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Mic Processing/Compressing


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Kind of depends what you're willing to spend and how easy the equipment is to operate. If you're looking for decent, fairly easy and pretty inexpensive, TC Electronics has a model C300 for about 200 dollars U.S. You might also think about including an EQ in the mix, unless your mixer has a good setup for that.
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Kind of depends what you're willing to spend and how easy the equipment is to operate. If you're looking for decent, fairly easy and pretty inexpensive, TC Electronics has a model C300 for about 200 dollars U.S. You might also think about including an EQ in the mix, unless your mixer has a good setup for that.

 

Gotta agree about the EQ. That's of way more use to you than a compressor/limiter. Remember that compression is by default, lossy. Fine for live on-air stuff maybe, but for something you're going to the trouble of recording, you'll get better sound by normalizing and hard-limiting in post-production.

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Gotta agree about the EQ. That's of way more use to you than a compressor/limiter. Remember that compression is by default, lossy. Fine for live on-air stuff maybe, but for something you're going to the trouble of recording, you'll get better sound by normalizing and hard-limiting in post-production.

 

try to save yourself from too much post work. get something in the chain that will limit and keep levels decent especially if you're going to be all over the place for loudness. just make sure you can't here the compressor "breathe" in adjusting from loud to soft levels. that would be my main issue with any processing. I don't use much for my mic, just enough to sound natural and keep everything in line.

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Try to find a good mic that doesn't color your sound so much that you have to eq the heck out of it to sound natural. Then use some light compression/limiting to get your peaks at zero. Then you should be fine.

 

I use a Rode NT1-a with 2:1 compression, -15 db threshold, and an output boost of about 6 db. I set a peak limiter at zero too, just to be safe. I don't use an eq at all. Your settings will vary....

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I use a Behringer VX2000, a since discontinued model voice processor. Has the preamp, expander, tube emulation, opto-compressor, voice optomized eq, and opto de-esser. I think I paid like $63 shipped for it from Craigslist.

 

If you run a search for "Behringer VX2000 site:craigslist.org" (without the quotes naturally) in Google, you can still find them around for about $50.

 

The difference between just using my compressor/limiter vs. this thing is like night and day. I noticed such a clarity right off the bat, that I wondered how I sent out any voice auditions without it hehe

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I was never happy with the mic compressors I tried out. So I built one in a small die-cast metal box with simple HF and LF eq. Based on the Philips NE572 chip from memory. The NE570 version of that chip, is totally useless as you can't set the attack and decay times seperately! If anyone is interested, I'll try find the hand drawn schematic and post it here. Sounds crackin'

If I have helped you with a Freebie- please be kind enough to add a link from your own site or blog to mine- thanks! http://arthurburton.net

 

Thank You!

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:biggrinthumb:

look for a symetrix 528 on ebay usually under $100, I like these better than the presonus vxp.

 

 

 

 

What do you guys use for mic processing? Just a basic compressor/limiter or something better, and who much did you spend? I'm looking for something that will be used for 50% live radio and 50% recording.
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