The short answer is: yes, no, sure, both.

The longer answer is a bit more complicated, and depends on various factors.

On one side, some engineers prefer to track without any compression, because once a track is recorded with compression, you can’t “undo” it. It’s compressed; if you’ve overdone the compression, you’ll have to live with it or record another take. So some engineers are in favor of not compressing during tracking, then adding all track compression during mixdown.

Other engineers recognize that vocals often will require compression in order to “sit” correctly in a mix. They feel that if you use some compression on the way in, while the track is being recorded, you can make your life easier later on because you’ll have a vocal track that will be easier to deal with when you start mixing — not as much compression will be required during mixdown, because the track was “pre-compressed” during tracking.

So perhaps the best advice is to conservatively apply the best of both worlds: use a little compression while recording — just enough to help limit the most unruly peaks and phrases and to even out the recorded signal — and then add more compression to taste during mixing.

There are exceptions (of course): One would be where compression is used as an effect or to provide a tonal color. In this case, you may want to track with the compression so that it is part of the track. Another would be where the compression affects how a singer performs — singing “into” a compressor may change a vocalist’s dynamics, make them phrase slightly differently, and so on. Again, in this case, you may want to track with compression.

Where you have time (not in the middle of a sensitive session) experiment with doing it both ways. You may find you use each approach for different results and effects.

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Should I Compress Vocals During Recording or Wait for Mixdown?

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