Compressing guitars, 2buss and T-Racks Compressing guitars, 2buss and T-Racks

[paulybear]

What sort of compression would you recommend as a starting point for Distorted Elec Gtrs, Clean Elec and Acoustic Guitars (threshold, ratio, atack, rel)

Also I have T-Racks and also Wavelab (Waves plugins, Ozone etc). What would you guys recommend for mastering?

And finally. Just trying to get my head around mastering so I'm not too familiar with a lot of the concepts and terminology. I've heard people talking about "2buss" a lot. What does this refer to and what's it all about.

I know these are very basic q's for you guys but any info is appreciated.

[xstatic]

2 buss is exactly what it sounds like. For example, lets say you put all of your guitars in a stereo buss (for this example we will say you have 6 guitar tracks). Using 2buss compression instead of individual channel compression means you would not compress the individual guitar tracks but would compress the buss (the stereo summed signal of the guitars) instead. I prefer 2 buss compression on both backing vocals and drums, and often times horn sections. I personally believe that doing this kind of helps to unify a group of channels and help them to sound more like one piece. When you are doing this though you do have to pay attention to the individual channels in that group and watch their dynamics.

Lets use drums again as an example. Say you have your kick, snare, hat, 3 toms, 2 overheads and a room mic in the drum buss. Each individual track is set for a certain volume within that submix. If the drummer hits one really hard snare shot it will send a quick peak to the compressor. The compressor in turn will activate the compression circuit if it is over the threshold. As a result the whole drum mix will recieve an amount of compression based on that snare drum's signal level in combination with the threshold, ratio, and attack release settings of your compressor. The end result is that when only the snare drum reaches the threshold, all the drum tracks will be compressed. This can often time lead to what others tend to call pumping or breathing. you may not hear the fact that the compressor is compressing the snare, but you might really hear it in the cymbals or hi hat when they are dropped in level as a result of the compression. Most times this is not a good artifact, but can be used strategically as a cool effect. Some people lilke using multiband compression in 2 buss setups because of the individual control of the different frequency spectrums.

I know that might seem like a lot of info, but once you can grasp that it will open up a whole new world of compression. I very rarely use compression to just tame volume peaks. Typically I use it to shape the tone or sound of a track, and to alter the attack and relase characteristics of certain tracks.

As far as what settings I would reccomend, I can't really say. It really depends on how the material was tracked, what kind of music it is, what sounds you do or don't like etc....etc.... Maybe you should spend 30 minutes loading a couple different compressors on some tracks and solo them up for a while. Listen to what the compressor does to the sustain of the guitars, the punchiness, the way it can almost EQ them etc... try some different ratio's as well. This makes a huge difference. 3:1 is pretty safe and fairly transparent. 6 and 8:1 are a little more aggressive and really start to shape the whole overall sound. 12:1 and higher is really getting close to limiting. Often these can be really cool if you want to radically change a tracks whole feel. It can get muddy though so pay close attention. Once you find the ratio that you want, then make some adjustments with attack and release. These changes are a little more subtle, but once again can greatly affect how a track sits or feels in a mix, but they are a little less noticable than ratio when solo'ed.

I hope at least some of this long winded post made sense or helped you out just a little. Good luck

[paulybear]

i got most of that anyway i think! thanks

is it a good idea to remove noise from tracks before applying compression or should you wait until the final master? for instance i have a few guitars in the track i'm working on a the moment. i'm planning on using Waves X-Noise to take a noise snapshot and remove the noise. Should I wait to do this until later in the mixing/mastring process?

[AlexW]

You want to remove noise before compressing. Adding a compressor will make everything louder, including the noise. Make sure in removing it with that plug though that you don't kill the sound. It might end up chopping out some frequencies that the guitar track needs.

[Scottgman]

Sounds like you are confused about the mixing/mastering process.

Mixing is the method of dealing with the invididual tracks. You have several guitar tracks, several drums tracks, bass guitar, vox, back-up vox, etc. The purpose of mixing is to combine those individual tracks into one single stereo track. Of course, during the mixing process, you are tweaking volume levels, panning, adding effects, compression, and EQ. But the end result is a single stereo track.

Now comes mastering. Mastering deals with that single stereo track that you mixed. The basic goal of mastering is to add a final polish to your mixed stereo track. Typically, a mastering engineer is not going to be working with an individual guitar or drum track. They work with your final stereo mix. Mastering can make your mix louder, sound more polished and clean, tame offending frequencies, and make an entire album of songs flow together in a cohesive way.

[LRosario]

Wow,

You need to watch out what kind of information you get out there, it's not always completely legit.


That aside,

Compression on guitars comes from personal taste. I personally have my own style with guitars, so you will probably find your own way to do it. But as an example, here's my order on distorted guitars:

[HD Hi Pass Filter set anywhere between 160hz to 230hz]-->[RCL Compression set at 8:1]-->[L2 Ultramaximizer set to default settings w/o dithering and ultra IDR noise shaping]

As simple as that. The L2 is something I rarely do and I'll only do it when I want to add a bit more "razor" to the sound.


In terms of mastering:

The previous explination gives you a general idea. You reserve things like T-racks, L2, Accurate Compression, LinMB, etc for your master fader. Which means, thats what you apply at the end of your signal flow.

However, there are no rules that say you have to use them that way.

[Chibi Nappa]

Originally Posted by paulybear

for instance i have a few guitars in the track i'm working on a the moment. i'm planning on using Waves X-Noise to take a noise snapshot and remove the noise. Should I wait to do this until later in the mixing/mastring process?

Noise removal is really only for restoring ancient scratchy tapes n' stuff. If you have to use noise removal on a guitar track you just laid down, you probably recorded the guitar wrong.

Remember, just because you have the plugin doesn't mean you have to use it. The goal of the initial recording should be to produce a sound that doesn't need any tinkering at all. If you fall a little short of that goal, then the tinkering comes in.

[xstatic]

Whats not legit? So far this thread looks pretty good

[tkingen]

Originally Posted by paulybear

What sort of compression would you recommend as a starting point for Distorted Elec Gtrs, Clean Elec and Acoustic Guitars (threshold, ratio, atack, rel)

Also I have T-Racks and also Wavelab (Waves plugins, Ozone etc). What would you guys recommend for mastering?

And finally. Just trying to get my head around mastering so I'm not too familiar with a lot of the concepts and terminology. I've heard people talking about "2buss" a lot. What does this refer to and what's it all about.

I know these are very basic q's for you guys but any info is appreciated.

Mastering is a skill that requires a lot of experience. Judging by your questions about compression and bussing, it sounds like you may be just starting out with recording.
Once you learn more about tracking, then mixing, you may have a better idea of the skills that are used by a mastering engineer.
Good luck and have fun.

Terry

[paulybear]

Originally Posted by Scottgman

Sounds like you are confused about the mixing/mastering process.

Mixing is the method of dealing with the invididual tracks. You have several guitar tracks, several drums tracks, bass guitar, vox, back-up vox, etc. The purpose of mixing is to combine those individual tracks into one single stereo track. Of course, during the mixing process, you are tweaking volume levels, panning, adding effects, compression, and EQ. But the end result is a single stereo track.

Now comes mastering. Mastering deals with that single stereo track that you mixed. The basic goal of mastering is to add a final polish to your mixed stereo track. Typically, a mastering engineer is not going to be working with an individual guitar or drum track. They work with your final stereo mix. Mastering can make your mix louder, sound more polished and clean, tame offending frequencies, and make an entire album of songs flow together in a cohesive way.

Give me some credit. I know I'm only starting out but i do know that much. I'm just trying to maximise the sound of the recording. It's a home recording so no matter how hard we try there WILL be noise in the guitar recordings. I'm just debating whether I should try to remove this while mixing or wait until mastering. I really don't know what I'm doing but I'm learning a lot fast, especially since I started reading this forum.

[xstatic]

If you absolutely feel that you have to use some sort of noise reduction, do it on the individual track level so it does not affect things that don't need it.

[seismetr0n]

Originally Posted by paulybear

..... It's a home recording so no matter how hard we try there WILL be noise in the guitar recordings. .....

i disagree with that... from back in my four track days to my current digital workstation I have always been able to get guitar and all tracks without noise. sometimes it just takes a little tweaking. move your amp around or try a different outlet.