Parallel compression

[Patyk1986]

Originally Posted by Danny Danzi

"Loud" comes from a great mix that has all the right stuff and then it's mastered properly for "loud". Putting a brickwall limiter on your master is destroying both your mix and the fidelity of your music and should be avoided at all times in my opinion. One thing I will give you props on which most people that want "loud" do not care about....the fact that you recognized and used the word "transients".

I mean no offense by what I'm about to say, so think of it as if you knew me and we were friends and I was ribbing at you....yet I'm being serious in a sense, ok? Honest I'm a good guy, but I tell it like it is and how I've lived things.

You saved this post by saying the "transients" thing to be quite honest....because first I was intigued when you asked about parallel compression....but when I read "brick wall limiter in the master bus" and "I want it loud" I was ready to throw up and shut my browser down.

As a recording engineer/mastering engineer/producer or jack-a-lope or whatever else people wanna call me lol, I am totally against the "volume wars" thing and will never share how to achieve that type of sonic mess with anyone. I'll just ignore posts like that because it's ruining music and to me it's like trying to teach someone how to commit suicide and be successful at it.

If you have a clean mix and want it loud, turn up your volume. Why on earth would anyone want to spend weeks on a tune to where it sounds great and then totally ruin the dynamics and over-all timbre of the tune with excessive volume where the wave form looks like this:

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It just makes no sense to me. Why would you want to place a brickwall limiter in your master bus when the tune hasn't been mastered yet? I never use brickwall limiting nor do I ever put any type of compressor or limiter in my master bus. That is not for me to decide at THAT point. The tune needs to be mastered FIRST before I'd even think of a limiter and compression/limiting in an over-all mix in the master bus should not happen at the mix stage. Of course if you feel it should, then do as you wish but you will forever experience your transients not coming through. The first thing you notice other than your tune being all one level is, your snare drum will have 0 pop.

It's obvious you care about your music because you noticed the lack of transients....so I salute you for that man, you rock! However, the way you are trying to achieve loudness is not the correct way. As a firm believer in "say no to loudness and musical suicide" this is as far as I can go. Best of luck!

Yeah, well I use this limiter because that's my only option in having a loud mix without clipping.Im fighting with my mixes but without luck.I want to have a track with a +4dB loudness.So its not over-the top-loud, just pretty normal today.But my mix is clipping in 0dB position of the master fader.So my only option is to use the brickwall limiter.
When I record tracks im setting everything in a position that the fader isnt showing the red clipping thing.Then after recording I solo every track and none of them are clipping.But when I switch back to the overall mix I have a ton of clipping.I think that the bass and guitars are making this mess.Ive uploaded some screenshots(the links are below) of my settings, maybe you will find some stuff, that maybe causing this.

Compressor on the guitar buss:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/158...ussguitars.jpg

Also each guitar track has another compressor on it :
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/145...ompguitars.jpg

EQ on the guitar buss:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/18523/eqbussguitars.jpg

Also each guitar track has another EQ:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1343/...eqguitars2.jpg

EQ on bass:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/11191/eqbass.jpg
2nd EQ on bass:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/1643/eq2bassz.jpg
Compressor on the bass:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/14856/compbass.jpg

Overall printscreen:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/12632/overalla.jpg

Limiter settings:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/19859/limitern.jpg

Routing matrix:
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/6083/rut1t.jpg
http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2200/rut2r.jpg
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7036/rut3.jpg

[Tony Ramone]

OK, you need to go back to your mix and pull all the faders down
If you've got all the tracks set up so that they're just below clipping when solo'd, then of course when you add them all together (i.e. unsolo), you are going to get a horrible clipped monster.

[paul999]

[QUOTE]

Originally Posted by Patyk1986

Yeah, well I use this limiter because that's my only option in having a loud mix without clipping.Im fighting with my mixes but without luck...................... maybe you will find some stuff, that maybe causing this.

There is never only one option unless you "think yourself into a corner". I would go back and start turning everything down so you are not clipping your master fader. If you are fighting your mix our reaction is to do more of something, anything but not necessarily the right thing. Chances are it is time to start trimming things out. ie. rolling off lows turning down instruments in certain areas etc.

One crazy thing about compression is that if you use the right amount things get punchy and in your face but if you use too much suddenly your mix is sounding more distant.

Hearing a mix will be way more useful than screen shots.

[Danny Danzi]

Originally Posted by Tony Ramone

OK, you need to go back to your mix and pull all the faders down
If you've got all the tracks set up so that they're just below clipping when solo'd, then of course when you add them all together (i.e. unsolo), you are going to get a horrible clipped monster.

+1000 Tony!!! Well said.

Patyk, if you're recording at 24/48, you got loads of headroom bro. As Tony mentioned, bring those sliders down on all your tracks. Some of mine are anywhere from -8 to -11 on tracks. From there, tweak your master bus as close to a middle setting as possible (meaning unity gain) but you want your master bus LED to read at about -3 to -2dB after a full pass of the tune. This gives you room to master it and you won't clip.

For example, my master fader may be at -4dB as far as the fader level itself, but it may be reading -2dB on the LED. The LED is what you're looking for. Most mastering engineers ask for -3dB or more if the tune needs surgery. I myself have had the best results with -2dB but have had to have a few clients send me mixes at -6dB due to the work involved with tweaking them. I don't like to do surgery jobs like that, but sometimes they don't take no for an answer. LOL!!

Compressor Pic: That's quite a bit of compression in my opinion for a guitar. I'm curious to see how much gain reduction is literally taking place when you play the audio. Most guitar sounds, you don't need to take out much more than -2 to -3dB of gain at 4:1. If your signal is un-even, it's your eq bro and you're probably putting out too much low end. Don't sacrifice tone with compression due to excessive low end or an improper eq curve. But after seeing your Eq pics, I see you're rolling all that out...so now even I'm stumped.

Nothing in your other eq or compression pics for bass look wrong, but looking at something and hearing it is 2 different things. Kinda the same if we look at graphs and stats of a mix. Sometimes they look terrible yet sound great, other times they look great and sound terrible.

Your screen shot of your track faders definitely tells a story though...if you recorded everything at about -6dB which is what I personally recommend for signal tracking, your track faders are definitely too hott as both Tony and I have mentioned. Here's what I'd do. Bring all those tracks down by -4dB and see what it does to your master buss output. Once you get it close to about -2dB on your LED readout, you can then tweak the master bus a few increments to make sure your peak through a solid play of the song is at -2dB. From there, you're ready to master it.

Looking at your Waves L-1 setting....I'm cringing over here bro. You're crushing the hell out of that mix running that threshold that hott and your outceiling so low. The most I go with an instrumental tune with no vocals is -6.8 to -6.0 with an outceiling of -0.1. Something with vocals and additional orchestration etc, I may not get over -6.2 or into the 6's at all with the threshold as it starts to really kill the transients and the first thing you notice is your snare drum sounds like a cardboard box being punched and other instruments suffer as well.

See, the key to really hitting those limiters for volume is to have the mix sonically sane to begin with or all you're doing is boosting a turd and killing whatever dynamics that turd may have. I'm not accusing your mix of being a turd. LOL! I'm just saying, you can get away with pumping those things up if the mix is pristine. Each project and limiter setting will always be different. I like the L-2 a bit better because I don't think it hits as hard as the L-1 and it doesn't kill dynamics when using settings you would use with the L-1. The L-2 is better for 24/48 audio and above...the L-1, more for 16 bit. Also, make sure if you are already at 16 bit to not use dithering on the L-1 as you don't need it.

Not much more I can really say without hearing what you're getting but those faders are definitely too hott for my liking, the guitar compressors seem a bit hott as well, but none of that matters if you like what you hear and it's giving you the sound you want. Just my 0.2 based on what I see which could be completely off the mark.

[Patyk1986]

OK, so first of all thanks guys for the response.OK, so Im gonna post this song with the applied limiter so you can see how it sounds.
Im gonna try to pull down all faders and make a new mix without the limiter tomorrow.Hope it will work out.Offcourse I will post the results.

[mindundermatter]

Just to clarify, I was referring to master buss compression.

[Patyk1986]

BTW, what is the optimal level of the master fader to start of the mixing ? Ive read on the KHR that its good to start with drums hitting a maximum of -10db.And then start do build up based on that.So what level of the master fader should go with this ?

[Danny Danzi]

-10dB is a good start. To be honest, I've never once looked at an LED or a fader when I've started a mix. I try to keep the actual fader near or about -10 to -8dB on the actual fader itself....but I never look at the LED read-out unless something sounds weird and I may be clipping somewhere. This is where I start trusting my ears and only look at meters, graphs and numbers when there is a problem somewhere.

[Patyk1986]

Well, Ive tried today to mix this without the limiter.Sadly, with no luck.Ive set the master fader to -10db, soloed the drums.They peaked at -10db.Then Ive brought up all the instruments.The overall mix peaked at around 0db.From that point Ive boosted the master fader to the point where it started to clip(around +6,12 db)so I backed off a bit.Then Ive put a comp(not aggresive) on the 2buss and there added some make up gain.But still the mix is way less powerful than the one with the limiter.What now ?

[mindundermatter]

Also thought I should clarify the process. I start my mix by engaging the master buss compressor and getting some general settings. I then do my mix and tweak that compressor as I go along, so it's not a set it and leave it kind of thing. When I start, I usually have a lot of compression going on, but by the time I've added individual compressors to drums, bass, guitars, vocals, f/x busses, parallel compression, etc., the master buss compressor comes down quite a bit. That's what I mean by 'glue'.