OK, I admit it. I don't know how to drive a multiband

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bulls Hit
  • Start date Start date
B

Bulls Hit

Well-known member
When I bought the UAD Precision Limiter, they had a deal where you could pick up the Precision EQ and Multiband as well for a good price, which I did.

So I'm kind of in the position of having a solution and looking for a problem to solve.

To be honest, I'm not sure my mixes are yet at the required level of quality where the multiband could make an improvement.

However the mix I'm currently working on has a deficient snare drum. The workflow I've used means that, while possible, it will be a lot of work to go back and remix the drums.

So my question is, can the multiband be used to bring more punch/snap to the snare? I like the sound of the snare in this track but every second hit is getting buried.

I've experimented with various settings, but nothing I've done comes close to getting the snare where it needs to be.

I have to say though, this is probably the most impressive looking plug I've ever seen. It's quite mezmerising just to see the thing in action.

I guess what I'm asking is what would an ME do in this situation, like is the multiband even appropriate?

EDIT: link to the track, so you can hear what I'm talking about --->
 
My first question is whter you have on;y the two mix to work with or did you mix the tracks as well?

Personally, based upon your description of the problem, anyway, that is not something I'd fix in the mastering stage at all, but rather I'd go back and fix it in the mix.

If you have no choice, though, then yes, I'd like to hear a rel ME's approach (I'm just a Sears ME :D ).

G.
 
Bulls Hit said:
To be honest, I'm not sure my mixes are yet at the required level of quality where the multiband could make an improvement.
Click to expand...
I'd almost say the opposite - If your mix actually *benefits* from maul-the-band compression, I'd wonder what was missing in the original mix.
 
There is also the arguement that you can use them while tracking;( "sound design")........ say to control boominess on a acoustic guitar( 2 band mode) while leaving the upper end alone. It's really like a side chain solution: you only modify one part of the signal.
Thats soooooo much easier than repositioning the mic!!!!( ok fixing it after the fact).
then will it fit when in the context of the mix????


You also have to understand that those things can be thought of as a set of equalizer bands that respond ( according to how you set it up)to the dynamics within the bands. this means if your paticular band has allot of stuff going on in it, your really not going to be able to key in on a paticular item.

This is why ME's actually don't use them, because there dealing with a 2 track, total mix. Every once in a while they might come across something to tame dynamically that is also a by itself in a narrow band. I think bob Katz said maybe twice a year in his book!

The best thing to do is to make sure you have compressors mastered ( no easy task) before you start trying to get 5 of them to jump through flaming hoops in concert!!!!!!!!!!!

That's not to say theres not some interesting possibilities availible , just that it ai'nt going to come without some serious tweaking! :p
 
Bulls Hit said:
.



I like the sound of the snare in this track but every second hit is getting buried.
Click to expand...



maybe you can set whatever is masking the second hit to be ducked???
 
Glen - yes I've got the stems - drums, guitars bass & synths. Just thinking about this a bit more, it's the drums mix that I want to treat, not the final 2 track

massive - Lol, yes it's all how you look at it. From that way of thinking, my mixes could greatly benefit from the multiband :D

flatfinger - Thanks for the link. That's a great article. It may well be I could do this with narrow band eq on the drum mix. As for that ducking thing, well there's something else I've never got to grips with
 
flatfinger said:
The best thing to do is to make sure you have compressors mastered ( no easy task) before you start trying to get 5 of them to jump through flaming hoops in concert!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

That's awesome! I'm gonna quote you the next time someone in the real world asks me about MBCs. :)

The other point well made was that MBCs are very much like dynamic equalizers, and thinking about them that way is key to understanding how and when to effectively use one. The resident MEs here hate them for the way they've come to be abused by a bunch of folks trying to self master, with no clue of what they're doing, or why. An MBC is really a collection of specific tools (band pass filters followed by compressors) configured to treat specific problems. They're not furnature polish meant to be sprayed over the whole table to give it a shine, which is the common abuse mode.
 
Personally, I find MBCs to be a lot more useful on single tracks than complete mixes.
 
OK, the Precision MB is an intimidating tool when you first look at it. First off, try all the presets. No, you probably won't use any of them, but they give you an illustration of different ways the MBC can change the sound. And if you ever want a telephone effect, OK that preset is kinda useful :o

Next thing is to think about what EQ the track needs. I find that the MBC is a great EQ even when you aren't using any compression. So turn off all the bands you don't need (that is, threshold and gain at 0), set the range on the band(s) you need. Next set the boost or cut you need on those peaks. Finally, set the compression to do what you need it to do when you don't need that EQ change. Kind of like an offset to the EQ. OK, I am not explaining that well :o

The other way to approach it is just from the compression side, but in those cases I usually still use a compressor, preferably a really colored one :D However if you set a single band or two really wide, the MBC does a fairly nice neutral compression.

Finally, use that mix knob! That's the most useful feature on the whole plug. I start at 66% and adjust up or down to taste :cool:
 
  • Like
Reactions: XLR
Robert D said:
An MBC is really a collection of specific tools (band pass filters followed by compressors) configured to treat specific problems. They're not furnature polish meant to be sprayed over the whole table to give it a shine, which is the common abuse mode.
Click to expand...
noisewreck said:
Personally, I find MBCs to be a lot more useful on single tracks than complete mixes.
Click to expand...
Double Bingo! MBCs have become the go-to "mastering" tool for those who have not yet gotten the actual mixing process quite down yet. There is no difference between that and those who figure they can lay down slipshod tracking and just fix it in the mix. Both approaches will be equally limited in their effectiveness. If one has a real problem with their mix or with a particular track in the mix, it should be fixed in the mix, not in the master.

And MBCs can really shine when used properly on indifidual tracks, expecially percussion. But by the time one is down to the two mix mixdown, an MBC quickly becomes what John so colorfully and famously referrs to as "maul-the-bamd"; by that time the MBC is going to affect every instrument in that band, and the effects of unintended compression can be much more heinous than say, the effects of band-EQing.

To get back to the thread, though, Bull... If the stems are the best you have to work with, and if standard broadband compression won't do it right (which is what I'd normally recommend if you had an individual snare track), then you might have to try and isolate the snare attacks, which will probably be somewhere in the 3-5k range. Problem is the attacks on the other percussions can be there as well, and if they don't want compression you might have trouble keeping the good stuff while fixing the bad. Try it, though. It all depends on the content as to how successul it will be.

If compression isn't surgical enough as just described, then you might consider simply sticking that stem into the waveform editor (assuming you're running digital) and manually adjusting the weak peaks yourself. If there aren't a thousand of them, sometimes this can be the cleanest and most efficient method instead of twiddling with a compressor for an hour and still not getting it "right".

G.
 
Robert D said:
The other point well made was that MBCs are very much like dynamic equalizers, and thinking about them that way is key to understanding how and when to effectively use one.
Click to expand...

That's how I use mine for live work, on singers that get harsh in the high mids when they get loud, for example. I set one band to knock the offending freqs down at higher levels, but be out at lower levels. Saves me a lot of knob-spinning during the show.
 
This is turning into the best MBC thread I've seen here....most of them have been very negative.
Another thing to keep in mind when using an MBC is that it's OK to use only 1 or 2 bands, and set the others flat. In fact, that's a good sign that your doing something intelligent with it rather than just looking for the Keebler elves to magically bake your cookies with it. Don't think you need to do something with all the bands just because they're there.
 
Not to try and turn the thread south on you Bob, but the most amazing thing about MBCs to me is that nobody needed them before they existed.

Add up all the MBCs used on the to 20 albums commonly listed here and elsewhere as the 20 best-sounding, best-produced albums since 1960 - you know, the usual suspects like Pink Floyd, Steeley Dan, Tom Waits, The Beatles, Lyle Lovett, and so on - and the number of MBCs you'll find used in the production of those albums will approach, if maybe not reach, zero.

G.
 
just think of it as an automated multiband eq.

what you're automating is the gain of each band to lower when it gets too high in a certain frequency range.

it seems what you want is to make the recording sound the same most all of the time, except for certain snare hits.

i would really just automate an eq to get the tone out of the snare when you want it to, instead of something doing it automatically and when you don't want it to.

but...if you want to turn a band into an expander, and turn off the bands you're not using...go ahead.
 
Robert D said:
This is turning into the best MBC thread I've seen here....most of them have been very negative.
Another thing to keep in mind when using an MBC is that it's OK to use only 1 or 2 bands, and set the others flat. In fact, that's a good sign that your doing something intelligent with it rather than just looking for the Keebler elves to magically bake your cookies with it. Don't think you need to do something with all the bands just because they're there.
Click to expand...


very very true.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Not to try and turn the thread south on you Bob, but the most amazing thing about MBCs to me is that nobody needed them before they existed.

Add up all the MBCs used on the to 20 albums commonly listed here and elsewhere as the 20 best-sounding, best-produced albums since 1960 - you know, the usual suspects like Pink Floyd, Steeley Dan, Tom Waits, The Beatles, Lyle Lovett, and so on - and the number of MBCs you'll find used in the production of those albums will approach, if maybe not reach, zero.

G.
Click to expand...

On the other hand, some tricks used in days of yore are pretty handy to do on a multiband, like the Motown exciting compressor, or even simple de-essing.
 
mshilarious said:
On the other hand, some tricks used in days of yore are pretty handy to do on a multiband, like the Motown exciting compressor, or even simple de-essing.
Click to expand...
As I understand it, "Motown compression" was usually broadband parallel compression. Limiting the compression bandwith was not necessary or even used in that effect.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Not to try and turn the thread south on you Bob, but the most amazing thing about MBCs to me is that nobody needed them before they existed.

Add up all the MBCs used on the to 20 albums commonly listed here and elsewhere as the 20 best-sounding, best-produced albums since 1960 - you know, the usual suspects like Pink Floyd, Steeley Dan, Tom Waits, The Beatles, Lyle Lovett, and so on - and the number of MBCs you'll find used in the production of those albums will approach, if maybe not reach, zero.

G.
Click to expand...

Today, some people record without improve the dinamic range, mix with a lot of compression and think that MB´s will make a song sounds better on mastering process (sometimes, you have nothing more to compress).
I was listening Steely Dan´s (Gaucho) "Babylon Sisters" today ....great dinamics, probably without no MBC s, but the overall "dinamic" quality is so good that you even can use one . But that´s a matter of taste, no kinda "this gear will save my records".



Ciro
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
As I understand it, "Motown compression" was usually broadband parallel compression. Limiting the compression bandwith was not necessary or even used in that effect.

G.
Click to expand...

I think it is parallel compression with a big presence boost on a compressed broadband signal. Anyway, the Precision MBC can do broadband or narrowband parallel compression combined with EQ.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top