2-Bus Compression

Tech talk about audio recording and live stage production.
---Hosted by Andrew MacRae & Malcolm Boyce

Re: 2-Bus Compression

Postby gamblor » Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:08 pm

Tonight I decided to do a little controlled experiment with mix compression.

I made sure tonight to really play around with different compression ratios and thresholds to see if I could notice any difference in "loudness". I tried some ratios as low as 1.5 and as high as 5.5 and tweaked the attack/release to something that sounded proper (usually ended up that the attack was around 10ms and release around 150ms). Gain reduction usually remained steady at around 3 (per andrew's advice) and peaked at around 7. I also turned the mix comp completely off and tried to see where I could get my "loudness" with peak limiting only.

My ultimate conclusion is that after applying some reasonable peak limiting, I wasn't able to notice any difference in "loudness" between the mix comp being on or off. When it came down to it, I was applying so much individual compression at the track level that the only thing the mix comp did, in my opinion, was add muddiness. It's a bit embarrassing that I got so caught up with the preconception that mix bus compression equals loudness that I never bothered to shut the damn thing off during my mix. You live you learn!

As promised earlier, here is a copy of the song without any mix bus compression. This is likely the one we'll go with.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14404243/4Unsur ... nocomp.mp3
Made of 40 dollar bills
gamblor
Bronze Member
 
Posts: 109
Joined: Mon Jul 24, 2006 3:10 pm

Re: 2-Bus Compression

Postby Malcolm Boyce » Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:35 pm

Better yet again. I believe you've made a major breakthrough.

The next time you're into experimenting with compression, try lowering the release time down to something 0-10ms and increasing the attack time to 40-50ms and see what that does as you adjust the threshold. A release time of 100ms on a mix is pretty slow where I come from and will allow you to "hear" the compression more than I would typically say you'd want to. Of course, different strokes.

But, yes, a good mix through a peak limiter will most times be "cleaner" and still loud than some compression muddying up the mess.

Time well spent.
"Once again, it is NEVER the gear that makes a good record.
It just fills Forum pages..." --compasspnt

middleaudio.com
User avatar
Malcolm Boyce
Your Humble Host
 
Posts: 3681
Joined: Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:07 am
Location: Saint John, NB

Previous

Return to Sounds Good...

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 29 guests

cron