How to Set a Compressor for Vocals 

This is hands down the clearest explanation of compression I have seen on the internet. Fantastic video!

100% the best straight between the eyes on compression.Phew!!! finally someone speaks English.

Love the tutorial! Solid explanation for what the compressor is actually doing, not just "do this and if it doesn't work, oh well." :)

The best explanation on compressor ever. Awesome. Thanks mate. Be blessed

The instructor on this video teaches well.

Videos are Short, Sweet, and Simplistic!🙏🏽🙏🏽🔥 Thank you for your service and God Bless you Brotha!

Awesome explanation of how to set compression for vocals. I will try this out with the worship team on Sunday.

In our church we bought Yamaha TF5. One of the positive points is that it comes with a Nuendo Live licence, so we can record multitrack and play it back on individual channels. It allows to test eq, comp, gate and effects with more patience and time, without risking making mistakes during service. I'm from Brazil and I'm grateful for finding this channel. God bless you, brother.

man went and did what any other dude on the platform couldn't, simple and to the point explainig. Good stuff

nicest teacher i've ever met

Man man!!! I cannot add anything else to the good feedback you been getting in the comments.. but Im just gonna add one more: great job teaching it explaining it you cut to the chase in very simple words and very easy to understand something so complicated when not explained correctly. Keep up the good work and God bless 👍👍

Great presentation. Short, concise, clear. Thank you.

This is so helpful. Clearest, simplest explanation to Compressor use. Thank you so much.

So far the best video I've come across on this topic 👍

That’s crazy. 😂😂😂. I’ve been fighting with compression the whole time. And here’s where I finally understand it😂😂😂😂. Thank God for Kade

Thanks for yor step by step instructions for setting up the compression. Great Job.

Best video on compressor so far!! Love from Canada 🇨🇦

Brilliant work even till today with new audacity for example. Thank you.

I use two. Sometimes three. Each with different settings. My own voice is fairly unusual, but I have used this on other peoples voices with great results. Compressors that have the "mix" parameter and especially built in saturation... like the ones in Logic Pro are my favorite by far. If anyone here knows what they are doing at all and can handle the concept of more than one compressor, I recommend experimenting with multiple. When I do mine, I often have a wild mix of different styles of singing and occasional screaming / belting. And basically every vocal technique or thing I can think of makes it in the song usually. It helps tremendously to start with an EQ, set rolling off lows a bit, not too much because you actually want your first compressor to help compress the low end troubles before you eradicate them. But you also don't want your compressor overly focusing on super low end, like plosive pops and whatnot or you will get your signal ducked when you don't want it to be. So lightly pulling back some low end, and a slow roll up the treble, usually starting around 1 or 2 khz and increasing all the way up the rest of the treble. So essentially around 2khz is up maybe a half DB, and that rolls up to maybe a 5 or 6 DB at the top, around 20Khz. Maybe call it a slope or slant instead. Some folks might take this moment to say to instead just use a multiband compressor...which I sometimes do use but this approach gets different results than that and very much consciously on purpose. The order in which this is done, the order in which you apply pretty much any plugin or effect or processing matters. I explained the low roll off prior to compression... the treble boost before compression is obviously for clarity... but doing this before the compression helps let more treble through at good times, and when the treble gets really harsh the compression will take it down a notch before it would have if you hadn't increased the treble prior to it. The treble increasing slope is fairly slight usually, but you can go kind of crazy with it if you have to and then in your last EQ you can pull the treble back so that the treble is better balance overall. If you increase any frequency before compression... it effects the compressor differently. An increase of a frequency will make it more LIKELY (depending on the volume and power of other frequencies at that exact moment) to reduce the dynamic of it. LIKELY being a very important word there. There's sort of too much to explain on that topic here though. My first compressor is usually set as to basically transform the loudest and harshest sounds into "distortion" instead of volume. This is a "trick" many mixers and masterers know about. Instead of volume or attack, distortion. It's one of the ways that amateurs can never figure out how the fuck many big names can get their volume so goddamn loud. A chunk of that is very... very carefully crafted saturation / distortion. In the way i am describing it being used isn't like guitar distortion. But rather this is something nuanced enough that it can even be put directly onto already distorted guitars and seem to only increase their volume and clarity. There's many reasons for this, again to long to list. So I set my first compressor a little harder on the compression. Usually still somewhere between a 3:1 ration and a 5:1. Depending on the compressor... it can be as low as 1.5:1. Setting this one fairly heavily as to essentially make the volume trigger the built in saturation I have turned on on the first compressor. This compressor I usually have a pretty immediate attack time and a pretty quick release. The overall use of this compressor is supposed to be somewhat subtle. I don't yet want to leave in some attack on the words sung, as the singing (mine especially) is usually too dynamic and setting the attack time to enhance the attack would effect less of the actual words being sung at this point. If you want a tiny bit of that burst on the front of each word or melody... I recommend waiting for the second compressor... as by that time the first compressor would have brought quieter singing into play for the second compressor to act upon. ... And further dialing it in as needed obviously... listening very intently to make sure the perception of volume remains almost the same, if not exactly the same as without this compressor... yet having an actual bit of a decrease in overall dynamics. And then I dial the mix knob back to usually 50 percent, and the make up gain up usually about a DB or 2... as it makes up the gain on the saturated and compressed signal. So that lends you an automatic slight gain of volume on your quietest moments already. With the mix knob letting in half the dry signal, and half the signal that is basically transformed into a very carefully crafted slight distortion for only loud and harsher moments... this gives you, more or less, the best of all possible worlds really. When you sing quietly, it's pulled up, but the dynamic is still obvious... and when you switch to screaming, the overall insane amount of actual DB volume is reduced to a more manageable amount already... AND you haven't yet lost the perception of volume / harshness. Because it's there in the amount of saturation going up when singing louder... which saturation can easily mimic volume to our ears without actually being volume. Lol... haven't even gotten to my second compressor yet. Goodness. Depending on how that is all set and what kind of music is going on... that may be the only compressor needed. That's usually not the case, but it can be. It's a good trick to basically start with. But if that sounds great but you still have some issues... and you don't want to make the mix more of the natural signal in the first compressor, nor the more of the compressed / saturated signal... the second compressor is the guy for you. If you like your sound but it's still too up and down... pull up a second compressor. Sometimes I do a little more EQ work before the second compressor... usually just rolling off more of the low end that I left behind to snag a little on the first compressor... now I don't want that low stuff effecting the next compressor much at all. On the second compressor is where you should get pretty much the rest of your volume control. Due to there already being a compressor... and saturation in play, AND the fact you have the dry and wet signal mixed (whether its 30 percent (common) or 80 percent (less common)) ... you can say that some of that signal is still technically completely uncompressed. The mix knob acts a little differently than some beginners might think. I remember originally thinking the mix knob was just another volume knob and would never touch it. Wish I could go back in time and correct that bit of error but it very much isn't. It also isn't just "how much the compression does" or anything. Anything between ZERO percent and 100 percent is two signals. If you have it set to 50 percent... you are letting 50 percent of the total sound make-up post compression be the dry signal. Which acts accordingly... don't forget the compressed signal is in fact compressed. So if you have it 50/50...AND you have your make-up gain boosted a little... when you are singing quietly will be a little MORE of your compressed signal... and singing loudly - out of the mix will come more percentage of your dry signal technically. So however much you compressed it in the original compressor ... if your mix knob is any less than 100 percent... this changes the ratio of compression extremely dynamically. Quite differently than playing with the threshold or ratio. So get a good cool sound out of the first one... and usually it will only need a little more compression on the second compressor. Second compressor is the one I usually set to enhance the attacks just slightly... so this is the one with the slower attack time. Due to more of the vocals already being pulled up.. more of the vocals will get the enhanced attack treatment on the second compressor. But if you have your first compressor compressing around a 3:1... that's not what is coming out of it when you have your dry and wet signal mixed. The dynamic is LESS than the original untouched signal and MORE than what you set the first compressor to BECAUSE you mixed them. It's a bit of a mindfuck if you don't understand but it makes sense. Just keep reading this until it clicks. On this compressor I usually go lighter on the ratio then, considering we already have a little compression, AND we have tricked the perception of volume to increase with actual loudness so you usually don't need much on this one. Usually around a 2:1. And with the threshold set to basically pull back the loudest moments. And usually set the mix to 100 percent on this one... Unless you want to get EVEN MORE mindfucked and go for a three compresor situation... which I have and do actually use. Usually when I record guitar and vocals simultaneously on one stereo seperated track. (lack of equipment bullshit). But I think anyone going this far would know better than me at this point anyway. But after all of that usually comes one last EQ just to nail it perfectly to the mix. Sometimes at this point there is absolutely no need for eq. Sometimes you wanted to boost the treble into the compressors hard initially so at the end you want to back them back down, or sometimes there's still low end peaking through you don't want or this or that. Usually just a sweetener at the end though to be befitting to the song, if anything.

finalmente qualcuno che spiega le cose in modo molto semplice e chiaro, senza tanti fronzoli, peccato che io parlo solo italiano e la traduzione a volte complica un po' le cose.

This is FANTASTIC! Thank you for explaining in a way that is understood.

Very clearly explained!!!!!! God bless u my brother in Jesus's Name

very informative and straight to point helps to know at least where to start on setting up a new board thank you

A minor point of correction regarding threshold. At 1:20 you state and the diagram circles -10db as the setting of the threshold. The threshold actually is at the bend of the knee, which in this example is -15db. Everything above this threshold is compressed by the set ratio.

I really appreciate your videos, they are all so helpful to me!

This was so great man!!!🔥 I feel so confident from this 6min video!

Great demo on compression!! Best I’ve heard in a while

OMG, I love this video, it is soooooooo PERFECTLY edited and damn clean video!!! I SUPER LOVE IT!!! 😍😍😍😍

Damn! Total thumbs up! The only thing I would have done would have been to provide 10 seconds of uncompressed audio and then 10 seconds of compressed audio so we could hear the delta.

You nailed it and I've watched tons of videos on compression OUTSTANDING!!!!!!

Thank you so much for this! For the longest time I was having trouble understanding ratios and you explained it very simply where I Finally got it! Awesome! 👍 Wishing you the best 🙂

Clear explanation mate! Thanks! Love from Sri Lanka ❤️

Keep this up! I just learned a lot and I've been watching other videos for a year now!

Brilliant explanation it told me just what I wanted to know thank you

Clear, concise and straight to the point. Great work

great video, short, sweet and precise! thanks a bunch

thanks my voals sound so much better now

Why can’t all tutorials be like this one? Amazing explanation man, thank you so much!

Articulated perfectly. Thank you

Your explanation is the best 👍

Great presentation. You’re an effective communicator. Thanks for enlightenment.

Thank u very much for your explanation. Very straight forward.

Great Video💎 In 3:30 you say, Attacktime= the time when full compression is reached. That's not right. After the Attack time 63% of Gainreductiom is reached.

This is a perfect explanation of compression, good job mate. cr: 10 years of experience mixing

Super clear! Thanks

Nice job on the explanation! Well done.

Wow today I learn something new..!! Thanks

Excellent tutorial !!!

Great video Kade! Do you ever run in to feedback issues once you start using the makeup gain? I find in my room that I can't hardly use it, I have to push gain so high on the vocal mics just to get them over the stage noise (we have drums in a cage, still noisy) that if I use any makeup gain I run in to issues. Of course, my PA is permanent installed and they probably should have hung it in a different spot, but oh well.

Good video. One issue, though. You explained that the release time is how long the compressor is active one triggered. The release is the time that the compressor stays active once the signal goes below the threshold

Fantastic explanation, thank you so much!

Thank you so much! This was so useful to me :)

You rock man. This is straight to the point and does not go in circles just to get to the point. I’ve been practicing your technique and it sure does help. Definitely a sub!!

Thanks for this, it is definitely a gem for those of us who are learning these skills. Is there a different rule for compressing the lead vocal?

This was really helpful.. Thanx man

Very informative.....Thanks for making it simple for me

In our church we bought Mackie DL16s can you do a video for this sir? Do you pamiliar in this Digital Mixer?. Thank You.

Question. 1. Set up gain. 2. Set up compressor 3. Set up EQ 4. Set up FX (reverb etc.) Correct????? Thank you.

Great tutorial. Explained so well. Thank you.

1:30. When you say that a compressor "pushes the signal down" by the amount set in the ratio, it sounds like you are saying it is reducing the overall input level below where it started (so -10 db in and -12 db out). But a compressor actually works the other way. It still allows the signal level to increase above the threshold by the set ratio amount. A compressor set at 4:1 ratio allows the signal to increase 1 db for every 4db the input is above the threshold. It might seem like splitting hairs, but it is an important distinction. I know you understand this, but it may not be clear to people just trying to understand compression.

Can you suggest a setup for a startup singer on a budget. Which compressor to buy or a mixer with compressor and echo and blah blah all builtin.

Thank you so much. God bless you.

Thank you it was great ! ☺😁

Great tutorial, thank you very much!

Terrific tutorial. Thank you.

Great explanation. Can you add some for spoken word like preaching? We sometimes get some fiery preachers who like to yell.

Great video!!! I have an 8 piece band with horns. At times on live shows I'll get a low hum sound when the music stops. When the music starts again the hum seems to go away. Can you give me an idea on what might cause this? I was thinking that the gain may be too hot on one or some of the mics.

Hi there, awesome explanation! I have one question, does every instruments need to be compressed? Hope you answer it! 😄

That was clear enough, thanks

Thank you so much for explaining these concepts in a manner that even I can understand them. Appreciate it! By the way, is there a reporting function on the X32 that allows you to see what settings are currently in place? Having just taken over from another that left the church and not entirely sure what settings he installed. Thanks again!

I really like this video!

Please show which direction I turn the nobs to achieve fast attack or slow attack. Thanks

Best compression tutorial I’ve ever heard. Somebody take this guy to Longhorn and buy him a ribeye.

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

Hi, GREAT EXPLANATION AND TIPS THANKS !!. Quick question Im using a dbx 376 with a Focusrite 2I4 AD/DA into Pro Tools. I can dial in the vocal settings on the dbx as suggested...all good so far, however when i set my output gain on the dbx to match the gain reduction the corresponding input on the 2i4 (which it gets from the dbx) is constantly in the Red even when totally switched to the left. So should i turn the dbx gain down totally and control the input to PT via the 2i4? but that means i am not getting the signal properly from he dbx? Hope Im making sense :-/

Thank you. Great explanation.

Awesome video! I'm beginning to understand compression and this is very helpful. At church we have a Yamaha MGP24X mixer which allows to manually change the compression settings but I have a question, how does the ratio provided by the mixer from 1:0 to 20:0 compares to ratios such as 1:1 - 20:1?

Very good and informative---God Bless!!

When do you compress the vocals? Is it during recording or after (mixing the vocals and accompaniment)? I just happen to have learned about your YT channel at this moment though this content has been 4years ago. I hope this channel is still active and my inquiry be responded.

exelente explicacion me a ayudado muchoo

great info thanks!

Thanks for the tips sir. I just have a question, how do you set a one knob compressor on your mixer? Please and thank you. God bless!

Great video! Thanks 🙂

Great video! Thank you for this. And oh no, at 4:11 an innocent typo "Voals." Thanks again!

Thanks for your videos. Another great one. Question? Do you compress everyone's vocals or just the lead vocal?

PLEASE MAKE A VIDEO ON THE APPROPRIATE SETTINGS FOR INPUTS TO OUTPUT GEAR analog and digitalAND THE PLUG INS IN IT LIKE COMPRESSOR EQ AND DEESING

Thank you for explaination,i get a new new set up for vocal in behringer X18

Took your advice and got a Behringer Pro-XL 4600 for our analog Mackie sound board. If you have time could you post some settings to start out with? It has more knobs for settings than I can figure out or you cover in your video. BTW, if you couldn't tell I'm new to compressing vocals. I know my way around the sound board but haven't worked on compressing. Thanks!

Very helpful Thank you.

I’ll be sending vocals to an engineer to mix properly but I want to put a slight compresser on before I record. Could u recommend settings for me to put it on. Which will still allow my engineer to touch up afterwards

Great explanation

Very helpful! Thanks!

Hi. Will the churchsoundmadsimple course for the x32 work with the xr18?

I use that, attack 5ms, release 50ms, ratio 1,4...1,5 : 1 , threshold -40...-35dB, knee medium, output gain 8-9 dB. Sennheiser G3 microport...

Thanks man

Hi. I'm from Nairobi, Kenya. How can one train the ear to hear the effects of compression?

Thanks, God bless

Sweet, thanks alot man

I have three questions 1) Would the "attack" be activated only when sound goes over the threshold? This entire time, I thought the concept of attack was how fast you hear the sound from loud speaker or woofers. 2) How can you find the right threshold for each vocal and instruments? 3) I have Pre-sonus 24.4.2, where would I find gain reduction meter?

guys I have one question. Some of the great sound engineeres use more compressors, f.e. one on the vocal insert, second on vocals bus, third on master output. Isnt using of this amount of comps contraproductive? What is the indicator for me, to have it exactly right?