I just read about this so thought I'd post it here as it's a nice trick....and the recording forum needs more posts
. (Yes, it's a bit nerdy).
So this is a compression trick that can give you some very 'in your face', punchy sounding vocals without sounding over-compressed or having any of the usual artefacts that you might get when going for a punchy sound and end up over-doing the compression. (Least, thats what happens to me :S)
So, take your vocal track and send it through a compressor. Set the settings on the compressor so that it is over-compressing the vocal a little - so you start to hear the nasty artefacts but nothing too awful. Now you have the settings, reverse the vocal track so it plays through the compressor backwards. Yup.
Now, bounce down that track so the compression is 'printed'. However you do that in your DAW - it might have a 'bounce' function, or 'export to wav' or something. In cubase you can choose from both..
Now you have a new track with the backwards, compressed vocal. Now reverse that track so it plays normally and voila!
Because the compressor was fed the track backwards, it reacted completely differently, resulting in a very smooth yet heavy compression...
The technique supposedly works well on all kinds of instruments also...
