Do any of you use multi-band compression for mastering?
For years I've been struggling with getting my mixes to sit alongside professionally recorded/mixed and mastered album tracks and have always steered clear of multi-band compression mostly because I didn't know what I was doing with it.
However, recently I have been playing with this and to my pleasant surprise it seems to be the easiest way (for me at least) to make one of my tracks sit alongside a pro album track so that when you play them after each other they sound like they are from the same album etc.
1) I mix down and render my track without any compression or any vst's at all in the master buss.
2) I create a new project and import the stereo track that I just mixed down
3) I import my reference track
3) I add multi-band compression to my stereo track.
4) I flick back and forth from the reference track to my track and tweak the multi-band compression in my track until it sounds as close as I can get it to the reference track.
5) Render my new track to output.
I've always struggled with those nasty "hurt the ears" frequencies that completely ruin a track but now I can smooth them out and the result really is like night and day.
I'm still very new to doing this so I was wondering if anyone else uses a similar technique or what their technique is.
I used to use it quite a bit but lately I've been moving backwards, so to speak, removing or reducing offending frequencies from individual instruments and tracks, and throwing a good compressor on the mix buss followed by a good maximizer or hard limiter. Ever since I went UA, my preferences have been --Studer Tape > Fairchild or SSL compressor > UA Precision Maximizer. Multiband compression is a good thing for "fixing" a mix and gives much more instant gratification and I did that for years. Two different routes to solve the same problem.
Charger, how much EQ do you normally do on guitars in their respective tracks?
I find that a mic'd guitar amp sounds really good on it's own but never fits into the track without lots of EQ to shape the sound. I always read everywhere move the mic's instead of EQ, but I've never found that possible, or maybe it is a problem with micing a peavey C30, I can get the sweet spot for the sound that I'm after but there are always annoying frequencies that have to be removed that can't remove simply by moving the mic. Thinking about it though, most of the places that I've read this are forums and it has been written by armchair experts so it's probably worth about as much. Even recording direct with the PodHD500 needs some eq to make it fit the track.
However, all that said and done, correctly using a multiband compressor on the output buss is like magic (I'm using 5 bands)
Not sure why I never really bothered with this before other than laziness as it does take some time to learn how to use it properly (if indeed I am using it properly). I will put up some mp3's in the next few days of before and after and also the reference track that I was attempting to fit with.
I use several compressors in these ways.
On my live tracks, I put my guitars and vocals through a compressor/limiter/de-esser, http://www.presonus.com/products/Detail.aspx?ProductId=31 then into a line mixer and into another Really Nice compressor http://www.fmraudio.com/rnc.htm between the line mixer and my Layla 24/96 inputs.
Those tracks need very little effecting once recorded to audio. If there are some peaks that are unmanageable I use volume editing on those offending moments in the tracks view of my sequencer.
On my overall mixes, I send all tracks to a sub mix and use a Timeworks compressor and Timeworks graphic EQ on the submix, and then I send that sub mix out to my master output and use the Waves Ultramaximizer 1+ (Although I have The Ultramaximizer 2 and 3 also I still use the older one) The ultramaximizer 1+ masters the thing on the way out so when I export the mix it is already mastered at 24 or 32 bit. Once I have the out put mix, I import it into Sound Forge to edit out the silences and put in any fades, and dither it down to 16 bit 44.1K (CD quality) and MP3 128K for posting on the web.
offending frequencies for guitar (and everything else) are almost always in the midrange. What your multiband compressor is doing, if you look at the input versus output, is probably a whole lot of squishing in the middle. That is a good thing because we all love the smiley-face eq. Really the only way I don't do it anymore is that I want to control what gets a place in the middle instead of arbitrarily smashing everything.
That said, the amp and mic combo goes a long way. If there are two people and a real desk, it's much easier to have someone on a pair of headphones in the room moving the mic, while the control room listens and uses talkback to get the mic moved around. That's something that I used to abhor when I did everything myself, but now I rely on absolutely.
You are better off with room (drum) mics without EQ but lots of compression. I'm getting away from direct drum mics too (I used to use 11 mics on a drumset, now I use 3 most of the time, 6 if I absolutely need a snare mic and a kick mic. Simplifying the tracking simplifies the mixing and reduces the artifacts you need to keep track of. Also, always mix with the primary focus on and full up. A lot of people work backwards, get a great kick sound, then a great snare sound, then a great drum mix, etc. I used to mix that way too, but now I start with everything up at unity, and pull up the featured track, then mic around it. Typically that means mix around the vocal, though in the type of music we do here it means mix around the guitar solo. I liked the interview with Bob Clearmountain in TapeOp this month, where he describes the same sort of workflow. There's nothing inherently wrong with any way of working, just what works better for you. The metal guys probably feel 100% the opposite--make the drums sound insane, make the guitars sound brutal, bring in the bass, then lay on the screamo. Equally valid. But if you mix around a feature, like a vocal or a guitar solo, it's worth it to try to always have everything in the mix.
Anyway bit of a digression there, sorry!~
I'm with you re drum micing. The 3 mic setup gives an excellent sound and gives you the sound of the whole kit in a room. I've never been a fan of close micing of any instruments to be honest, even guitar amps. I like the sound to have some space and to breathe. I suppose if you are into todays modern metal then close micing is the way to do it for no other reason than everyone else does it that way, but that's not for me. I just wish I had a dedicated room to crank my amp really loud as without doubt the best recorded tones are from amps that are pushing serious amounts of air (in my opinion of course)