Let this be a lesson to you kids out there!

[Wango]

So tonight I spent about 4 hours mixing a lead vocal track into a mix.
Why 4 hours for a lead vocal track you may ask?

I spent the time tediously tweaking the volume automation.
And the whole time I thought 'geez - this is a crazy amount of automation, was I singing with a frog in my throat or something?'

Then it dawned on me - I had recorded this particular track with a lower output gain on my pre.

So...MY COMPRESSOR WASN'T DOIN A DANG THING!

I set the threshold to an appropriate value and suddenly the sky was blue again!

The lesson is - MAKE SURE YOUR DING DANG COMPRESSOR IS WORKING!

[albee1952]

Amen to that. This is one reason why I go thru my lead vocal tracks and do some leveling with the Audiosuite GAIN plugin. That way, I know the track will hit the compressor with some consistency.

[Wango]

Originally Posted by albee1952

Amen to that. This is one reason why I go thru my lead vocal tracks and do some leveling with the Audiosuite GAIN plugin. That way, I know the track will hit the compressor with some consistency.

That's a dang good idea.
I'm thinkin now about posting a set of very basic rules on my wall.

Just 4 or 5 rules.

I need it - I forget the simplest stuff sometimes!

[TOM@METRO]

I always use an outboard compressor for vocals and I highly recommend it for a plethora of reasons. Many compressors are worthy though I usually use either an LA3a or an 1176 at 4:1 for vocals.

[albee1952]

Sadly, all I can afford is a pair of RNC's

[RiF]

Sounds to me as if you were looking at your Threshold and Ratio controls, but the only real thing worth looking at is the gain-reduction meter! If it doesn't move, there's no compression (no matter what the ratio and/or threshold is set at). Tweak input gain/threshold/ratio until it shows what you want to see.