Band-limited compression

[Mostess]

I've recently discovered that applying a soft-knee expansion/compression between 800 and 2400Hz makes my recordings come alive. Too much makes a head-achey sound, but that takes a lot!

I remember some masterer's website essay saying you should always do put a small-ratio compression between 350 and 600Hz (or so) as a last step (even after hard-limiting). Sometimes that sounds good with my stuff, but sometimes not. Maybe I don't do it right.

Anyone here have a secret band-limited compression technique?

[thehipcola]

no, but i'm looking forward to trying what you've described... good idea for a thread too.

[Adam!]

My bass puts out wonky levels, so a low F booms but a low D is quiet. Also the 50 - 200 hz band in my songs becomes a war zone once I add down-tuned guitars and multiple toms and kick drums. Because this range can dominate your mix (after mastering compression a boomy bass part will push down the higher frequencies, making them pump and wheeze in a nasty fashion) I find it very useful to do band-limited compression in here. I compress it heavily between 70-140 hz, then mix this in with the original signal. This makes the bass solid and ever-present without completely destroying the dynamics. It also makes my songs bassy as hell, and I have to do liberal EQing to fix it. I'm still looking for a good solution.

Mostess: If you remember I played around with one of your songs once and did the same thing on your voice between 180-240 hz to give it a sexy solid sound. The concept is basically the same.

[joshw]

Band compression is a happy thing indeed. But there are no rules. Play around for a few hours (or days.. or years..) and see what sounds good. I find it especially useful for putting the smack down on rogue transients around the 200hz muddy range of doom.

One other related thing I've been playing around with is compressing a non-vocal submix. If you've ever had vocals that just won't stand out in a mix on top of all the crap going on in the background, try routing everything else into a bus, and apply multiband compression to smooth out the levels. Your vocal track will be able to naturally flow on top of it without dipping a little in volume everytime you hit a drum or pound a guitar chord.

[Mostess]

Mostess: If you remember I played around with one of your songs once and did the same thing on your voice between 180-240 hz to give it a sexy solid sound. The concept is basically the same.

My wife and I were driving, listening to some recent Hostess Mostess. She had a lot of "This one sounds weak" and "I can't hear what's going on in this one". Your mix came on and she reacted immediately: "This one sound SO good! How did you do it?" Of course the answer was "Puce."

But now I know some more! Thanks.

[deshead]

I find it especially useful for putting the smack down on rogue transients around the 200hz muddy range of doom.

So do you use it more as a limiter there?

I like Ozone's multi-band compressor/limiter, because it lets you hard-limit or compress, and the UI makes it fairly obvious what's happening to the sound in each case. (I really like the 'priority' setting in the L3 too, but the UI confuses me. Maybe I just need to spend more time with it.)

One other related thing I've been playing around with is compressing a non-vocal submix...

That's cool!

Here's one of my favorite compressor tricks: http://homerecording.com/bbs/showpost.p ... ostcount=5 (for getting reverb out of the way when a track is loud so it sounds more in-your-face.) He mentions EQ'ing out the undesirable verb frequecies, but a multi-band compressor does a better job, IMO, because it lets the verb sound natural while still taming problem frequencies.

I compress it heavily between 70-140 hz, then mix this in with the original signal.

Do you tune the frequency range based on the song's key?

[toddlans]

Puce wrote:
I compress it heavily between 70-140 hz, then mix this in with the original signal.

yeah i basically do this too and the multiband slightly on final mastering. and also before the mastering stage even, I also sometimes I make a sub mix of kick and bass and any other low frequency sounds and compress them a lot and set the attack and release so that the compressor is pumping heavy with the beat, then i add it in with the rest of the mix very minimally. I usually make a lot of submixes, often of the whole song or certain frequency ranges, and mix them in slightly for different effects. I usually find it easier to get a better balance and to get everything sitting together the way i want it this way by mixing things together as different submixes of certain instruments and frequencies, it kind of glues things together and you can get a loud mix without much final compression.

[thehipcola]

now this is what I call a useful thread. Great tips everyone, keep them coming. I'm pissed that I'm out of town this weekend, I wanna hole up and try all of these ideas out!

[Kapitano]

I'm experimenting with Steinberg's ME multiband compressor, on vocals. These are the settings I'm working with at the moment:

0Hz-200Hz - reduce by 6dB
201-1kHz - unchanged
1kHz-5kHz - increase by 3dB
5kHz-10kH - increase by 9dB
10kHz-24kHz - increase by 6dB

They do make vocals clearer and less 'muddy', but tend to exaggerate sibilent sounds - /t/ and /s/ especially. What settings have other's found useful on their compressors?

[joshw]

I'm experimenting with Steinberg's ME multiband compressor, on vocals. These are the settings I'm working with at the moment:

0Hz-200Hz - reduce by 6dB
201-1kHz - unchanged
1kHz-5kHz - increase by 3dB
5kHz-10kH - increase by 9dB
10kHz-24kHz - increase by 6dB

They do make vocals clearer and less 'muddy', but tend to exaggerate sibilent sounds - /t/ and /s/ especially. What settings have other's found useful on their compressors?

How does this sound in comparison with using straight EQ in the same direction?

As for the siblence, a good desser will fix that up. They're also multiband compressors behind the scenes, but they use a really narrow "Q" to avoid changing the rest of the sound.