What part of this tutorial gave you an "AHA!" moment? Comment below to let me know!

Your tutorials always nail it. Really among the very few channels on KZfaq which teach stuff that actually is applicable

What an incredible teacher you are...not to mention sound engineer. I am learning a great deal from you. Thanks!

Thank you for sharing your knowledge James. Very professionally presented. I’m new to digital mixing world and you have made the transition from analog friendly. I was scared. You are a legend. Keep them tutorials coming. 👏👏👏

Very good instruction. Got straight to the point on the settings, then went into the description of each setting. Thank you! I bought a BBE MaxCom dual compressor and will follow your advice when it arrives.

attack times release time and tonal relationships, I"m learning a lot watching your videos....I've been "pushing faders" for a few years now and your videos are teaching me How to approach so many of the features on my X32 that I've not been able to use. thank you

This channel saves my life when it comes to sound engineering. Thank you so much!!!

Very useful tips and coaching on compression! Love it! Thanks! As someone with experience of 30 years, but with no formal training, this filled in a gap.

Really solid videos. Really some of the most practical and effective out there.

hey!been a sound tech for over 30 years, this was most accurate and concise explanation of compression i have ever heard.

With so much bad advice and lack of knowledge in youtube videos, THANKYOU for producing a video with good advice, deep understanding and clear delivery. As a profession engineer i thank you for putting youtube right. 👍

As always, GOLD. Thank you.

Very helpful! Thanks for demonstrating tracks with the different variables enabled and disabled it helps solidify the concepts.

You're a really great teacher. Appreciate these videos!

Thanks again, everytime i watch your videos, I learn a lot to go~

All of your videos are incredible!

Holy crap... It's almost 3am and I've watched like 20 videos of yours. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Jon!

Great tutorial on Compression. Thank you for taking the time on this :)

The best tutorial and the first id comment on KZfaq. Thank you for making this

Very well explained! Looking forward to getting to the board to put it to practice! Thank you.

Nice tutorials...been hoodwinked into running board on a friend's band and this will help out tremendously. As one sound engineer told me if ya get the vocals down correctly 85% of the job is done, the rest is pretty easy as the instruments are gonna just do their thing without much noodling.

Awesome tutorials. Thank you! Very helpful.

Genius and very educative as always.. Kudos Sir

This is awesome!

Very well explained and many details are very well illustrated.

thank you for this! I've always been intimidated by compression!

Maaan! Thurlow’s voice is butter!!

super great tutorial with clear explanation

I’m speechless!

Just found your channel and i definitely need to go on a binge watch.. My church will be finally switching from an analog to a digital board very soon and after having convinced them to buy it i definitely wanna show them its worth.. Thanks for making these professional videos.

You're a legend James!

Having that console to hands on, it's impossible to ignore your knowledge. Really interesting channel! Thumps up for you. Bless and cheers fron Perú.

Much appreciated. Thank you

Can I like this video twice? This was so useful for me! Thank you

Great tutorial love it

Nice summary. I suspect your choices are good for your context as many people listen to small speakers without much fidelity. In this environment, clarity is king. I listen to a lot of classical where the dynamic range can be much higher and the equipment is often higher end and can more properly produce a complex mix. Knowing your audience is important as it can result in better overall outcomes.

Attack and Release easily explained here. Plus I really enjoyed the song that was sung in this video.

I've been doing sound for a long time... I did my first tour in 1989. Obviously that was the days of analog. It was around 2007/2008 when I began seeing digital consoles on a pretty consistent basis. It was around this tim that I accidentally discovered a compression technique I use all the time now.... While still acclimating to the digital world, I would often start adjusting things, without remembering to select the proper channel. One day, thinking I was adding compression on something else, I was actually adding it to an overhead channel. I soon realized my mistake, but also realized it was doing something cool. I then applied compression to both overheads. The band I was mixing was a very dynamic rock band. The overhead compression kept the really intense peaks under control, and would bring them forward as the band settled into quiter sections of songs. I see a lot of guys use it now, but back in the analog days you typically didn't have enough compressors in your rack, to spare, for such things. Something that used to be very popular, back in analog days, was sidechaining. I don't see too many engineers using it these days. I do things like sidechain a bass DI to the kick compressor...to bring out bass runs during busy bass and drum segments of songs. I'm surprised more guys don't use tricks like that, since its so easy to do on digital consoles. Sidechaining is cool because it assists in moving shared tonal things out of the way of each other...making room for more musical information to be heard.

Yes, I have tried some of this previously......... but now these tips go a long way in fine tuning.

Very helpful! 👌God bless you and your family!

Great job sir!

Very awesome and practically oriented video God bless you paaaaaaa

I took lots of notes. Seems like some very useful, practical advice. Gonna try it out at rehearsal this week.

You’re really awesome 👍🏻🥇

great info!

Great tips. God bless you Brother.

Great stuff, thanks! I have a low voice so set my settings slower to not thin it out.

Really. nice stuff here

Amazing video.

Good channel - I'm learning things. I'm a semi-retired rock band engineer. I've used compression selectively to highlight the "star" of the event, usually the person whose name is on the marquee, that the audience paid to see. I've used it to keep overly dynamic sidemen and backup singers in their lane, allowing the star more of the available dynamic range of the rig. The supporting musicians can still sound great without getting in the way of the star's sound. Although, when I mixed a show that featured a legendary guitar hero and singer, the bass player criticized me afterward that I had squashed his dynamics. Although I made nice with him, he wasn't ready to be told he wasn't the hero that the people paid to see. So, I sometimes messed with the artistic composition. Some would say that's bad. If there's a music director who seems to have his/her act together, I wouldn't do that. What do you think?

thank you, very useful vedio

Love this video and the whole series.I have learned more from you thank anyone on live mixing. What do you like more RMS or peak mode for smooth vocals?

Your videos are beyond informative and excellent. (Still uneasy with the amount of money floating around American Churches tax free.) Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Great vid... definitely sounds more professional!!! 🍀🍀🍀

NIce stuff brother!

Thanks for that awesome tutorial.. I want to learn more from you, can you please make a tutorial about a proper adjustments of gate.

Thanks God bless

Sound NINJA!

I found that sending compression to our wedge monitors works the best. Vocalist prefer to sing their hart out and have confidence that they won't over power the sound on stage.

Like all your videos. I’d like to see a FOH EQ video - by ear or by device; common room beginning points and how that affects individual instrument channel settings. For example, the channel settings you used here would change if FOH changed from room to room. So you may have to cut 5k or 2k or whatever in main EQ and then have to add that back in on a channel EQ to compensate. It would just be interesting to know how you set room EQ

Compression sounds professional. Thanks for the tips....BUT.....I really dig those uncompressed passes as well. LOL Makes me listen harder and sounds natural.

Hello all pro mixers. Respect when you can hear a different between that different settings - special the fast and slow attach. But thanks for the video!

Awesome video as always. How do you get a vocalist voice louder when they are softer speaking or a softer singer ? Not a proximity issue. Just songs lower.

You are a bad man. I have learn a lot in a very short time listing to you. You make it plan and simple. I run the soundboard at my church. Allen and Heath GLD 112. I have not mastered it yet, but with lessons like yours, I'll soon get there. I love how you give us a starting point and then we adjust from that point. Thanks a million my brother in Christ.

Thank you for this tutorial i have learned so much from your videos. my question is. what is good compression level and makeup gain for lead vocal and backup vocal

Thank you for this. I've been watching a lot of your videos lately - they're fantastic! I'm afraid I can't tell the difference at all regarding the more subtle compression settings (attack speed). Actually even compression on and off I have to concentrate to hear the difference! I am new to mixing (I've only mixed, with help, a couple of performances so far so lots more experience yet to get). Would you say it's common for those beginning to really struggle picking this stuff out? I'm a bit worried I might have a tin ear..

Hi James, Still a very helpfull tutorial and the singer is so good. A blessing to hear. Do you have a starting place for the compression on the vocal bus ? Sometime you mention using submix but I'm not shure how to properly set the compressor on a submix.

Thank you for the super informative tutorials! In my situation I am the singer and also doing sound for our band before we play so is there any advice you can give for someone who isn't able to monitor/stay on faders during the performance? Adam

Thank you, Jon. Loving this series! Do you have compressor suggestions (make & model) for a (gulp!) cover band with 5 vocalists? We perform live at festivals, corporate events, etc. NOTE: We don't have the budget for SSL gear. Thoughts? Many thanks!

Hey, Thanks for the tips! Can you speak on the “Hold” function on compressors? I see in your tutorial and others the Hold is set to zero and not mentioned. Do you use ‘Hold’ for anything?

great tutorial, really got a lot. I was wondering if its a good idea to send in a compressed vocal signal into an effect bus (say reverb or delay) or rather send it as post eq. looking forward to your response. Thank you.

i use this guys videos to run sound for black metal shows.

Excellent videos!! Those details about the compressor really are helping me to understand the real use of this sound tool in a very different way! Thank you! That song you’re using for this video, it sounds really good! I’m not very familiar with the style, Is there a way to listen to the complete song? Is it a cover? What’s the name of the song or the band? Thank you again for all your help!

This is great information, thanks so much. I find that when I use compression I end up losing control on the drums sound, because of how loud drums bleed becomes in vocal microphones, specially cymbals. I have tried changing positioning of singers in relation to the drumkit, different microphone patterns, begging the drummer to play cymbals softer, but none of these worked. Any helpful tips on this?

Great tutorial on vocal and compression, getting to know a lot more from you. Godbless you

Excellent video as always! Do you often compress the BGVs separately from the lead vocalist, or just compress the vocals all in one stereo bus? Thanks!

thank you :)

I'm not sure if I miss this any part of the video, but like eq you advised us to only cut and not boost to avoid feedback. Does changing compression during live causes feedback? Also, another question, I have yamaha tf3, I notice everyone running reverb and delay fxs. What other fx is good and make vocals or anything in general better? Is there any tutorial about all different fx? Thanks

This was really good. Thanks for sharing. As a side, was the pitch correction live or did you do that on the playback?

Thanks a Lot ..Could you also touch up on Parallel compression.

Amazing Useful techniques. Sir, please tell me How to tune foh system in live sound by rational acoustice smaart software.

Great tutorial mate. Subscribed. A question if I may. I am a soloist and I sing everything from ballads to rap. Given I do my own sound, what settings do you think would be optimal to cover a wide dynamic range without being able to mix on the fly? I have quite a deep, powerful voice.

oi! subbed!

which software plugin do you recommend to do this on the mac (stage live)? does the fabfilter c2-pro do live compression?

Tnx sir

Thank you for making this nice video. What microphone did you use for the vocals?

hi james thank you for your videos! would you recommend compression for choir sections with groups of 4 to 8 singers on SATB?

After playing around with this a few times, I'm starting to wonder where to put the threshold. When I set it too low the compressor never releases the signal between syllables/words, am I correct? The release time also is not doing much then?

Super cool. Is It possibile to do this with judt a mediocre mixer?! (I Guess not).

Would you please tell us, in your opinion, optimal numbers for each setting for spoken voice, talking head work? Thank you

thank you....

Thanks

around the 5:15 or so mark when talking about RMS vs Peak you say RMS is faster and peak is slower, and after your example you switch it to RMS is slower and Peak is faster? i know which is which but i just noticed it and didn't know if you wanted to fix it so as not to confuse someone lol. Your videos are great BTW, i link them to people all the time if they need help and i cant talk them through something. keep it up!

You explained attack time very well, but never talked about what to do with release time after the initial setting. What do you listen for when adjusting release time? Is there any rule you have for where to set that?

i need the song and the drums please help me so i can do like you what you do it's awesome

Hey! How do you find the best setting for your threshold? Based on the uncompressed peaks? If my singer goes to let’s say -10dB when getting loud would you set based on the threshold below that?

Do you have a video and maybe audio examples of using the compressor key filter features?

hey man i gotta ask what song is this ? Sounds lovely

Thank you so much for the video. Can I get a link to the song?

I hope to learn audio post production from you.