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Old 10-24-2014, 04:04 PM   #11
camerondye
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Durham, NC
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Alloy 2 is a great plugin for sure but I think it leans towards doing things for you and I think that it isn't as CPU friendly for just a compressor or EQ as some other things. On the other hand, on the things that you need need a little bit of all of them or a channel strip...it's a good option but just make sure to learn how to set up a compressor and eq and all that stuff. You will be happy you learned.

I read in a book once a more fool proof way of setting up a compressor on any instrument that once I started using it I honestly started hearing what everything did better.

Set the attack to anywhere, release to minimum or fastest, ratio to maximum, and the threshold to a point where it is doing a decent amount of compression so you can hear it. First set the attack with all of these settings, it makes it easier to hear what the attack is doing and how much it thins out the transient. 2nd, set the release time. Listen for how the track is reacting with the rest of the instruments...how it grooves with the music. 3rd set the ratio, generally don't go insane on the ratio but listen to the options and how it's affecting the girth of the track. 4th and last, set the threshold. Make sure it's not compressing all the time and adds instead of flattens the track unless you are positive that's what you want the track to do. Also, remember that stacking compression sometimes is a cool thing on tracks but stacking two 4:1 compressors is more like 16:1 than 8:1 and watch out about over-compressing.
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