I always use compression when I am tracking. Be very careful to make sure that you are not using too much from the start because just like salt on food, you can not remove what you have already used and you can always add more later.

When you compress a signal, in simplest perceived terms, you are taking the loudest parts and reducing them and boosting the quietest sections of the source material. This can benefit you in many more technical ways beyond the scope of today’s show, but it will become obviously useful when it comes time for mix-down.

The basic signal chain that I use when tracking most everything is a microphone to a pre-amp to a compressor and then to my digital audio workstation. Once you have your pre-amp level dialed in the compressor’s settings are next. Depending on what you are recording and what you want to get out of your overall sound will determine what your settings will be. A good place to start is a 4:1 ratio with a medium to fast attack time and a medium to slow release. Make sure that the signal only engages the compressor at the louder passages. The portion of the signal under this threshold will remain unaffected. Use the make-up gain to get the overall signal back to the level of the where the loudest parts were originally.

Imagine the real world difference in the dynamic range between a whisper and a scream. With compression you can reduce that difference. How much you reduce that distance is how heavily you are to compress the signal. With the material you are about to record in mind, you can control the dynamics right from the start to have a dynamic range that will not only be usable on the track, but in some cases, will work at all.

Here are some examples to illustrate my point. The first track here is not compressed at all.

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This track is compressed lightly as I would normally do in tracking.

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This final track is heavily compressed. I would not recommend this at the tracking stage.

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Of coarse I am talking in extremes to make my point, but all sound sources have at least some dynamics. Certainly some have more than others. Human voices and acoustic instruments can vary wildly within a track. Light compression is almost always used in these cases in most studios around the world. If compression is not used in tracking, it will most certainly be used at mix-down, mastering, broadcast, or all of the above.

In conclusion, light to medium compression during tracking will give you a more dynamically balanced signal to work with from the start. You can always add more compression later, but you can not take it away once it is there.