I have a stereo compressor/limiter/De-esser which I was given by a fellow musician with the words "What! You're not compressing the vocals??? Awh dude, you have to use compression on vocals!"

The reason I've never used it is because I have never really understood how they work or what they do, however I have been reading up up them over the last week and thought, right I will stick it in the rack and have a go.

The other point on them that I am still unsure about was whether to use it and insert to the channel or use it on the Left and Right Inserts and effect the entire mix.

Obviously using a compressor per channel gives more control but to compress every channel would requires 8 stereo compressors. Surely this is not the way other soundmen are operating.

Plus, on the compressor I have the connections are XLR in and out on the back. I was expecting to see jacks. XLR would lead me to believe that it was designed to work in the signal path i.e

Desk - Compressor - Graphic EQ - Amp.

I was reading the Soundcraft guide to mixing and it lead me to believe that anything used in the L&R Inserts produces the same overall result as just putting it in the signal path to the amps anyway!

My longwinded question is....is it better to compress one channel at a time or just compress the whole mix!

If I do one channel at a time I need a stereo jack to 2 XLR Y cabel. I don't think I have ever even seen one of those before!

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