M
mixsit
Well-known member
From what I've seen, mixing into a compressor has quite a few more complications than just picking one to add toward the end of the mix.
Wayne
Wayne
guitarboi89 said:i have a compressor set up in the output which i enable just to check if i will have any shocks when its mastered
mixsit said:From what I've seen, mixing into a compressor has quite a few more complications than just picking one to add toward the end of the mix.
Wayne
Right. Presumably if your sticking it on the 2-bus early on you already have (or better have) a pretty good idea of what kind of comp (speed wise etc.) you, or the song will want.Yareek said:
xstatic, I'd give give you a positive rep for that, but I gotta spread some around first before it'll let me.xstatic said:I think a lot of people over here are taking the whole compression thing waaaay to far. I do not use bus comps as "limiters" to watch overshoots, thats what mix headroom is for. I also do not slap a limiter even lightly at the end "just to see how it will sound in mastering". I do not see why people are so worried about that. Mixing and mastering are seperate for a reason. I never worry about what the mastering engineer will do, thats the mastering engineers job. If you can tell how it is going to sound when mastered by slapping an L1 or an L2 across the master buss than you need to find a new mastering engineer. My job when I am mixing is to make the best mix I can. After that the mastering engineer will make the best master of my mix that he/she can. If my ME wants a little more headroom, that can be acheived by LOWERING THE VOLUME... You do not need to slap compression everywhere to get that. When I strap a comp across the 2 track it is because I like what the comp is doing to the sound of my mix, not because it makes it louder or contains peaks. In fact, comps do not make mixes louder unless you force them to.
In reference to your previous post though, it would seem that most of the responses offered in this thread were sighting legitimate reasons for compressing and/or limiting. I.E. because of how it sounds (at what point does this have to be part of mastering and not mixing? Maybe that's the rub.) or to simulate some of the real effects of mastering, or (perhaps more so around here than GS) we often are doing the finished version.xstatic said:The thing is, its not just the guys on GS that feel that way about 2 buss compressors. It's most engineers with experience and equipment that feel that way. Two buss comps are generally very expensive so often misunderstood by those who do not have them.
Compare it to the transition from tracking to mixing. In general, when one asks of they should process the signal in tracking or wait to process the track in mixing, the general answer is usually to try and leave the tracking as unprocessed as possible so that one has a source that they can always fall back on if the processing takes the engineer down the wrong road. There are exceptions, of course; the more experinece one has they more they maight make an exception because they already know how it's going to come out because they've done it a thousand times before.mixsit said:at what point does this have to be part of mastering and not mixing? Maybe that's the rub.
Whoah, there, bucko. I never said I hated 2-buss compression. I said, if it's to be done, it's probably best to do it after the mixdown, not during it, for the reason that it keeps the ME's options open.Yareek said:Glen and others probably hate the idea of 2-buss compression while mixing because they see it abused so often.
SouthSIDE Glen said:Whoah, there, bucko. I never said I hated 2-buss compression. I said, if it's to be done, it's probably best to do it after the mixdown, not during it, for the reason that it keeps the ME's options open.
G.
xstatic said:I also do not slap a limiter even lightly at the end "just to see how it will sound in mastering". I do not see why people are so worried about that. Mixing and mastering are seperate for a reason. I never worry about what the mastering engineer will do, thats the mastering engineers job. If you can tell how it is going to sound when mastered by slapping an L1 or an L2 across the master buss than you need to find a new mastering engineer.
I'm not sure how many times I have to answer "no" to that before your get my point.Yareek said:In the context of HomeRec'ers like me you probably hate 2-buss compression![]()
I can see sending two copies to an ME like that in order to use the compressed two mix as a mockup example of the direction in which you want the ME to take the mastering that he/she does to the unadultered two mix.Yareek said:If I were to send something off for mastering I'd send a copy with and a copy without the 2-buss compression. Mixing through it to know how the mix would react, but acknowledging that the ME has better tools, a better room, better ears, and more experience.