anonymous
5 December 2006
gday everyone.
does anyone have any settings they feel gives a tape compression type effect to their digital recordings? or any compressors better at the job than others..?
i know I'm not going to get real nice tape saturation but something has gotta be better than nothing. ive tried going for more room Micing than close, with marginally better results, however if i can combine the two, then maybe, just maybe, i might hear what I'm listening for.
cheers.
FWIW stahfish, when I want that "intimate" feel and presence of
FWIW stahfish, when I want that "intimate" feel and presence of tape saturation and it's the right material I turn to my Pro VLA, load it with NOS Philips 12AT7's or RCA 12AY7's, crank the ratio to infinity, set the threshold to -20 and use the makeup gain to amp the signal up. This works really well IMO on soft vocals and fingerstyle acoustic guitar but you can try it on whatever you're looking to get "that" sound on.
Whatever compressor you have just set the threshold to the lowest setting, ratio to highest setting (as a limiter basically) and use the makeup gain to amp up your levels. This allows the instrument or voice to sound like you're really close up on it without having to deal with the difficulties that sometimes come with close miking. Making small signals sound huge is fun.