I'm sure it's hard for some people to believe but once upon a time engineers did not use stereo bus compressors... shocking, I know. Neil Young famously went off about compression and how it ruined great sound. A simple recording trick makes bus compression unnecessary, especially in our 32-bit digital world of perfectly flat response recording with 120 dB+ dynamic range.
RECORD BETTER TRACKS TO START WITH!
There I said it. After 60+ years of recording experience I've seen the complete evolution from mono tape in the 50's to reel to reel 2-track in the 60's to multi-track in the 70's and the subsequent development of digital recording.
All you really need is a good mic, a good preamp, almost any digital interface and a talented vocalist or artist. The last thing in that list is the most important.... the talented vocalist. Someone who sings with control, they don't just crowd-the-mic and yell and expect the gear or engineer to reshape the sound into something people might want to hear.
Back in the 70's I had one good mono compressor, that's all I could afford. I got my mix level up by working the faders myself. I can do better with all the toys I have now but my point is this... don't substitute fast half-ass recording technique thinking you'll fix it later mentality for recording the best natural sound possible.
A SIMPLE TEST
Turn off all the processing. Just record your microphone onto a track without clipping and then listen to it. Does it sound like the original performance? Was the original performance worth recording in the first place?
I'm not a fan of opera but years ago I got to engineer some recordings for an opera singer and she was amazing. She had so much control. Recording her was easy, set up my best mic at least two feet away from her and make sure the preamp and recorder did not clip.
Recording an old Martin guitar finger picked by an amazing performer delivers a similar grand sound without any compression... the talent and the sound come from the fingers of the performer.
Don't fall into the trap of trying to FIX everything with compression and EQ.
If you're a performer learn to perform better when you're recording (and learn to record yourself). Natural dynamics right from the artist delivers passion and humanity that cannot be patched in and it does not come in a plugin. Processing (especially compression) removes these attributes I'm talking about.
People talk all the time about recording-with processing and that you should commit early. CLICK AWAY TO A DIFFERENT THREAD and don't fall for it... The only things you should commit to are recording better content and recording it better. Try harder.
You don't need to record with compression unless the artist is all over the place with dynamics... for someone who knows how to sing and work the microphone recording becomes easy and their tracks become more than just files, they're stories listeners connect with.
If you ever listened to a group of acoustic guitar players singing at a party with no PA then you should have an idea of how sound can mix together organically. That's a sound worth chasing. It just sounds good, nothing added and nothing artificial.
Time to get off the soap box and get off the internet, I gotta go create something, I'l try to make it beautiful.
Thanks for reading High on Technology. Good music to you!
©September 2026 by Mark King, it is NOT ok to copy or quote without written permission from the author.
originally published 091326
