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recording with hardware compressor

Hi All,

I had a request by a friend who I will be recording that we record his vocals with a hardware compressor in line before the signal gets sent to the DAW. I'm not exactly sure what the advantage of doing this would be other than his monitor mix would have compression?
Please stop me here if I should just slap on compression in the DAW during tracking.

Software compressor or Hardware compressor?

I was using the Reason 3.0 Mastering suite last night and I must tell you guys that it is amazing! I don't know if you really need a hardware compressor. I know Reason can't do audio but you can always export a file from a program like Cubase as an audio file and then load it into the Reason sampler and then use the compressor (or M-class mastering suite).

Plug In Compressors vs Hardware Compressors

I am fairly new to the whole home studio 'thing' but as a musician I have spent plenty of time in Studios. My questions are about compression. I currently have a number of compressor plug in's (UAD-1, Waves, Wave Arts and Focusrite D2/D3) which in many cases attempt to imitate a hardware counterpart. Unfortunately, I do not have the hardware versions handy to make the necessary comparisons.

Compressors : Software vs Hardware

So I have the Avalon 737 and I've discovered that the compressor is a little weak. I currently use the UAD powered plugins (an LA-2A on every track) and the TC Powercore. They both have some pretty amazing plugins. But I'm wondering is there really a major difference between the hard and software ? UAD has the 1176 the Fairchild and tons on other classic gear.