Does this compressor look right?

[DementedLegacy]

Hey guys im currently mixing one of my tracks and when i bounce it down and listen to it, it seems like my vocals are pumping. going up and down, i was told this was due to compression. I have a picture here of my settings. Any help would be appreciated!

Plus i only have protools stock plugins. Protools 12.4



Dyn3Compressor/Limiter

Knee: 10 dB
Ratio 4.0:1
Attack: 14.0ms
Release: 25.0
Gain: 2.2 dB
Threshold: -21.4 dB

The input signal is hitting -2 or -3

[JuanPC]

Mixing is an art...

Does my photo sounds ok?
My sculpture?


When you take a photograph and the sun is the strongest, inevitably there will be shadows, depending on the angle of the light, shadows will be stronger or not...
It's the photographer job to know "from experience" how to take the best photograph possible in any light condition.
Almost Everybody knows a decent photograph is even... Not to bright, not too dark.

Compressors are used for many reasons, one is to minimize the difference between the sun & the shadows.
Gates & Downward expanders are used to increase the shadows depth.
Equalizers are light sources, Wide Q is Wash, Narrow Q is Spot light.
But Equalizers also create shadows, like mesh, or light modifiers.
.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Test_Site#Area_2

[Top Jimmy]

As a starting point for vocals, try the attack at 35ms, release at 250ms and reduce the ratio to 3:1. Adjust to taste. Don't be afraid of 8-10 dB of compression if necessary. You could also follow this up with a limiter for a more in your face sound. Be creative, try things.

[cwsand]

It's not about how it looks, but how it sounds - and that looking at your settings can't really help without hearing it. I realized a few years ago that I'd been using way too much compression on my tracks and have retrained myself to not rely on compression to control my levels, but using some light compression along with other techniques instead. There are always exceptions and every song is different, but this is how I approach mixing these days. It takes practice and time to develop the skills, but don't assume you have to have a lot of compression, or any compression on any given track.

If you're hearing the "pumping" effect, you need to track down what's causing it as it could be the individual vocal track itself, or compression on a submix aux channel, processing on the whole mix, or a combination of all of those. You could start with muting all but the vocal track and adjust the compressor to where you like the sound, then start unmuting other tracks one by one to try to find out what's causing the problem. Or you could mute all the compressors in the mix and unmute them one by one to see what effect they have on the whole mix. It should be fairly simple to identify which plugins are causing the problem and adjust them to resolve it, but then the mix may need further adjusting with the altered levels.

Hope that helps!

[TrentWilliams]

Pull your attack back, and release forward.

That'll stop the pumping.

[sw rec]

-21 threshold???? Try -4 or so.

[DementedLegacy]

Originally Posted by Trent W.

Pull your attack back, and release forward.

That'll stop the pumping.

So slower attack and faster release?

[YYR123]

Well he doesn't tell us what his RMS levels are....so maybe it's recorded at a low level???

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by DementedLegacy

So slower attack and faster release?

No opposite


Fast attack and slow release

[TrentWilliams]

A fast attack will pull the volume down faster (obviously), a slower release will make the drop in volume longer which will cause a pumping effect.

Especially if it's transient material you're working with.

Slower attack and faster release will give you more transparent compression.

Fast attack will soften the transient material, I don't often use it this way as you will lose a lot of texture.

But that's just my opinion.

My go to compressor is the Softube Tube-Tech CL-1B. I dial the attack around 2:00, and release around 10:00 usually to start off with. Then i'll bring down the threshold until i'm getting a desired compression level.

That's for a general bus compression, or subtle transparent compression.

If I need something a little more aggressive, i'll dial the attack forward until i'm hitting the compressor just after any transient material. This means I still retain texture and minimise pumping, then bring the release back to taste or the speed of the transient attack so the compressor is releasing just before the next compression point.