Can you produce a song without using any Compression (especially in electronic music)

T

T-FUTURE-MUSIC

Producer
I am a beginner producer, and I make 'Chill-Out' music.

It seems in most electronic music, there has been a new trend known as the 'Loudness Wars', where producers limit and compress their productions so that the music is louder than before, but the Dynamic Range is ruined.

In ambient and other less popular genres, the technique is not used as much.

My question is, during mixing, if the song is correctly EQed, and I use Limiters to make sure the volume never goes above 0.0dB, could I avoid using Dynamic Range Compression entirely?

I'm sure it would be necessary to use Compression in the mastering stage so that it can transition down to MP3, but during the Mixing phase can I use no or minimal compression?

I was listening to my song so far, and at once I thought something sounded 'weird' or 'wrong' with the sound.

Its turns out I am use to listening to songs with no dynamic range, and after that I realized how much better I think it sounds with a big dynamic range.

Anyway, what do you all think?
 
There's a difference between compressing a single track or instrument and the master bus compression.
I try to avoid single track or instrument compression. Correct choice of level, eq, automation and effects have my priority. If I still think the sound is too low or high on volume at times, I put the compressor on.
When it comes down to master bus compressing, I always use it. When I've got a few instruments laid down in some bars, I tune the master bus compressor so that the meter doesn't exceed 4db. When adding new instruments I may or may not look at it and adjust it further. It almost always makes the song sound better/coherent.
In edm, compression is also used as an effect, through sidechaining. You then get that pumping effect that in a lot of other genres is considered irritating.

Do note that the opinions about compression are divided. There's ppl that try to compress whatever they can and people that are convinced you should never slap on the master bus compression until you're done mixing all of your individual tracks.
 
Only compress when necessary. Because single tracks in EDM music are usually pogrammed with plugins and samplers which are ALREADY COMPRESSED, sometimes you don't have to compress them. An acoustic drum recording however will benefit a lot with compressing. You can imagine, an unedited drum recording would have its transients all over the place, which then needs treating - compressors!

I believe that a producer should really understand what a compressor do.
 
I think it's definitely possible to make a track without compression but you'd probably be better off with light compression. Most of the time, kick drums sound a lot more alive with compression vs without and the same goes for snares and instruments. There is a loudness war going on but remember compressors have been around for ages. I think this loudness war you're talking about is mostly EDM and Rap. Using a limiter is essentially a compressor, only its compression ratio is set extremely high or to infinity. I'd say EQ out some trouble frequencies and then **** with some light compression. If you set it right, just enable/disable it and see what sounds better. Chill out music in my opinion is nice and mellow like you're saying, with some dope ambient reverb, but make whatever is in your head.
 
Dual compression or other parallel compression on drums sound nice yeah. On those acoustic recordings, there's a lot to win with correctly recording with microphone choice, placement and amps though.
If you start off with correct samples, it saves you work trying to fix something that is 'broken'. Those better sounding kick drums can also be achieved through layering for instance. There's so many ways you can get the result you want and there's so much theory we're trying to describe in a few sentences here.
IMO, it always comes down to you liking the effect of what you've done or not. Even if that means in terms of production theory you done everything wrong. There are so many happy accidents that became billion dollar hits and so many happy accidents that became industry standards.
 
Last edited:
already had my world view stated here
- compression is not needed unless you are using it for effect, mostly because most of the material you are working with will have already been compressed, but also because when i started out compressors were a rare resource in the studio I worked in so you used it only if you could justify it
- imagine deciding to compress an instrument track at a point in the process where you were still many takes away from even considering mixing
- you soon learnt when it was a necessary part of the process and when it was just window dressing
-- imagine having to go back a rerecord a part because you over (or under) compressed it
--- easy enough with modern daws
--- but with 4 tracks of cassette or reel-to-reel and the part may already be sub-mixed as part of one of many bounces to a single track before recording other parts, you may find yourself rerecording multiple parts to make-up for your mistake to begin with
 
T-FUTURE-MUSIC said:
I am a beginner producer, and I make 'Chill-Out' music.

It seems in most electronic music, there has been a new trend known as the 'Loudness Wars', where producers limit and compress their productions so that the music is louder than before, but the Dynamic Range is ruined.

In ambient and other less popular genres, the technique is not used as much.

My question is, during mixing, if the song is correctly EQed, and I use Limiters to make sure the volume never goes above 0.0dB, could I avoid using Dynamic Range Compression entirely?

I'm sure it would be necessary to use Compression in the mastering stage so that it can transition down to MP3,
but during the Mixing phase can I use no or minimal compression?

I was listening to my song so far, and at once I thought something sounded 'weird' or 'wrong' with the sound.

Its turns out I am use to listening to songs with no dynamic range, and after that I realized how much better I think it sounds with a big dynamic range.

Anyway, what do you all think?
Click to expand...

It can be done. You won't be able to produce an EDM song without any compression though,
but you can apply that much compression that will sound beautiful.

Not long before ago, I mixed a customer's (now a friend) song and though it was pretty loud it would still preserve some dynamics.



The trick is to use an L1 type of limiter to cut unnecessary peaks.
Peaks that don't provide any musical information whatsoever.

It's really easy to kill the dynamics though.

I use around half to 3 db (yes even a half is pretty much sometimes) to each and every track.

This way I don't overload the signal in mastering - 'cause of the tiny reductions in each track - plus,
keep the dynamics alive and the song loud.

This is not the only things I do, of course. Proper compression before limiting is a must.

Hope this helps!
 
Last edited:
It's completely left to the discretion of a producer.

And like others have said, it also depends on the source stuff you're using. If you're mostly working with samples or even some presets, you'll have much less need for compression than if you created your sounds from scratch. In that case, you'll probably need to use compression for shaping. Compression is not inherently bad or good. It's just a tool.

As with any effect or process, only use it if you have a reason.
 
It's perfectly possible to make an entire track without using a single compressor. This whole loudness thing doesn't even make any sense to me. Why do you want your track to be as loud as it possibly can when people have volume knobs on their devices.

What's the point of spending all that money and time into making something sound ****ing beautiful just to smash it all to pieces with over-compression and limiting while people listen to it through nonsense piece of shit means like YouTube with 3$ headphones and laptop speakers.

Show music some respect.
 
Last edited:
Wallengard said:
It's perfectly possible to make an entire track without using a single compressor. This whole loudness thing doesn't even make any sense to me. Why do you want your track to be as loud as it possibly can when people have volume knobs on their devices.

What's the point of spending all that money and time into making something sound ****ing beautiful just to smash it all to pieces with over-compression and limiting while people listen to it through nonsense piece of shit means like YouTube with 3$ headphones and laptop speakers.

Show music some respect.
Click to expand...

It's not only about loudness. It's about the character each compressor can add to the sound.

And it really depends on the genre. Since our friend is primarily interested in electronic music there's no way he can create EDM music with no compressors.

On the other side, orchestra can live without it.
 
Paschalis I. said:
It's not only about loudness. It's about the character each compressor can add to the sound.

And it really depends on the genre. Since our friend is primarily interested in electronic music there's no way he can create EDM music with no compressors.

On the other side, orchestra can live without it.
Click to expand...

I create electronic music, in many various forms, and I hardly ever use compressors. Granted, I do use them but not because it's required for the style I'm creating at that moment. Of course it's a big part of sound design, but I think we are talking about this from a strict mixing standpoint, and It's certainly not necessary to get that "modern" sound. You'd be surprised how far you can go with a little clever programming.
 
i use compressors mostly to give a sound more presence rather than some extra volume, mostly on kicks and basses then i mix my sounds around them. then once the mixdown is sorted i stick compressor/limiter on the master to smoothen it out a bit. works alright i guess..
 
^^^^this is perhaps the most direct answer to the question - brings out my points which are hidden

know what compression can do and then decide if you need to compress
- if you are using it to make a part louder then maybe it is the wrong tool
- makeup gain is perhaps the biggest misuse of compression I hear these days
- an expander will allow you to make a signal louder and simultaneously keep the noise floor where it currently is, whereas makeup gain brings everything up including the noise floor
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top