive into everything from vocal compression settings to mastering the 1176 and LA-2A compressors. In this episode, I break down the secrets behind compressing vocals effectively—whether you're looking for optimal vocal compression settings, tips on how to compress vocals, or insights on using an 1176 with an LA-2A.
Unlock the secrets of mastering vocal dynamics as I take you on a journey through the world of iconic compressors—the 1176 and LA-2A. Ever wondered how to control those unruly volume peaks in your tracks? Using insights from my own 2022 release "You and I," I uncover how these legendary compressors can transform your vocal tracks from harsh to harmonious. With a deep dive into my process in Logic Pro, you'll learn the exact settings and adjustments I made on the UAD Rev-A 1176 and UAD LA2A compressor to achieve that perfect balance and polish.
In this episode, I'll guide you through:
- Overview of 1176 and LA-2A Compressors: Exploration of these iconic compressors and their role in transforming vocal tracks by controlling dynamics and adding unique character.
- Real-World Application: Insights from my process on my 2022 release, You and I, demonstrating how these compressors smoothed out vocal peaks.
- Step-by-Step Walkthrough in Logic Pro: Detailed settings and adjustments on the Rev-A 1176, addressing challenges like taming loud vocal sections for a balanced, pleasant sound.
- Optimizing Attack and Release Times: The importance of setting these parameters for consistent sound quality and effective gain reduction.
- Exploration of 1176 Characteristics: Insight into how this compressor’s unique sound colour enhances audio tracks.
- Dynamic Control Techniques: Practical tips on mastering dynamic control to enrich and harmonize vocal tracks using these legendary tools.
Join me for a session packed with hands-on techniques and insights that’ll elevate your audio production skills.
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You're listening to the Inside the Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews.
Marc Matthews:Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you want to know more about your favourite synth music artists, music engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing and mastering music for over 15 years and I want to share what I've learned with you. Hello, folks, and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. If you are a new listener, make sure you hit follow wherever you get your podcasts and if you're watching this on YouTube, hit subscribe and the notification bell so you get notified of new episodes. And, to the returning listeners, a huge welcome back, as always.
Marc Matthews:I was scrolling through threads and social media recently, which isn't something I do very often, and I saw a post which was what is your favorite compressors, one of those engagement posts. Right and overwhelmingly it was 1176, la-2a and then the Distressor. I've got a Distressor emulation and an LA-2A emulation and I don't have an 1176. And I thought to myself okay, maybe I am missing out on something here and I think I am late to the party on that. So then I was scrolling through Facebook, which contradicts my point earlier of not really scrolling through social media right and I saw a video and it was someone using the 1176 and LA-2A in series on vocals and how it's been used on many popular releases throughout the decades. Basically because the 1176 has been around for a while, as has the LA-2A, and I thought this must be a sign. Right, I'm late to the party. I need to get on board with this chain of plugins and start using this and experimenting myself. So then what happened was that UAD had a 70% off, so the 1176 was available for 49 quid. Then it was if you spend over a hundred pounds, you get 50 pounds off. So I was like amazing. So I bought the 1176 and the Opal Polymorph Synth for £58 from UAD. It was a sign. Right, it was a sign.
Marc Matthews:So this episode is me experimenting with the 1176 and LA-2A in series on a vocal that needs taming. The dynamics in this vocal are quite wild. It's a raw vocal and it's from a track that I released back in 2022 called you and I, and, in particular, there's a section where the vocalist goes really high in terms of volume, and I want something that can control those dynamics smoothly. So I thought this is a great use case for the 1176 and LA-2A. So let's dive in. So we're here in Logic Pro and I've got the raw vocal here. There's no on this whatsoever.
Marc Matthews:And listen out, for towards the end of this particular phrase, where the vocalist really does push it in terms of volume, and it's almost a bit uncomfortable in how not because of the way she sings but because of the way the volume increases. So listen and you'll see what I mean, or rather you'll hear what I mean Right at the end. There it's almost like it makes you kind of like you're sucking a lemon. It kind of makes your face turn in on itself a bit bit. It's a bit too abrasive for my liking, uh, but in the end it turned out incredible. I love it's probably my favorite song I've ever released. So this is what it sounds like with the 1176 into the lo2a, you take me in, I'm not fighting.
Marc Matthews:We're still lying.
Marc Matthews:In particular, that bit at the end, that uncomfortable bit I mentioned, is so much smoother now. Now I'm still playing around with the parameters and getting used to the 1176 in particular, so I could tweak it a bit more. But I'm going to show you what I did to tame this vocal. I'm using the Rev-A 1176 and this is the original Putnam design of the 1176, so you're going to have the unique characteristics of the original design. I do have the Rev-E, which was the 70s version, which was sort of low-noise era version, as you would call it, but I haven't experimented with that one yet, so we're going to be using the Rev-A in this instance.
Marc Matthews:So I started with the Vox Peak Catcher, because that's what I'm doing with this one here. I'm catching peaks, basically, and there's a lot, or rather there is that huge one right at the end of that phrase, and I tweaked it slightly. So the attack is all the way fast. Well, almost all the way fast, almost all the way fast. So that is clockwise, so almost at seven, and the release was faster in the patch itself, the preset, so I just brought it back a touch.
Marc Matthews:So it's just under six and the input is where I am controlling the amount of gain reduction. So I've got it set at 4 to 1. I don't want any more than 4 to 1, but it can go up to 20 to 1, or I believe you can do all buttons in. I haven't tried it yet. So I'm using the input to control the gain reduction. So when it gets to that really loud section, that's where I want the needle at, that's where I want the gain reduction to take place, and there's quite a lot of it it's going to go up to about minus 10 dB. But in the initial phrasing of this section I don't really want any gain reduction to take place. So let's play it and see what I did.
Marc Matthews:Going where you take me now.
Marc Matthews:I'm not fighting while still lying.
Marc Matthews:Yeah, so I'll describe this to you. Those initial words says going nowhere, no game reduction taking place. But then when it starts to get louder, that's when we see the needle start to move and game reduction is taking place up to the point whereby, with that really loud section, there's about 10 dB of gain reduction which is needed to control it. The important thing here, as with any compressor really, and any sort of processing you do, is to get the output to match the input volume, because inherently there's going to be a difference between the two. And I've got the output here and it's set at approximately. It's more than 24, that must be 20,. What's it going up? An increments of 6,. So 12, 15, 18, 21,. It's just under 21 in terms of output. So if I play this now without the Rev A compressor on, listen to the first. I was listening in particular to the first phrasing because I want that to be at the same level as it was before.
Marc Matthews:So this is with the compressor. It's probably a touch louder, maybe a dB louder than it was before, so it could probably bring the output down. But what I want is I want that phrasing there to stay at that same volume that it was before and then bring down that louder section with gain reduction. So I'm going to play it now without the compressor.
Marc Matthews:I'll play it all the way through and then I'll play it with.
Marc Matthews:Well, I'm wearing headphones and that really does get inside my head. That last bit there.
Marc Matthews:So now I'll play it with the compressor.
Marc Matthews:Much better right, much more controlled. There is an element there, I think when that vocal gets really loud it sounds like it's distorting slightly. But that could well be the original recording. I don't know what microphone it was done on because it was a remote session and the tracks were sent to me. But that is the 1176. As I say, I'm still playing around with it, still getting used to it, familiarizing myself with the sound of it, but so far I love it. I think it's a fantastic compressor, as I saw in this thread, and I did actually put a post out and said should I buy it? And overwhelmingly it was yes, yes, yes and various other reasons why.
Marc Matthews:So now let's move on to the LA-2A. So we've got the 1176. We're controlling, we're really slamming down on those peaks there, in particular that louder section of that phrasing. So the LA-2A is going to be more subtle and we're going to be using this just to add a bit of color and just to control it a bit more. It's an optical compressor, so it's a lot slower in its attack time, whereas the 1176 is an FET or FET compressor, very, very fast acting compressor Like the 1176.
Marc Matthews:I do have different versions of the LA-2A, but I've gone for the simple one here. I don't have discrete control over emphasis and a high pass filter as well, and I'm using the belting vocal preset. Now, presets are a great place to start, but you need to tweak them to suit what it is you are trying to achieve. Don't just have a plugin, use a preset and then move on. I mean, if that does work, then fantastic, great. But I suggest, yes, starting with a preset, specifically if you are new to the plugin, like with the 1176, and then tweaking it to match your objectives. For example, with this preset here it was set on limit which is approximately infinity to one in terms of ratio, didn't like that. When it got to the louder section it was too aggressive, so I flicked it to compress, which is much smoother. Three to one in terms of ratio and gain reduction, much more complimentary to what it is I'm trying to achieve here with this sound. I just want to level it out and have it nice and smooth.
Marc Matthews:Then peak reduction, that's, controlling the amount of gain reduction that is being applied, and then we use the gain to compensate for that gain reduction. Because remember when I did that demonstration with the 1176 at the beginning, with those quieter phrases. I wanted that to be the same volume as it was before. So let's play this with the LA-2A and see how much game reduction we've got going on here. It's about 5 dB and I would say that's probably a bit aggressive. To be fair, I might dial it back a touch. So I'm going to go back down to about 45. I'm just going to play it again. Yeah, that's better, I like that.
Marc Matthews:So when I say 45, that's peak reduction, I could increase the peak reduction and really clamp down on the dynamic range of this performance, like you would often hear in modern pop music, where sometimes the vocal is really slammed with compression Not to my taste, to be honest. I like to let some of that natural dynamic, those natural dynamics, come through. So what we're going to do now is we're going to play it at the beginning and make sure that the gain is at the optimum level. So we're thinking about gain staging. The volume of this audio is at the optimum level to go into the next signal or rather the next plugin in the chain. There isn't one at the moment, but there would be hypothetically right. So I'm going to play it without the tube compressor. So this is with the tube compressor. Yeah, I'm happy with the level there. That sounds pretty accurate to me, so let's play it all the way through now with the tube compressor.
Marc Matthews:Cool, very nice.
Marc Matthews:So let's do an A, B before and after. So this is without the 1176 and LA-2A.
Marc Matthews:I'm not fighting, we're still lying Christ still gets me.
Marc Matthews:So now this is with the two compressors, 1176 going into the LO2A.
Marc Matthews:Going with you, damien, I'm not fighting.
Marc Matthews:We're still lying.
Marc Matthews:Very nice, much more controlled. I'm thinking I might go in and just play around with the release time on the 1176, but overall it's much improved Now. Admittedly, if I were working on this project, I would probably use some clip gain on this particular phrase here, so I'm not having to hit the compressor so hard. But I wanted a very good use case example in this instance so I could use the marquee tool, select it and then go up to my tool here and go to gain tool and then just bring this down by I don't know like 4db or something like that. That way I'm not having to hit the compressor so hard. But as I said, I wanted a really obvious and good use case. So there we go. 1176, la-2a. I've been sleeping on that combo for far too long and I'm probably going to use it a lot going forward. Now there are other 1176 and LA-2A emulations out there Waves, uvi, the list goes on. Can't think of any more. Off the top of my head you could also just use an FET going into an optical compressor, like using the ones in Logic and then tailoring the controls in there and doing something similar. So you don't necessarily have to use the plugins I've used today, but obviously they do have a particular characteristic and sound. That comes with it as well, because you can just run the audio through the 1176 and not do any processing and just get the color of the compressor itself.
Marc Matthews:Anyway, folks, if you've enjoyed this episode, I want to hear from you. Click the link in the episode description and leave me an audio message using that SpeakPipe link. You don't need to have a specific app, you don't need an account. All you need is your mobile phone and microphone. It's like sending an audio message on WhatsApp or Instagram or something like that. Let me know why you've enjoyed this episode, why you'd recommend it or another episode, and each person who submits audio, you will be entered into a hat to win a Starbucks coffee voucher every month, and you will also, obviously, get your audio played at the beginning of a podcast episode. So make sure you give yourself a shout out. It's the perfect opportunity for you, if you've got an impending release or some exciting news, to get it out to the podcast audience. So get that audio submitted sooner rather than later, so it can be at the beginning of an episode before that special date, whatever it may be. So, folks, click the link and let me know your thoughts. I can't wait to hear them.
