Mix engineers of all experience levels are familiar with how a compressor can be used to control the transient content of various input source signals. However, a common topic of confusion is the use of compression across the complexity of an entire mix.
Many would argue that applying compression to the entire mix is a job meant for the experienced mastering engineer. Although the latter is true, it is also true that mix bus compression before mastering is a common technique among many notable mix engineers. Whether an engineer uses mix compression or not, is not all that relevant; how an engineer uses it is. In this article we will, in simple terms, examine some key ideas surrounding mix bus compression before mastering, and we will go over how to start applying it to your projects. When to Apply Mix Bus CompressionThe most common mistake regarding mix compression is the order in which it is applied.
That is, novice engineers will often instantiate a compressor after they achieve a balanced mix with fader positions and inserts. The problem is that the compressor changes the balance and transient response of the original mix; thus, any prior work done by the mix engineer loses its integrity and intention. Instead, the a better order would be to instantiate a compressor on the mix bus prior to diving into the mix treatment. Doing so will allow the engineer to mix through the compressor with intent. Hearing the result of pushing faders through the compressor in real time is the key. Ideal CompressorsThere are many great options when choosing a compressor for the mix bus.
This is true in both the analog and digital realm, and the good news is that many of the highest quality digital plugins are aiming emulate the brilliant circuitry and components of classic analog hardware. While some purists still swear by their analog go–to’s, there is no question that digital profiling and modeling is doing an impressive job of mimicking the classics. There is more good news! The digital replication of analog gear keeps getting better and more accurate. It also allows for things like perfect automation and recall, which a hardware compressor is not capable of. It is an exciting time for those without the means to purchase the analog compressor that was used in their recent favorite record.
However, if you have the means to purchase the real thing, that is really cool too!Looking for a punchy bus compressor? The Waves API 2500 does a nice job at emulating the classic punch of its hardware predecessorThe first thing to ask yourself is what you want out of your mix bus compression? Potentially the search is for a compressor that sounds clean and detailed. On the other hand, you may seek one that adds warmth and harmonic saturation.
It will largely be dependent on project style and genre. A world of compressors with unique variations regarding coloration, circuitry, and control parameters (or lack thereof) are available. Familiarize yourself with the general differences between VCA, Tube, Optical, and FET compressors, and pick a mix bus compressor that aligns with a sonic goal. Regardless of your choice, a stereo compressor or dual mono with a stereo link option is required for effective mix bus compression as both L/R sides need to react in an identical matter.
General Compression UseThe loudest source signals in a mix will be the first cross the threshold of the mix-bus compressor. The important thing to keep in mind is that the whole mix will move based on how the loudest transient content crosses the compression threshold. The loudest elements that cross the threshold may be the vocal, the kick drum, or a guitar track and will probably be a combination of each those elements at different times. It is important to keep in mind that the faders will behave differently once the compressor is on the mix bus. If a kick drum is the loudest element of the mix and you push its corresponding fader up, then the compressor is causing even more gain reduction to the kick along with the whole mix under it.
At times mixing into a bus compressor can feel like the faders aren’t doing as much work when the louder elements are pushed. The reason for that is the increased gain reduction that takes place on the mix bus. Don’t overdo it! We will discuss more on proper gain reduction below. Setting the Ratio and ThresholdThe first thing to do when setting a compressor on the mix bus is choose the ratio and threshold. Setting these two parameters is quick and straightforward for mix bus purposes. Start with a low ratio – 2:1 is often plenty.
Next adjust the threshold while looking at the gain reduction caused by the compressor. Lower the threshold until a touch of gain reduction is a achieved. 2dB or 3dB of gain reduction is a great starting point.
As discussed earlier, most compression parameters are best left untouched on the mix bus after it has been set. However, if elements and instruments are added to the session as the mix progresses, then be careful of where your threshold is set. It is imperative to know how much gain reduction the compressor is performing when the mix is at its loudest point. Do not over compress!Waves Puigchild 670 showing an ideal amount of gain reduction (up to 2 db) on the mix bus.Setting the Attack TimeA great starting point when setting an attack time on the mix bus is to use a medium attack time. There are two essential numbers that an engineer must memorize to understand relative attack times. Those numbers are 8 and 25. Between those numbers are medium attack times.
Above 25ms are slow attack times. Below 8ms are fast attack times. Some people find it helpful to think about the numbers 10ms and 30s for an approximate reference that is easier to memorize. Anyways, lets keep it simple and move on – start around 10ms and use your ears!
Setting the Release TimeA great starting point when setting a release time on the mix bus is to use a medium release time. There are two essential numbers that an engineer must memorize to understand general relative release times. Those numbers are 100 and 300. Between those numbers are medium release times. Above 300ms are slow release times.
Below 100ms are fast release times. Start around 200ms and use your ears to set an appropriate release time! Use your eyes too (Hint: Gain Reduction Meter) Also be prepared to convert from milliseconds to seconds and vice versa.
(.1 s = 100ms) Auto-ReleaseMany compressors have an auto release setting that can prove effective in a mix bus situation. If you are inexperienced with mix bus compression, then this may be a helpful release time setting option. The auto-release parameter is especially ideal for music that has distinct sections with different instruments or grooves in each unique section. It does a good job of automating the release time and reacting to the significant sonic and timing changes that might occur in a song. Try it out!Native Instruments – Solid Bus Compressor set to Auto ReleaseAttack and Release TogetherPay very close attention to the attack and release settings of your mix-bus compressor because they can really make or break a mix. If your ear is not keen to the effects of compression across complex signals, then you could very easily put yourself on a road to a worse mix without realizing it.
Too fast of an attack will kill low frequency transient content (punch). Too fast of a release time will sound like the music is pumping in a non-musical way. Too long of a release time will flatten the mix by keeping the compressor engaged too long and not allowing it to ever reach unity gain. The ears are always the first line of defense, but keep your eyes on the gain reduction meter and pay attention to its overall push and pull. After the attack and release is set properly, the gain reduction meter should move in relation to the tempo and/or groove of the music. Some engineers even set their attack and release times to musical values.
For example, if a song tempo is at 100bpm then a 1/16 th note value is equal to 150ms and a 1/8T (T=triplet) note value is equal to 200ms. Both of these note values converted to milliseconds (150ms and 200ms) meet our medium release time criteria. If you are struggling to dial in on a release time on the mix, using musical values and converting them to milliseconds (sometimes seconds) is usually a good start. Exceptions to the OrderContrary to “The Order” above There are times when using a compressor on the mix bus after achieving a mix is acceptable if done strategically. One example would be using a multiband compressor to address very specific issues in a mix. Imagine a mix engineer has left the studio and is referencing a mix in the car.
Saturation Before Or After Compression Treatment
He or she will hear that mix in a new context the low-mids are now coming through the mix too hot and muddying vocal intelligibility. Perhaps 6-8kHz is now sounding harsh. In either case, a multiband compressor could very effectively help address a specified problem that wasn’t addressed in the studio mix session. The most effective option would be to return to the studio and address the problems on a specific track or channel, but that costs time and money, which may or may not be available. A multiband compressor on the mix before mastering can be an effective way to address subtle tonal problems before mastering.It would also be practical to take a completed mix to a studio and run it through several of their hardware mix-bus compressors that you probably do not own.
This allows for the referencing of several different mix-bus options. Print and keep the ones you find sonically pleasing. Although, you may find that compression makes your mix sound different and not necessarily better, so be carefu l. Proper A/B testing with precise gain matching is a must in this situation. If you own the gear or have the studio budget then the best option would still be to mix through the hardware compressor of choice in real time (as we discussed in “The Order”). However, it could be very time efficient a to run a complete mix through many different classic bus compressors during a studio session and compare them later.
Final ThoughtsUsing compression before mastering may or may not be a technique that fits your mix style. Regardless, as engineers it is our job to try new methods and learn their strengths and weaknesses in our workflow. Do not shy away from mix bus compression.
Incorporate it into your mixing arsenal if it works for you. If it doesn’t work for you, then learning about it certainly expands your perspective on how compression treats more complex signals. In addition, these mix bus compression techniques can often translate into smaller busses and groups (ex. Vocal bus, drum bus, strings bus). Go choose a classic compressor (or digital emulation) for the job and have fun learning!
Saturation Before Or After Compression Workout
Consistent growth is the name of this game.
You should compress before encrypting.Encryption turns your data into high-entropy data, usually indistinguishable from a random stream. Compression relies on patterns in order to gain any size reduction. Since encryption destroys such patterns, the compression algorithm would be unable to give you much (if any) reduction in size if you apply it to encrypted data.Compression before encryption also slightly increases your practical resistance against differential cryptanalysis (and certain other attacks) if the attacker can only control the uncompressed plaintext, since the resulting output may be difficult to deduce.EDIT: I'm editing this years later because this advice is actually poor in an interactive case.
You should not compress data before encrypting it in most cases. A side-channel attack method known as a 'compression oracle' can be used to deduce plaintext data in cases where the attacker can interactively cause strings to be placed into an otherwise unknown plaintext datastream. Attacks on SSL/TLS such as CRIME and BREACH are examples of this. @ewanm89: The number of possible compressed messages of length n cannot be greater than the number of possible messages of length n. So, if we average over the set of all possible messages, the average compression ratio (compressed size divided by uncompressed size) cannot be less than 100%. Compression algorithms achieve real-world compression ratios of less than 100% by targeting common patterns at the expense of uncommon ones; so, a truly-randomly-generated message will usually have a compression ratio of greater than 100%.–Sep 10 '12 at 19:18.
If you compress after encryption and the compression does any good (i.e. It really reduces the length by a non-negligible amount) then you can ditch the encryption, it is awfully weak. Encrypted text ought to be indistinguishable from randomness; even badly encrypted data cannot usually be compressed.Therefore, compress before encryption. This is why protocols which deal with encryption usually include some support for compression, e.g. (section 5.6). In some scenarios, compression can leak information about confidential data (because compression reduces length depending on the data, and encrypted length more or less matches plaintext length); this is the idea behind the new.Fringe exception: if you encrypt a message with OpenPGP and then 'ACSII armor' the result, i.e.
Encode it in Base64, then this encoding enlarges the data by 34%: 3 bytes become 4 characters (plus the odd newline). Compression with will be effective at cancelling this enlargement (thanks to Huffman codes). That's a case of usefulness of compression after encryption - but, really, that's more compression over Base64, rather than compression over encryption. Neither:Compress during encryption with an encryption tool designed to do both securely, such as.This is basically just more direct, so readers in a hurry don't misunderstand the subtleties of what Thomas Pornin explains in his answer. The question is a false dichotomy if the OP (and the reader) is thinking of the first and second steps being the execution of two different tools like gzip and gpg.If you encrypt first, compression won't do much, besides squeeze out the Base64 34% inflation of 'ASCII armor' that mentioned.If you compress first, the encryption is less secure, vulnerable to attacks like that @ThomasPornin mentioned.
It all depends on what sound you want at the end.I think you ask the wrong question. If you saturate your signal before you compress it, it is possible that you don’t need to compress it afterwards, because your signals overall volume is higher nowSo the question could be, what would you like to achieve compressing your signal?
More overall volume, more punch, tighter transients or completely smoothed out transients? Same questions for Saturation or more or less any processingSo what i mean, if you ask the right questions to yourself, you don’t need to think/ask about what processing first. The order of processing is a tool unto itself, bringing great flexibility to any processing situation. Experiment.While there might exist certain “practices” that are commonly used, there is no single right way.
With certain compressors for example, they can clamp on the low end too much, and for this situation, you might want to have EQ both before and after compression (first EQ reduces lowend so the comp wont choke, while the second EQ adds it back after the comp is done its thing).AFAIK, a commong channelstrip config is something like:. highpass/lopass (removes redundant frequency info for increasing headroom etc).
gate/expansion (removes/attenuates unwanted low level detail). & 4. Compressor and equalizer (order of 3. Can be swapped depending on need)but this is by no means the best fit for every scenario.
I understand your point i know exactly what you meanwhen i use software it is easy to change the orderthe thing is i like to build a analog strip which works withoutchanging the order how they are connected. Because my sound cardhas a limit of access points.so i was thinking to connect the hardware to the hardware to the hardware and than to the soundcard.means like that:.Ableton fabfilter EQ for correction – Low and High pass filtering + disturbance frequency processing output to hardware.analog Compressor to analog Eq to analog Saturator.analog Saturator - to sound card in - recording back to DAW. I guess that all of your three points could require a special solution (– patchbay ).Generally, I would suggest to start with a configuration, which provides the most control and predictability and not too much of alchemy. Example, if you are using a distortion unit prior to a compressor, each change of the distortion will also directly influence, how the compressor works. If both have to be optimized, it could become a tedious guess-work to zero in.
But sometimes just not following the rules opens new ways of creativity depends on what you are looking forIt might be too trivial to post this here, but “rich, phatt & punchy at the low end” is not a single-track problem only. It’s something about the entire mix too. If there are low-end voices beating against the kick, the bass, you name it, there is no chance, until all of those beasts are tamed.I would put a distortion prior or after your final EQ and tight transients could be helped with a transientshaper, if the compressor is not supportive enough.
Going into a mix, it’s easy to get caught up in best practices and “clean-up” mode. When this happens, you forget that at its core, mixing music is a creative experience. So once you’ve got your tracks cleaned up and mix-ready, give some of these creative compression techniques a try. Crush Your Bass GuitarBass holds a special place in nearly every mix, acting as the glue between your kick drum and mid-range instrumentation.In most music composition, bass notes tend to fall in line with kick drum patterns because of its ability to create pseudo-sustain. Electronic music has taken full advantage of this ever since the inception of the 808 (and similar note-heavy drum machines).With that said, rock and metal genres sometimes lose the bass guitar in the background with so much other instrumentation happening. While it does a great job of rounding out the mix, it’s rarely a “featured” instrument.There is a modern push for “clanky” bass guitar that’s brought the instrument into the limelight though. A clanky bass is one that has plenty of mid-range attack, much like you’d find in a clicky kick drum.
So how can you achieve a similar sound in the mix?By adding distortion to a bass guitar, you can bring out a lot of mid-range in the instrument without losing the low-end (especially when processing in parallel). There are several ways to do this, such as.
Another favorite of mine is using a compressor like that has saturation built-in. Two birds, one stone! Saturate Your Synthesizers“Synthesizer” is being used in an extremely general way here.
With so many variants from leads to bass synths to pads & beyond, nearly every type of synthesis can benefit from saturation. For the sake of argument, we’ll include most samplers in this category as well.Synthesizers can range from a single simple sine wave to lush soundscapes, but due to their electronic nature, they’re very accepting of post-processing.Listeners can usually identify over-saturation on drums and other acoustic instruments, but you rarely run that risk with synths. Because of this, I love experimenting with heavy compression and saturation.You run little risk of negatively affecting the audio quality since you’re starting with a uniquely created sound.
Nobody is going to call you out for adding too much warmth or distortion to a synth.Experiment with it. If you’re using software synths, you get the benefit of being able to tweak both the instrument and saturation plugin together – essentially making saturation a part of the instrument. Parallel Compressing Your OverheadsDrums are probably the most common instrument to parallel compress.
The process allows you to maintain your dynamic range while simultaneously boosting your transients and overall presence.But in addition to parallel compressing your drum bus, have you ever considered processing your overheads separately?The results can be shockingly effective, especially when trying to bring life to programmed drums or drums tracked in a small room. The reason for compressing overheads is similar to why you’d want to heavily compress a room mic (or ).You get a lot of room into the mix when parallel compressing your overheads. In a large room, this means additional depth to your drum sound. Even in small rooms, parallel-compressed overheads can result in added “air” around the cymbals, lightening up a dark drum mix without sacrificing its natural sound.Using All Three On Your VocalsIf you didn’t know - compression, saturation & distortion meet their apex at lead vocal processing. Every vocal I’ve mixed has used each of these, and has formed a very that I couldn’t be more proud of.That’s not to say I’m the only one using them, far from it.Top engineers from every genre are finding ways to use these three elements to carve out space around a vocal and bring them to the front of the mix in combination with other tools like reverb, delay & EQ.I focus on compression, saturation & distortion though, because these three elements can make a great vocal regardless of the listening environment. While a vocal with heavy reverb may get lost depending on how you’re listening to it, a well compressed vocal with a bit of saturation will cut through every time.
How Are You Using These Tools?Do you find yourself using distortion in your mix (as opposed to during tracking)? Are you using on more than just vocals? We’d love to hear how these tools affect your mixing, especially if they’re boosting creativity.Share your favorite techniques with us over on the & keep making great music!
The Fooler is pretty much a one-of-a-kind plugin: It gives you detailed control over the sidechain signal of literally any compressor there is – even if a particular one doesn’t offer this functionality at all! In this tutorial, we will use the Fooler to process some metal guitars, thereby showing you what you need to take care of when using it.Here’s our example track:The guitars have been recorded twice (one for each side) and then sent to a bus with an instance of the C165a VCA compressor on it.
This plugin actually does include a sidechain, but we won’t use it now, of course. Before we actually get to work with the Fooler we set up the compressor just as usual. Access all AreasOne of the most important things you need to know about the Fooler is that you’ll always need two instances of it in order to make it work properly: one placed before and one after the compressor.The first instance is the crucial one, because it will shape the sidechain signal that is fed into the compressor.
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It only uses the controls above the line so we can ignore the three knobs at the bottom of the interface. We check that the PRE/POST-Switch is set to ‘PRE’ and then move on to the 3 band EQ.
Saturation Before Or After Compression
By turning down the LOW-GAIN to the far left and the FREQ-control to the far right we create a similar effect like a high pass filter at 350Hz. We then crank up the MID- as well as the HIGH-GAIN to about 4, and set the FREQ-knobs to 3kHz and 6k5Hz respectively. This will increase the amount of compression in these frequency areas and therefore enrich the overall sound of the guitars.After that we turn up the MODE-knob to just below 9 before setting the THRESHOLD to 4.5.
The meter to the right should display a (high) value of 8, which means that the signal gets slightly ‘pushed’ before it reaches the compressor. In the end, this will introduce some nice saturation and give the sound a rich tone. Finally we choose ‘1’ from the drop-down-menu at the bottom right (this number should be the same in both instances).The interface of the first instance should now look something like this:Now it’s time to configure the second instance of the Fooler. As you might probably guess the PRE/POST-switch should be set to POST and the drop-down-menu should be set to ‘1’. The only controls that are relevant here are the ones below the line, and they can be utilized to gently shape the timbre of the sound. In our case, we turn down the red knob (lows) and increase the blue one (highs).The interface of the second instance should now look something like this:The ResultNow that we’re done, it’s time to listen to the final result:The changes aren’t dramatic, but still the guitars sound a little more ‘together’, with more weight, and also some more movement!You can download the presets for Fooler here.