This was an absolute Master Class on compression! Learned more from this one video than I ever did in in Production school. Crazy how I'm still learning new things every day.
Automation is indeed an often forgotten important element of a good dynamic mix. It truly is mind opening once you realize the impact automation has in a song. You can literary get a "dead" "flat" "boring" mix come to life with just automation. As usual, great video man. Cheers from Canada.
I saw an automation curve on a current (very popular song) and was blown away by the level of detail the engineered performed on it. even on single words it was uptown, up. intense amount of work. then passed it linear a few compressors for VERY specific reasons, and it sounded amazing. they explained every compressor and each specific reason for using said compressors.
As far as automation, here's an example. Today I was really grooving on my drum bus compression. It was a nice two compressors in series set-up. But on a couple of snare hits in a four bar phrase... the snare just kept disappearing. I tracked it down to my bus compression being pushed really hard by my kick. The best solution was to just turn down the kick with automation a little bit so that it wasn't shoving my snare so much and creating a noticeable dip in the snare volume. There were other ways to solve the problem, certainly. But the most effective way was to just squeeze in a little change to kicks under the snares and I was done.
Believe me. Vidoes on this channel are the pure gold. This guy seriously share the actual knowledge. I feel blessed that I found this source/channel to enhance the knowledge about mixing. Thanks a lot David!!!!
Oh wow, always assumed frequencies below internal sidechain are not compressed. Always something new, thanks! Though I like slight pumping from the mixbus comp in EDM and didn't use sidechain on it much so far, still good to know.
@@nathanebbing I think the automation reference is related to using it to level out, say a vocal, using automation so that all of the big peaks and dips in level are corrected, first. Then, afterward, using compression to totally dial in how the vocal, etc., sits in the mix.
SPECOMP by Analogue Obsession is a gem, it's super transparent so it can do heavy compression on vocals without artifacts or pumping. The TDR compressors are great too.
R Comp was the first compressor I ever used. I’m the kind of person who reads manuals several times, so I managed to catch the opto=LA2A / electro=1176 detail really early. That was very helpful in helping me hear compression!
Analogue Obsession's BusterSE on the master and Yala as the second comp on my vox, TRS Black 76 for my bass bus, Royal Comp, MJUCjr, Smacklab's 63x NS SuperCharger on Dums. I also rely heavily on all of the comps on the proChannel of Cakewalk, SSL Bus comp, 1176, and LA2A respectively.
Hey David… with your videos, I’m finding that the more I learn from you, the less I really know… because you open up the possibilities! Thank you so much for these videos! Learning so much my head hurts lol :)
i really just love the no-nonsense style. look..... this is what works. take it or leave it. (given the meager amount of knowledge that i have amassed, all of these tips are spot on).
great Vid, I am guilty of 1 or 2 of these I do howvere have "Go too" comps My go too comps FETISH (Analog Obsession 1176 style comp I use this on snares and bass) TDR Molotok (Tokyo Dawn Labs, use on drum bus) DC1A3 (Klanghelm I use this on guitar leads/synths, its very smooth) MJUCjr (Klanghelm on Mix bus purely for depth and colour, less than 1 Db comp) BUSTER (Analog Obsession, SSL style comp, my main glue comp)
funnily enuff, my go to on track to track basis is the waves ren channel strip and eq, i use the ren eq on the channel strip post comp, but eq pre comp if needed, know those plugins sooooo welllll lol
Great video. Favorite compressors are the molotov ge, cla 76, cla 2a, puigchild, and kotelnikov. Obviously, I love highly flavored compressors! Might have to try the Renaissances. They've been on my list for a few years lol. But so has the api so...
This was great! Very informative! Love it when you do these kinds of videos. My go-tos are TR5 White 2A, Black 76 and VC 670. I also make good regular use of the compressor in channel strip plugins like BX_4000E and Waves Scheps Omni (all 3 styles). I also use R-Vox and AO's Buster SE quite regularly. They all have their own purpose.
very good video. No bullshit. You know your shit. Please keep sharing the knowledge, some people really need it. SO hard to think straight with all the internet bs ingurgitated over the years. xxxx
Great video. As usual! I did think this might be another X-amount of things you 'shouldn't' do video, but it totally wasn't. Very informative. Nice one.
Thanks again David! I like the way you explain things! Love from Suriname 🇸🇷 One thing I did when I started, was adding compression before taking time to level the mix properly. I think I was trying to mix with compression, which I wouldn't recommend now. You need to level the mix at its best only with the faders! Volume automation whenever it's needed. After that you can start messing around with your compressors 💪🏾
I have ONE plugin that I have ONE preset for. It's a De-esser. and I don't even use the preset for de-essing, I use it for general de-harshing. Other than that, I've found that most presets are rarely ever useful. The presets that come built in with plugins are practically just like demo switches. You flick them around to see what a new plugin can do, but I would never use them for any real work, once you know the plugin inside and out like you SHOULD do if you're serious about mixing, then presets just feel like you're trying to become a professional driver by constantly handing the steering wheel to someone else. The one instance I DO see for presets being useful is for example, when you tailor a preset yourself for a specific room, person, microphone, etc. Like for example you say, every time I use THIS microphone, in THIS room, I ALWAYS end up with bad resonance frequencies at 135hz, and at 520hz. So I made an EQ preset that cuts 135hz and 520hz. and now I can pop that preset on whenever I'm using that specific mic in that specific room. And that's really just a time saver. Edit: One other instance of using presets is one I actually don't even use for music mixing, but is a life saver for me as a video editor. Say I have a client that sends me 10 different talking head videos and he wants me to edit all of them throughout the month. All 10 of them recorded in the same room, same person talking, same microphone. After editing the first video I spend like an hour building that plugin chain to get their vocal perfect for their video, save the vocal chain (plugins/settings and all). Then the next 9 videos I edit, once I get to the audio stage of the edit all I have to do is go *click click* done, to get their vocal sounding good.
Btw UAD is going native…curious how you gonna like these…UAD LA2 and 1176 are my favourite ..PA Townhouse is cool. Analog Obsession rocks (new dbx is cool!). Generally I use less compression since I know how to use other plugins!
After having tried a fair number of plugins, I found I'm very comfortable with the Mpressor, so I finally bought the XPressor (19"). I love GRL, auto-fast (poor man's limiter) , I use it all the time when tracking just as a safety net, and when mixing or printing, I generally use the plugin version (recall, multiple instances, etc...). But I'm still hunting around to find other compressors i'd feel comfortable with. Right now, I'm trying softub'e's Zener Limiter...
You know the two are very very different right? Mpressor is a hard knee transconductance amplifier, feed-forward + feedback; while the Xpressor is a soft knee VCA, feed-forward. They're topology is very different so is their action and behavior. The only thing they have in common is they're both class A
Great list! May I suggest another one. Overlooking your DAW stock compressor. Usually they are very clean to the point of being boring and do the job amazingly well when you only want compression without distortion, noise, excess color or CPU load. Especially hardware can be a game changer even by just running audio through and it is not a good thing when you already have your sound. There's a time and place for all tools.
it still amazes me how people overlook stock plugins. some of them are extremely powerful and very high quality. if you charged them for the same compressor they'd be super stoked. funny how that works with humans. people will buy a 5 thousand dollar piece of art. but if the same art was on sale for 5 bucks they wouldn't give it a second look.
@@mixbustv I heared the best result while I matched the RMS visually. Both approaches (ears and eyes) kind of blended into one result. When I took the comp off and on again (eyes closed), there was no difference at all volume-wise, which was a great experience for me as an amateur. It was harder for me to do so just by ear before. Either it was a tad too loud or too soft. Hard to explain. This means, I lack practise. But this experience gave me another perspective when it just locks in.
What types of examples can you give to get around the problem of digital compressors not doing the same as hard ware ones you opened the question but I'm unfortunately not able to afford hard ware yet and don't have the space where I work. Any advice is greatly appreciate. Love your vids btw 🙏👌
My gotos plugin comps are: VCA: Elysia aAlpha Compressor Opto: Summit TLA-100 FET: still after years the cla76... somehow i cant find something better for an FET style comp. i tried a lot fet comps and none ot them was better for me than the cla76
Great video David. I still get surprised by my hardware compressors like Stam 1176 or Bus+; more experience will help of course. Is there a Bus+ tutorial video in your schedule? thanks
I do mostly old school boombap and rap beats (not trap). When compressing and I have like a short breakdown without drums, the melody chops or instruments volume go high up really fast then go back to normal when the drums start again. I can manage to fix it using the compressor settings (takes me long af since I'm new to doing this) or sometimes I just edit the specific notes velocity in the DAW. Is there something basic I have to be aware of that I'm missing?
David , I have a problem and maybe some people are in the same situation . I know when something sounds bad , but I often feel that I don't know when something sounds good 😅 I'm kind of lost . Because , I mix a lot , I mean A LOT! 😆 But I have just a lot of "sound textures" in my head like reference and it is really hard to define " A good sound " for me in those cases. Do you have any advice for that ? Where you in that situation before ? Thanks again David for everything ! 🤟😎🔥
i think getting decent (the best you can afford) monitoring speakers and a couple of reference albums will help you get a baseline on what sounds good and how that translates in your workspace.
I didn't really understand Number 7 Is it better to use only 1 compressor , for example on Snare or Kick , to achieve the desired amount of reduction ( for example if 6db reduction sounds good for you) OR Use 2 instances of this same compressor and have 3 db reduction only for each of them ( 2 x 3db = 6 db reduction) Thank you for your advices !!!
thank you so much for the video! was just curious as to what type of compressor RVox is and in which order would one use it in their vocal chain, like should I use it as a FET compressor or as an opto one in serial compression? kind regards :D
another question! which internal sidechain setting would you use on a trap hip hop mix buss compressor? ofcourse it depends but which compressor and which setting do you tend to go with commonly throughout your career as a mix engineer? thanks in advance (:
I don't think that level matching (with autogain or not) is ALWAYS a good idea. I many of my mixes I compress the cymbals to have them less harsh, if I gain matched them they'd be extremely overwhelmingly loud in the track. Level matching it great on vocals btw
@@mixbustv so should I turn the fader down? And also, if these cymbals sound good even without makeup (that’s how is called autogain in Ableton) isn’t it good?
is there something like a match level plugin or so? I am really annoyed buy this on many plug-ins, because this means we have to adjust correctly not only one but two knobs at each time?
there are yes plugins that does level matching, if you happen to use live and have max4live there is a m4l one called VC (Volume Compensator) that works well
I put a OTT & Camel Crusher (British Clean) on almost everything except drums. Then I usually use some saturation/ distortion plugins on instruments after that with a Oxford Inflator and Maximus on the Master. Thank you for making this video MixBusTv ! If you have any mixing / mastering videos pertaining to Dubstep\Riddim - could you please link them?
I think the ott one is more for production/sound design if you put it on every channel. U shouldn't put it just cus . Remember ott is just a multiband compressor expander
@@giacomogravano214 Hey, thanks for the reply Giacomo! That's an idea worth considering. I don't put OTT on the Master - but I do put Maximus after an Oxford Inflator(which is Multiband as well).
I've heard a lot of great things about them over time. But I will say this, and it's trivial at the end of the day to some, but their plugs just aren't visually appealing to look at. At least not in my opinion. I know, I know....not that big of a deal. But if I'm starting at a screen all day mixing, plugs that do the job AND are visually appealing to look at is a nice addition for what it's worth.
It's no trivial, we look at those things every day, it's inspiring to work with something "cool". I personally like their look, it's different than anyone else. What I don't like are companies that are all and only a pretty GUI..
my biggest mistake was #2 for sure, might sound weird but when I started using a free comp that do not show how much gain reduction you get, I felt that I was getting better at compression, by the way FR-COMP by eaReackon is its name, also helps a lot to a beginner because you don't have attack and release ms settings, only fast/med/slow, this combined to the hidden gain reduction forces you to compress the shit out of stuff and actually hear the difference that different settings does to the sound ty David, amazing content as always just leaving my list here, might help someone who (are a poor mf like me) likes free plugins: Analog emulations: Antress firechainer (fairchild 660), lost angel (la2a), seventh sign (1176) Go-to: FR-COMP by eaReackon SC: (ableton) live 8 compressor MB: Reaxcomp by Reaper Groups/master/stereo comp: density mkIII by VoS Bonus high quality analog/VCA emulation: Tan by Acustica Audio
i use mixcraft 9 have start woring witg masterbuss oprocess but i cant make bus tracks for it like in pro tools.. do you have tip for mixing twotrack instrumentals with some voal and so on do i use mixbuss processing even on that kind of projekts.. mu pc is wery under preassue 200 gih plugins and 8 ram..- intel 9 processor. and many are cpu havy.. ned tips for glue and color so i can master after.. i master tracks better than mixing for some funny reason..im swedish btw so i hope you understand what i write
