Hello

I posted not too long ago about snares sticking out above the rest of
the drum mix because it was the only way it sounded powerful.
RickWHunt (sorry if mispelled) advised that I gave a smiley-face eq to
the snare and turn it down. It worked fabulously along with my sending
all drums to a compressor and pumping the drums a bit.

Now I am in need of some pointers about grouping other instruments
just as I grouped the drums and got great results.

What I am after is a very "glued" final mix and I'm prepared to even
apply 2-mix compression (switched on from beginning of mix - thanks to
Mixerman).

I'm getting used to the modern approach of bussing instruments and
compressing them together. As far as I know there are many people
grouping sets of tracks together and getting good results. I don't see
how this connects the overall sound together as it would just blend
the sub tracks together more and not really do anything for the entire
mix. So I would assume that in order to get a "Very" glued record you
would need to additionally add 2-mix compression on "top" of the
compressed submixes and individual tracks.

QUESTIONS

Is the general idea to compress in various stages so that less
compression on the final 2-mix is required? What I am starting to do
(and I really like the sound) is compress individual tracks lightly
(3-4db, group them together for overall group compression and finally
compress the 2-mix lightly?

MORE QUESTIONS (Please all take a stab at these, I love hearing how
other people go about this)

What would be your favourite compression methods to stabalize an
entire mix so that it sounds very gelled? What I need are some popular
instrument grouping combinations from members on this board. Some of
my ideas were for example maybe Buss1 (All Drums and bass), Buss2
(BV's and Lead), Buss3 (Vocal buss2 with all guitars)? What would
bussing the guitars with the vocals do for the excitement of the
track? Would it make it so that the guitars and vocals are both in
your face and one doesn't stick above the other? For Hard rock tracks
i feel that vocals and guitars should compete a little more than with
pop music.

Please feel free to get into detail about some of your common
individual, group and stereo compression techniques. Not necessarily
release, attack and ratio techniques but rather what usually works
best in terms of what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

"David" wrote in message
om...

Now I am in need of some pointers about grouping other instruments
just as I grouped the drums and got great results.

What I am after is a very "glued" final mix and I'm prepared to even
apply 2-mix compression (switched on from beginning of mix - thanks to
Mixerman).


If I'm doing subgroups I always put "like" tracks together. As in the whole
drumkit. Or the Bass Drum and Bass Guitar. All the 6-string guitars. All the
background vocals. Etc. And I try to use as little as possible effect/EQ to
get what I want. As far as stereo buss compression I still sometimes do it
(but with a very low ratio, like 1.2:1 and only barely getting reduction)
but one of the main reasons I like to compress a subgroup is so I don't have
to put compression on the stereo mains. Because when you do that you are
affecting everything in the mix, even tracks that don't need it. It tends to
get "lifeless" real quick. And by the very definition of trying to "glue" it
together you are losing detail which is usually not a good thing. So by just
grouping similar problem instruments and fixing them I'm able to be less
invasive overall. Of course multi-band compression has made it a little more
flexible but I find multi-band to be very addictive and you can get yourself
into trouble real fast. I wish there was a plugin too that would "glue"
everything together but I think that's way too late in the game. Getting the
arrangement and the tone selection down before you even start recording will
do more for getting a good mix than anything else.


I'm getting used to the modern approach of bussing instruments and
compressing them together. As far as I know there are many people
grouping sets of tracks together and getting good results. I don't see
how this connects the overall sound together as it would just blend
the sub tracks together more and not really do anything for the entire
mix. So I would assume that in order to get a "Very" glued record you
would need to additionally add 2-mix compression on "top" of the
compressed submixes and individual tracks.

QUESTIONS

Is the general idea to compress in various stages so that less
compression on the final 2-mix is required? What I am starting to do
(and I really like the sound) is compress individual tracks lightly
(3-4db, group them together for overall group compression and finally
compress the 2-mix lightly?

MORE QUESTIONS (Please all take a stab at these, I love hearing how
other people go about this)

What would be your favourite compression methods to stabalize an
entire mix so that it sounds very gelled? What I need are some popular
instrument grouping combinations from members on this board. Some of
my ideas were for example maybe Buss1 (All Drums and bass), Buss2
(BV's and Lead), Buss3 (Vocal buss2 with all guitars)? What would
bussing the guitars with the vocals do for the excitement of the
track? Would it make it so that the guitars and vocals are both in
your face and one doesn't stick above the other? For Hard rock tracks
i feel that vocals and guitars should compete a little more than with
pop music.

Please feel free to get into detail about some of your common
individual, group and stereo compression techniques. Not necessarily
release, attack and ratio techniques but rather what usually works
best in terms of what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

On 29 Oct 2003 21:09:33 -0800, (David) wrote:

Hello

I posted not too long ago about snares sticking out above the rest of
the drum mix because it was the only way it sounded powerful.

Before getting into a lot of other complications, try compressing the
guitars with the snare as the trigger.

Try lowering the snare a bit and have the guitars pull back with a
moderately fast attack a few dB. It does wonders. Meaty. It feels like
your ears are doing what they would do if the snare was Really Loud.
You could do it to the rest of the drums too, but that may sound like
Ass.

It may have the psychoacoustic effect you want.





Kurt Riemann

what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

I'm also fond of compressing the stereo cymbal mix with the Kick drum.
It gives you the Ringo "Boooosh."

It's all pretty easy on an 02r, by the way.

I think it's hard to make broader compression submixes of large swaths
of instruments without ruining those submixes. Instruments need to
point an other individuals. The decision of targets and sources comes
from listening to "what's in the way of what" and using them as their
own solution.

Gotta use your ears. That's the most fun part. You should also listen
from another room every once in a while.




Kurt Riemann

(David) wrote in message . com...
Hello

Please feel free to get into detail about some of your common
individual, group and stereo compression techniques. Not necessarily
release, attack and ratio techniques but rather what usually works
best in terms of what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

David,

Here's a trick you can try which may help you to see what groups work
together without doing a whole lot of patching. Set up your favorite
compressor as an effects send. If I have an exra send I don't need for
reverb etc, I will often do this, and then add all sorts of stuff into
it. Sometimes it ends up with most everything in it, like a junior
compressed mix under the open uncompressed mix. You can solo the
effects return to hear what's going on. This approach can REALLY glue
stuff together without compromising the transients and dynamics, which
still exist on the tracks. Then if you need more dynamics control you
can subgroup stuff again seperately. I will often have drums seeing
several different compressors at the same time. Snare and kick may
have their own (May is the operative word). The room will have it's
own. The overheads may have another, and then a subgroup as well as
the effects send compressor too. This allows you to have the drums
sound both smashed and open at the same time. Good luck.

Best,
rl, nyc.

"David" wrote in message
om...
Hello

I posted not too long ago about snares sticking out above the rest of
the drum mix because it was the only way it sounded powerful.
RickWHunt (sorry if mispelled) advised that I gave a smiley-face eq to
the snare and turn it down. It worked fabulously along with my sending
all drums to a compressor and pumping the drums a bit.

Now I am in need of some pointers about grouping other instruments
just as I grouped the drums and got great results.

What I am after is a very "glued" final mix and I'm prepared to even
apply 2-mix compression (switched on from beginning of mix - thanks to
Mixerman).

I'm getting used to the modern approach of bussing instruments and
compressing them together. As far as I know there are many people
grouping sets of tracks together and getting good results. I don't see
how this connects the overall sound together as it would just blend
the sub tracks together more and not really do anything for the entire
mix. So I would assume that in order to get a "Very" glued record you
would need to additionally add 2-mix compression on "top" of the
compressed submixes and individual tracks.

QUESTIONS

Is the general idea to compress in various stages so that less
compression on the final 2-mix is required? What I am starting to do
(and I really like the sound) is compress individual tracks lightly
(3-4db, group them together for overall group compression and finally
compress the 2-mix lightly?

MORE QUESTIONS (Please all take a stab at these, I love hearing how
other people go about this)

What would be your favourite compression methods to stabalize an
entire mix so that it sounds very gelled? What I need are some popular
instrument grouping combinations from members on this board. Some of
my ideas were for example maybe Buss1 (All Drums and bass), Buss2
(BV's and Lead), Buss3 (Vocal buss2 with all guitars)? What would
bussing the guitars with the vocals do for the excitement of the
track? Would it make it so that the guitars and vocals are both in
your face and one doesn't stick above the other? For Hard rock tracks
i feel that vocals and guitars should compete a little more than with
pop music.

Please feel free to get into detail about some of your common
individual, group and stereo compression techniques. Not necessarily
release, attack and ratio techniques but rather what usually works
best in terms of what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

I haven't tried this yet, but in the last issue of TapeOp Michael Brawer
(sp?) talks about using the A, B, C, & D Busses (he mixes on SSL) as Highs,
Mids, & Lows Busses plus one extra. He's big on imparting a particular sonic
character on each band using Compressors (& EQs; & always multi mono rather
than stereo) as different sounding as Neve, Fairchild, Urei, etc. He also
assigns some tracks to several busses or simply just the stereo buss, as
appropriate (i.e. for no compression, for further "mangling" of the sound,
different sounds for different parts of the song, etc.). Sort of like a
manual mutli-band compressor on steroids with more user control.

I think it's a great idea & can't wait to try it myself.
Good luck,

--
Winter
www.EMBStudios.com
A World of Good Music
(510)325-1029

(David) wrote in message . com...
Hello

I posted not too long ago about snares sticking out above the rest of
the drum mix because it was the only way it sounded powerful.
RickWHunt (sorry if mispelled) advised that I gave a smiley-face eq to
the snare and turn it down. It worked fabulously along with my sending
all drums to a compressor and pumping the drums a bit.

Now I am in need of some pointers about grouping other instruments
just as I grouped the drums and got great results.

check out the latest tape op. it has an entire section on multi-buss
compression techniques that you will probably find interesting. of
course he's using an SSL and cranesong/distressor/etc., but the idea
works indepenent of equipment.

Fantastic replies! thanks fellas. Keep em coming for those of you who
would like to offer more methods.


So I see that the general idea is to compress submixes so that it
doesn't impart compression charecteristics that are obvious. Hence the
NYC compression method gives you that nice and compressed sound
blended in as an effect. So I can pump and breathe the heck out of the
sub as much as I like and blend the uncompressed tracks in with it for
a reality check. I feel a lot of us like the "sound" of compression
but don't like the artifacts it adds to the otherwise nice sound we
get from no compression.

More questions:

Would it be right to not use NYC compression if I want the compression
to be as audible as hell? Would normal compression without NYC make
the drums sound smaller? Is the only purpose of NYC to maintain the
uncompressed sound or does blending the dry+compressed sound offer a
bigger sound? The reason I ask is because on some songs I want no NYC
but am scared that it will sound smaller and too smashed up. I feel I
should always keep atleast a little of the dry sound in there for good
measure.

What are ALL the benefits of using NYC compression apart from the fact
that the resulting signal sounds less compressed. I'm under the
impression it offers more.

Dave

(David) wrote in message

Hence the
NYC compression method gives you that nice and compressed sound
blended in as an effect.

Would it be right to not use NYC compression if I want the compression
to be as audible as hell? Is the only purpose of NYC ...I want no NYC

What are ALL the benefits of using NYC compression
Dave

What the hell are you talking about? What is NYC compression??? NYC
compression? Duh, what's that?

Best,
rl,nyc

"RL,nyc" wrote
(David) wrote:

Hence the
NYC compression method gives you that nice and compressed sound
blended in as an effect.

Would it be right to not use NYC compression if I want the compression
to be as audible as hell? Is the only purpose of NYC ...I want no NYC

What are ALL the benefits of using NYC compression
Dave

What the hell are you talking about? What is NYC compression??? NYC
compression? Duh, what's that?

New York compression is where you send a subgroup of something (typically
drums), squash the living **** out of it, and then sneak the compressed
return up under the non (or lightly) compressed tracks. This achieves a lot
of the tone shaping that heavy compression can give you while still
retaining the 'open' sound of the non processed tracks.

It's called New York compression because it's (supposedly) something that NY
engineers did a lot before engineers in LA, Nashville or London.

-jw

Here's a thing I noticed today that I would welcome some thoughts on:
I bounced everything but vox down to stereo so I could put it into a
new session, and track new vox against it. My PC is aging, and I had
too many tracks in the original session. So I will do several submix
bounces later, combine them with the new vocals and keep going. So,
when i bounced today, the default file type was left as MP3 from the
last time I bounced (I had made a file for web posting). I didn't
care, as it was just a temp, so I just used that. When i started
tracking the vocals, the lower MP3 quality of the main mix was
apparent, but even more apparent was the fact that a some of the
instruments, I think it was an acoustic guitar track, an electric, and
some subset of the drums, had "smeared" or glued together in a way
that kind of made me want to shout "Eureka!". I am tempted to figure
out exactly what I was hearing, submix them, save as an MP3, and use
it in the .wav mix. Is this completely dopey, should I just get back
to learning compression? Has anybody ever seen a positive effect from
MP3 data compression?!

d


(David) wrote in message . com...
Hello

I posted not too long ago about snares sticking out above the rest of
the drum mix because it was the only way it sounded powerful.
RickWHunt (sorry if mispelled) advised that I gave a smiley-face eq to
the snare and turn it down. It worked fabulously along with my sending
all drums to a compressor and pumping the drums a bit.

Now I am in need of some pointers about grouping other instruments
just as I grouped the drums and got great results.

What I am after is a very "glued" final mix and I'm prepared to even
apply 2-mix compression (switched on from beginning of mix - thanks to
Mixerman).

I'm getting used to the modern approach of bussing instruments and
compressing them together. As far as I know there are many people
grouping sets of tracks together and getting good results. I don't see
how this connects the overall sound together as it would just blend
the sub tracks together more and not really do anything for the entire
mix. So I would assume that in order to get a "Very" glued record you
would need to additionally add 2-mix compression on "top" of the
compressed submixes and individual tracks.

QUESTIONS

Is the general idea to compress in various stages so that less
compression on the final 2-mix is required? What I am starting to do
(and I really like the sound) is compress individual tracks lightly
(3-4db, group them together for overall group compression and finally
compress the 2-mix lightly?

MORE QUESTIONS (Please all take a stab at these, I love hearing how
other people go about this)

What would be your favourite compression methods to stabalize an
entire mix so that it sounds very gelled? What I need are some popular
instrument grouping combinations from members on this board. Some of
my ideas were for example maybe Buss1 (All Drums and bass), Buss2
(BV's and Lead), Buss3 (Vocal buss2 with all guitars)? What would
bussing the guitars with the vocals do for the excitement of the
track? Would it make it so that the guitars and vocals are both in
your face and one doesn't stick above the other? For Hard rock tracks
i feel that vocals and guitars should compete a little more than with
pop music.

Please feel free to get into detail about some of your common
individual, group and stereo compression techniques. Not necessarily
release, attack and ratio techniques but rather what usually works
best in terms of what instruments sound best when compressed together.
I know everyone uses the attacks and releases all differently but I've
noticed that there are definitely common grouping methods that people
have in common.

Thanks a million. David

"Dan" wrote in message
om...
When i started
tracking the vocals, the lower MP3 quality of the main mix was
apparent, but even more apparent was the fact that a some of the
instruments, I think it was an acoustic guitar track, an electric, and
some subset of the drums, had "smeared" or glued together in a way
that kind of made me want to shout "Eureka!".

I've actually noticed this exact phenomena. I've actually found some MP3's
that sounded "better" than the wave files. Especially when played in my car.
I've played the actual WAV file (original CD) and the MP3 and liked the MP3
better in the car. It just sounded more "exciting" for lack of a better
phrase. And the 128k sounded better in this respect than the highest
resolution MP3 did. And this was with commercial CD's I had bought, not my
own recordings. So there's definitely something going on.

In article ,
says...

it in the .wav mix. Is this completely dopey, should I just get back
to learning compression? Has anybody ever seen a positive effect from
MP3 data compression?!

I've used MP3 on some analog synth sounds what would not fit in
the mix. Afterwards they would blend nicely.
I got the idea from a article on audio compression in the German
computer magazine. C?t.
It was mentioned that "some" prof. used mp3 as a tool to do
exactly what you did.
Don't over do it, and choose a the sources and compression rates
carefully, there is nothing more annoying than a phased top and
a muddy bottom.

--
/ Peter Kaersaa

I've actually noticed this exact phenomena. I've actually found some MP3's
that sounded "better" than the wave files. Especially when played in my car.
I've played the actual WAV file (original CD) and the MP3 and liked the MP3
better in the car. It just sounded more "exciting" for lack of a better
phrase. And the 128k sounded better in this respect than the highest
resolution MP3 did. And this was with commercial CD's I had bought, not my
own recordings. So there's definitely something going on.


Mp3s reduce the seperation between instruments. It gets rid of many
bits that represent the different attack and contours of different
sounds. These unique contours are what creates the distinguishment
between sounds and preserve clarity. To some, this mp3 sound is
obviously a good effect since a lot of engineers try so hard to gel
everything together when they mix. I've had scenarios when my mp3s
sound better than the actual wave mix since it gives me that gelling
effect instantly. On other mixes I hate what mp3s do to the sound
because it puts a uniform sonic texture across the whole mix when what
I really want to retain is the different textures that are better
represented in the .wav.

This "gelling" would suck on mixes that require a sparse sound with
more definition between instruments.

They should make a plugin that emulates what mp3s do without
sacrificing so many bits. I think it would be impossible though. If
mp3 works for your final mix, keep it. Just don't expect the stereo
image to sound normal when you've removed the centre energy. All sorts
of weird **** happens when you hear the stereo portion isolated on
mp3s.

Now back to my last post about NYC compression, does anybody have any
thoughts on it? I just need a few more clarifications on the NYC
method before I can fully tackle it. Please see if you can post a few
replies on my last post.

Thanks
Dave

David wrote:


I've actually noticed this exact phenomena. I've actually found some MP3's
that sounded "better" than the wave files. Especially when played in my car.
I've played the actual WAV file (original CD) and the MP3 and liked the MP3
better in the car. It just sounded more "exciting" for lack of a better
phrase. And the 128k sounded better in this respect than the highest
resolution MP3 did. And this was with commercial CD's I had bought, not my
own recordings. So there's definitely something going on.


Mp3s reduce the seperation between instruments. It gets rid of many
bits that represent the different attack and contours of different
sounds. These unique contours are what creates the distinguishment
between sounds and preserve clarity. To some, this mp3 sound is
obviously a good effect since a lot of engineers try so hard to gel
everything together when they mix. I've had scenarios when my mp3s
sound better than the actual wave mix since it gives me that gelling
effect instantly. On other mixes I hate what mp3s do to the sound
because it puts a uniform sonic texture across the whole mix when what
I really want to retain is the different textures that are better
represented in the .wav.

This "gelling" would suck on mixes that require a sparse sound with
more definition between instruments.

They should make a plugin that emulates what mp3s do without
sacrificing so many bits. I think it would be impossible though. If
mp3 works for your final mix, keep it. Just don't expect the stereo
image to sound normal when you've removed the centre energy. All sorts
of weird **** happens when you hear the stereo portion isolated on
mp3s.

Now back to my last post about NYC compression, does anybody have any
thoughts on it? I just need a few more clarifications on the NYC
method before I can fully tackle it. Please see if you can post a few
replies on my last post.

Thanks
Dave

I'm wondering if what you are hearing is not simply a fixed
phase shift on the source. There are phase manipulation
plugins out there, and tweaking the phase on a source several
degrees might do this. Likewise, simply adding a series delay
100% wet might glue a subgroup together.

The LittleLabs IBP would do the same in the analog domain.

--
Les Cargill