Best use / overuse of compression..

[jecahn]

Hey guys, just wanted to check in and say that I'm listening to Air, the 10,000 Hz Legend album. I have to say, these guys are the best compressor users I've ever heard. It's laid on way too thick on tracks like "Lucky and Unhappy" and especially "Radio #1" where they use it to duck the music bed from the voice over the same way you would for broadcasting purposes.

Then you have tracks like "Radian" which is probably one of the least compressed sounding tracks. "Sex Born Poison" also sounds great.

Jeez, listening to Air makes me want to sell my studio gear and stick with something simple, like counting on my fingers... Damn, these guys are good. I especially like that they've further embraced the "Virgin Suicides" aesthetic.

[Jazz E Bob]

Yup - I dig the use/abuse of compression too. Check out Daft Punks "Discovery". They embrace pumping and breathing - the compressor is just another cool effect.

[honkyjonk]

Yeah, I love that album too. And including a couple guest appearances by, imo, the number one goof-off genius around, Beck, it's one of those albums that the more you play it the more you like it.
If you havn't yet, check out Beck's Midnite Vultures. Brilliant Stupidity at it's best.

[juppu]

On the vintage front, check out Jimi Hendrix's "Crosstown Traffic". Can you hear that acoustic guitar pumping in and out with the vocals. Beautiful...

More recent, listen to any track by Elbow (for you guys in the States, it's a fresh, new british band, depressing as hell, but quite cool.). The drums are sooooo squeezed it's not even funny anymore. But it's cool.

Any old Motown recording - vocal sound. Here's the trick: Leave your lead vocal uncompressed and flat (or nearly flat) EQ, send it to another channel, compress the living daylights out of it and filter everything below 1-2 kHz away + boost the top end so your ears hurt. Combine these two and you have a tight, yet dynamic vocal sound!

The list could go on forever - compression is such a widely abused form of processing. Usually it's a pain in the arse, cause everything is so squeezed nowadays. Everything "needs" to be percieved as LOUD...

Juppu