compression setting causing a -10db loss

[nelsonmay]

My compressor setting mysteriously changed. I spilt coffee on my desk, but I opened my dbx266 and nothing got in.

Anyway, when I cleaned up and put everything back together, the compressor seems to be kicking in a lot fast and harder. My audio going in has dropped about 10db in Pro Tools 11. I am a voice actor and know nothing about pre sound. I had an engineer set up my studio. I have to get another engineer back in, or maybe you guys can suggest something. I know this is the compressor because when I am in my audio booth I can hear the highs through the headphones. After my first syllable I lose those highs and I think I am looking gain. My setting are the same, because I marked them in case they were bumped. That is why I can’t figure out what changed. Last week my audio was good and strong….up to and around 6db coming in and now I am loosing 10db.

I have a TLM104 going into a presonus blue tube amp. Then it goes into the dbx266

Threshhold at -18 to 20
Ratio is just past the halfway mark of 2:1 and 4:1
Attach is almost on Fast
Release is almost ¾ of the way over toward slow
And Output Gain is about -3db

I have played around and can’t get anything to change.

I am using an mbox 2 and I have played with the gain on my mbox and presonus and still have the same problem.

This is a bit of an issue, because I am trying to record an audio book, and the compressor is allowing some strong attacks, and keeps everything else around -10db.

I want to gain back that -10db. It also makes the audio sound less “crisp” and I have to add some eq on the high end.

One thought, should I move everything over to the other channel on the compressor and see if I have a bad channel. The dbx will be a year old in Jan 2014.

Thanks.

[YYR123]

You connected the output's to
The wrong connector?

Maybe

[nelsonmay]

I will check, but I should have mic to preamp, to compressor to mbox.

[Southsidemusic]

Originally Posted by nelsonmay

I will check, but I should have mic to preamp, to compressor to mbox.

What Mic are you using?

Have you accidently set the "Pad" on the Mic to -10 dB or possiibly some other gear setting with "Pad" feature to -10dB as that is all I can think of. Just because it is the exact 10 dB drop and that is usually what you can select for most gear (microphones) particularly and interfaces as a standard pad dB reduction or +4 dB gain.

I would check the whole chain and see if any of the pieces have been set to "Pad setting -10" and if so just put it back to +4 or + 10 or whatever is the option.

Best Of Luck
Christopher