Understanding the Multi-Band Compressor

[Magnus]

I've always been confused about compressors in general but have recently started to use them somewhat successfully. However, all the reading I've done about compression/mastering always seems to talk about the multi-band compressor as the key to getting that professional sound, that sheen so to speak. My only real experience has been with the multi-band compressor in Ozone 3. I never use it because I really don't know what I'm doing, however just using some of the presets, I can hear that it definently adds that something extra to the mix that is absent otherwise.

So my question is, could someone either point me to a good tutorial you would recommend or explain how to use a multi-band compressor in terms that someone like myself, a compression challanged person, could understand?

Finally, is the multi-band compressor in Ozone good to use? If not, what ones would you recommend? Where would you potentially put the multi-band compressor? On the master output of your sequencer? What about hardware based compressors? How do they compare to software?

Sorry for all the questions but I feel I'm majorly missing out on something with my productions of late and its very frustrating. Thanks in advance.

[admin]

Mangus,

I think mutliband gets hyped up a lot. It is useful but people like to look at things black and white so certain 'techniques' get thrown around as the gospel. I used to use multiband quite a bit, as it does seem like it's adding a lot. But for me the sound was not as natural and open as I wanted. I then went through a phase of no multiband at all, and liked the results. After a while though I revisited it and now use it very sparingly to smooth out tracks slightly when needed.

As I always suggest though about 95% of the battle is in the mix itself, not the master buss stuff, thats just the very icing on the cake. The reason why I think multiband is so popular is that you can take a bad mix, slam it with some multiband and you get the semblance of an 'exciting' sounding mixdown as the result. In my experience though this will never sound as good as a properly mixed track that then uses very subtle multiband to just finish it off.

Also stay away from presets, they have no use, the whole point of something like multiband is to correct a specific problem of your individual mix, how can a preset know this? It can't...

You're more than welcome to post a snippet of your mix here, then I could see if multiband is really what you're missing or something else.

[Magnus]

Forgive the long email but here goes...

Thank you for the reply Medway I'm sorry I haven't written back sooner I've been so busy with work. Thanks for offering to examine a snippet of my track which is what I've gotten together for you here below. I've got a snippet of my track for download, then for comparison, a snippet from what I consider to be a top notch, professional sounding track. A track that has a level of quality that I could only hope to achieve someday.

I would like to explore with you several questions and hopefully gain a better understanding of how much of the problem lies on my end, what I'm missing, and what I can do to understand my shortcomings.

If you break down my track and the professional track, both contain basically the same elements, yet they are worlds apart IMO sound quality wise. Notice first off how incredibly loud the pro track is compared to mine. I should note I did do some mastering with Ozone on my track but it was done with my limited knowledge and it pales in comparison to the pro track. If I were to try to get my track to sound as loud as the pro track, it would be overbearing and distort as I've found from experience. What I don't understand is how is this pro track SO loud, yet maintains all clarity.

Secondly, the pro track just sounds wide and super thick and the low end, particularly the kick and the boominess from it, is super tight.

Here a huge question comes to mind. How much of this high quality sound did the producers of the pro track get from the mastering process? If its not much, if their track really sounded about as good before the mastering process, then what did they use that I'm not using? More hardware? (I'm all software except for a Virus Ti) Technique? Taking a listen to my track, what things pop out right away that I'm missing that are apparent in the pro's track?

Please forgive all my questions but this is something that plauges me constantly. Not knowing if there is some secret I've been left out of, or I'm doing something obviously wrong, or if there is hardware I'm missing, etc. What blows my mind, is the producers of the pro track, Freaked Frequency, are a couple of 20 year old guys from Yugoslavia. Now how in the world, at that young age, did they learn the techniques to produce something on that level of quality? What did they read that I missed or did someone show them trade secrets or does mastering really do THAT much for your track?

So here are the tracks:

My track: http://www.blackvortex.com/Medway/Magnus...nghold.mp3
The Pro track: http://www.blackvortex.com/Medway/FF-Dreamer.mp3

Sorry again for the long email and all the questions but this is something I think about daily and wonder if I'll ever get it. Despite all the reading I do, I usually come away confused and frustrated so any help you can offer Medway is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[admin]

Magnus,

Hi had a listen to your examples, thanks for posting, makes it a lot easier to help.

The FF track basically consists of a nice tight kick and bassline, the synths then fill up most of the rest of the spectrum. Getting these two elements right can certainly lead to a 'loud' mix as the bass gives the feeling of phatness and the dense synths offer a constant mid-upper freq energy.

It's hard to comment on the low end with your track other than it's fairly non-existent below 70hz. What type of monitoring setup do you have? It sounds like you can hear what's going on with the FF track so maybe that's not the issue. Is there a reason you mixed the low end so light? The synths also seem constricted and over processed, perhaps with compression. But they should breath a bit more for sure, along with the rest of the instrumentation.

I can say hardware and the lack of multiband is not the problem here at all. And it's my general opinion that the better a track sounds, the less it had to do with mastering, opposite to what most people think. At the moment forget mastering and multiband compression even exists. You can get very close to the FF mix without any of that if you have the proper kick/bass sounds going on. Once that's sorted the synth part isn't too hard either, but getting the kick and bass right is a big part of the battle.

If I use multiband on my own mixes its only very light just to glue things together a little. I mainly use it in a mastering situation for clients in order to get around the fact that I'm limited to a stereo track to work on. Multiband lets you correct things that you couldn't do as easily otherwise.

Your programming sounds good though.

[Magnus]

Thanks for the help Medway I feel I'm slowly getting closer to understanding where my problems are. You ask a couple of questions so I'd like to answer them and hopefully that may shed further light on my situation.

It's hard to comment on the low end with your track other than it's fairly non-existent below 70hz. Can you comment a bit on this further? How much frequency should be be there below 70hz? On my master output bus I have low frequency's rolled off at 20hz I believe using a high pass filter. I was always told that was the right thing to do to cut out the muddiness.

What type of monitoring setup do you have? I'm using Mackie HR824's for my monitors. They are about 7-8 feet away from my head in a large room. Behind me hangs a roll of carpet as a bass trap. Personally, I think the 824s give a rather bass heavy and distorted sound so I'd really like to get some new monitors that give me a better real world idea of what I'm hearing. Maybe a lot of my problem lies in my monitors? What do you think? I know this is a whole other topic but is there a better pair you would recommend? Which ones do you use?

Is there a reason you mixed the low end so light? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by light? Do you mean because there is so little frequency under 70hz as you mentioned above? Would this be because of that high pass filter I'm using? I didn't intentionally mix it to be light so if I did, its purely out of ignorance or because I'm doing something wrong. I guess I read somewhere to roll off low frequencies but maybe I'm doing it too much? I could take a screenshot of what the eq on my master output bus looks like for you so you could see maybe if part of the problem lies there.

The synths also seem constricted and over processed, perhaps with compression. But they should breath a bit more for sure, along with the rest of the instrumentation. I don't use any compression on my synths so I'm not sure how to fix this. Maybe there is something in my setup that is not right? I should mention the soundcard I'm using is a pretty cheap one, the Audiophile 2496 (I create my projects in 24bit at 48khz using Cubase SX 3) Is my soundcard a weak link? Is my bit depth and khz ok? Any problems you see here?

Thanks again for taking the time to help me. I'm feeling better in that you've got me believing this is something I can fix and not some magical, unattainable thing of lore.

[admin]

Mangus,

Cutting out the lows is a good idea although I wouldn't do it o n the master buss, you can achieve this better on a track per track basis. The slope of your cut filter matters a lot though. Maybe rebounce it with it off and repost.

Mackies are fine, I use them and they work great. 7-8 feet seems a bit much though, mine are at arms length from me, more direct sound that way. What matters is if you can play a 'pro' sounding track like the FF one and then hear the sub going on there to judge the sub in your mix. It seems like you can hear the difference between the two so perhaps monitoring isn't the main issue here.

Does the mix sound bass light to you compared to other mixes you are trying to emulate?

Don't worry about the bit depth and sample rate, they don't matter, in fact you're probably doing yourself a disservice by going to 48k since it means you need to rate convert to 44.1k later. You're not gaining anything by that. The audiophile is fine too, I used to have one. Certainly not top end but the difference in recent converters (I know this card is somewhat older but it still applies) is a lot less now than it was many years ago.

The main skill you need is to be able to put on a track like the FF one, and then compare it to yours and hear the difference so you know what needs to be fixed. Playing these both together you should hear that the lows in the FF mix extend quite a bit lower than yours. The main peak of the kick in the FF track is about 50hz which is a good tight but subby freq. 70hz is more chest area and will not sound 'fat'.

In addition you are lacking midrange, especially the warmth area which can also be perceived as being 'up close'. And finally the top end is a bit over done.

Take off the hipass filter and repost so we can at least start there.

[Magnus]

Thanks again Medway for all the help. So I examined my project and took some snapshots of some items I felt might be relevant. First, here are is a screenshot of what my master output bus looked like:



You'll notice I also have a Waves 10 EQ running on the master out as well and here is what it looks like:



Also, for my kick, I wanted to show you how I had it EQed so maybe that might show why everything is missing below 70hz?



So I went ahead and removed both the high pass filter and de-activated the Waves 10 EQ on the master output and here is what it sounds like:

http://www.blackvortex.com/Medway/Strong...y_Clip.mp3

Finally, I wondered maybe if what I'm doing with Ozone is messing stuff up so here is the above clip, rendered completely raw out of Cubase:

http://www.blackvortex.com/Medway/Strong...ay_Raw.wav

I suppose I should move my monitor speakers closer? I positioned them where they are because I kept moving back until I heard what I thought was a sweet spot for the low end. Any closer to them and I couldn't seem to hear it as well. I kind of feel lost now really. This morning when I went in to render these out, it seems everything sounds terrible and I'm so confused I don't even know how to proceed without thinking I could be totally wasting my time. Its a very frustrating place to be. I feel blind. Anyways, thanks for all the help as always Medway. Let me know what you think.

[admin]

Magnus,

Hi I'm out of the studio (on holiday) until Jan 9th so will get back to this when I return.

Jesse

[Magnus]

No problem man I appreciate all the help. I myself just now am back into the swing of work from the holidays.

[admin]

Just had a listen to these today.

The hipass you had on cubase was not needed and I believe from looking at it that it would be too gradual of a slope to function as just a subsonic freq remover. You need something with a harder slope like 24db and up for that.

In your case you didn't have those freqs to worry about anyhow.

Also Ozone is not doing any favors here either. I took the raw clip and was able to more cleanly limit and boost the level while retaining a good amount more dynamics and punch compared to the Ozone version.

More importantly I'd say the two big issues are one, the kick needs to be eq'd with lower freqs, more in the 50hz area. The bass can sit above that depending on the notes used. The highs of the rest of the tracks needs to come down and more mid and low mid range added so there is some upfrontness and less high end sizzle.