Aug 29, 2010 07:55 am make sure to check the button is on on the compression. Its down the bottom next to the word compression.
Not saying thats what your issue is but it does happen.
Soft knee compression in Cubase LE
Posted on Aug 29, 2010 06:05 am
PMB
Member Since: Aug 29, 2010
I recently upgraded my home recording hardware and my new Lexicon interface came with Cubase LE, (V1.0.10). I like Cubase and I've decided to switch to it from my old music production software, but I have a question. By the way, I've tried to join the Steinberg LE forum but they haven't validated my registration yet - a week ago - so I'm delighted I found you guys!!
The dynamic compressor on my old software has various selectable presets, one of which is soft knee compression which works wonders for the saxophone recordings I do, lifting them and giving them 'richness'. I'm not an expert at music production, but I'm reasonably familiar with the basic tools involved, so it didn't take me long to get Cubase loaded and working. I've made several Cubase recordings of solo sax with imported backing track, and of my sax quartet, but I can't get the same enhancement from any of the Cubase dynamic compressor settings as I got from my old soft knee preset.
The old soft knee preset sets the compressor parameters to: attack 2 ms, release 200 ms, ratio 2:1, threshold -20dB and output -1.5dB. I've set these parameters on the Cubase compressor, but it doesn't produce the same enhancement to the recordings as the old preset did, in fact it does nothing much to the recording at all that I can hear, which is extremely disappointing.
I can't find any references to soft knee compression in any of the Cubase help files so the question I have is: Does anyone know if Cubase LE 1 has soft knee dynamic compression, and if so do you know how it's selected, applied or implemented?
Any help/suggestions would be very welcome.
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Aug 29, 2010 07:55 am make sure to check the button is on on the compression. Its down the bottom next to the word compression.
Not saying thats what your issue is but it does happen.
Aug 29, 2010 08:34 am OK thanks for the quick response, but being very new to Cubase LE, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. From your reply it looks as though I may be applying compression in the wrong way since the compressor seems to be doing not very much, so if you could bear with me for a bit....
To apply compression to a track I'm clicking on the track's 'l' icon, edit VST channel, and I get a panel up in which I select 'dynamics'. I then get a panel up containing a compression section, a noise gate section and a limiter section. I set the parameters I require in the compressor section and click on the word 'compressor' at the top of the window which then goes yellow indicating, I presume, that the compressor is active. I haven't seen anything with a button at the bottom next to the word 'compressor'. So if you could be a bit more specific I'd be very grateful.
Aug 29, 2010 09:20 am are you using VST dynamics? there's a panel with the word "gate" "compressor" and "limiter" at the bottom of it.
you need to find the button to which turns it on or off. this goes for the other stuff there too, if you dont want it on you may as well turn it off (limiter and gate)
the button is next to the word "compressor."
lemme know how you go.
Aug 29, 2010 09:44 am I'm beginning to feel pretty dumb here !!! I haven't found a panel anywhere yet with which allows me to switch 'gate', 'compressor', or 'limiter' on and off.
How do I get that panel up that you're refering to?
Aug 29, 2010 07:54 pm ok, um, unless its different now i dunno. Can you post a screen shot of said compressor? then i can take a squiz.
Aug 29, 2010 09:26 pm sounds like dematrix is on the right track to me (puns!) and so r u PMB, ur choosing the dynamics VST it should bring up the effect which is actually several effects all to do with dynamics. The thing about this plug is that u have to choose which effects in the pack u want to use by clicking on its name in the square where u see its parameters. The compressor section will have its name on it in a bluish box, if u click it, it will become yellow indicating that it is on.
from there ull have to find the knee function and adjust it to be soft. In this case, since u like presets, u can probably choose a preset even if its not wat u want but it will automatically turn on the compressor for u, so choose any comp based preset and maybe ull see the comp come on.
bear in mind however, that just coz their all compressors doesnt mean they will behave and sond exactly the same on the same settings. Each one is designed differently and has a different "character" so ull have to fidget around from ur base settings. Plus every recording is different, even if u have same the mic and instrument in the same room, the same settings will not always give the same results. So basically, no matter wat be preapred to tweak.
Aug 29, 2010 10:04 pm Nup, not that either, hahaha, i had to check i thought i was losing it....
HERE!!!!!
see the little buttons there, next to the gate, comp, limiter, headings.
push those little suckers, they love it.
Aug 30, 2010 04:41 am Hey, thanks Dematrix and crux. I'm now pretty sure that the compressor is kicking in and working, but it's like crux says, it's just working differently from my old preset. The Cubase comp must be using different processing rules from my old comp I guess.
I don't get that window up Dematrix, nothing like it. I can't see how to put a screen shot up here with the post, so I've put one in my photo gallery. If you go there you'll see what I'm looking at and it's on that window that I'm setting the compressor parameters.
Anyway thanks for your help guys - very much appreciated. I like it here!!
PS: How do you put a pic up here ?!!
Aug 30, 2010 05:58 am ah yeah, its different for sure, oh well, thought something was up there.
good to hear tis all good mate.
Aug 30, 2010 09:08 am thank god u put up that pic hahaha, now i get to not be wrong for once in my suggestions hehe
so yeah, u have to make buttons yellow
u runnin Mac dematrix? coz his graphic is how it looks on my PC
back to the topic, yeah u might wanna hunt aruond for different comps, but remember that if ur old comp on the other program was also a VST, Cubase should still be able to access it. try looking up how to access third party vsts, u shoudl be able to use it on the new program
Aug 30, 2010 12:04 pm crux, go to the top of the class and put a gold star in your exercise book!!! My old comp isn't a VST plugin, it's embedded in the software, but there are dozens of soft knee compressors on line, quite a few of which are free download, and I've downloaded one already which comes pretty close to my old one. I just didn't think to do that so hey, thanks for the steer, I'm on my way now.
Aug 30, 2010 07:16 pm hey Crux, yep its Mac.
Does VST dynamics look different on a PC does it?
PMB, Vst dynamics is a good compy once you get used to it.
Maybe try the release on "auto" see how it goes.
are you using it as a send effect or inserting?
Aug 31, 2010 05:13 am I'm inserting the comp from the inspector. Will it make a difference if I use it as a send effect? Surely it's the same compressor just applied to all the tracks rather than individually track by track, but I'm no expert, (as may be obvious), and on things like that my understanding starts to fall off at around 60dB/octave !!!
Aug 31, 2010 09:50 am send effects dont apply the effect to everything, it just makes it possibly to route everything to the effect. There are a slew of major differences in using effects this way mainly becoz of the routing options.
First off, espcially with compressor, if ur not sending 100% of ur track to the effect, it wont really be workign since compression has to handle the whole signal. In cubase when u have a send u can either leave ur original track on or route it so that u can turn ur track off and the send will now be ur track (basically).
In the first scenario if ur using a compression effect wat happens is ur original non compressed track is still playing, so if u were compressing to control the dynamics.. well its kind of lost. There r uses (parallel compression) for that kind of routing however.
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