Your favorite Compressing/limiting tips/tricks for finishing touches on the final mix

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David B

New member
Got an Alesis Masterlink and the ability to add compression and look-ahead limiter to my final mix.

and I have no real idea where to begin.

What kind of settings should I try?
 
All of them? :D

Sorry, that probably doesn't help much.
Do you have experience with compression and eq already, or know what your going for?
Wayne
 
Your question is kinda like asking "how long is a piece of string?"

The answer is "it depends......" - on the material, the signal levels, a lot of things...

Your best bet is to play around with various settings and see what can be done! (This is called "using your ears" and is a critical skill in the development of engineering and mastering skills!) ;)

Bruce
 
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I have experience with compressing single instruments/tracks during the recording process (which is gernerally less subtle).

What I don't have is experience for putting the "finishing touches" on a final mix of all the instruments. The kind of thing that makes the finished product sound a bit more professional. The "icing on the cake," if you will.
 
Beheringer Composer Pro

I know there is a lot of anti-beheringer senitment out there, but I really love the final mixes I get through the "Composer Pro"

I compress the overall mix, raise the out put up pretty loud and set the limiter just to control the peaks.

You can get a very hot signal on your master this way.

:p Dom
 
Dom

Thanks, Dom

How much of the singnal do you grab during compression (threshold)?

What kind of compression settings do you use?


----
To all:

I understand there are no hard fast rules for this, but if I could even narrow it down to setting "ranges" --

i.e. even if it's in general terms, I'd like to know

Where does "Too little to be worth doing" live?

and

Where does "too much" live?
 
For a two track mix, a ratio of about 2 to 1, no more than 3 to 1, set the threshold to where you just get 1 or 2 dB of gain reduction on the loudest peaks. Play with the attack and release (because it's so program dependent) until it's as transparent as possible. Experiment. YMMV.
 
Try not to overdo things.
Set limiter at -0.1 dB ceiling, fastest attack, and treshold around -2dB; play with release time from 0.1 ms to 10 ms to keep transparency.
Think about it as a safety net, you can mix 2-3 dB louder.
Then you can set compressor ( before limiter ) to compress overall
dinamic range. It depends on music type which amount of compresion you will need. For acoustic jazz, bigger amount of compression ( gain reduction around 5-6 dB ) will smooth overall sound, and increase loudness.
For rock or metal, gain reduction bigger than 2-3 dB will cause breathing and pumping.
Generally, try attack around 20-30 ms to pass transient peaks ( and keep high end ), fastest release time, and ratio between 2:1 - 4:1, soft knee. ;)
 
Igormeister

Igormeister, thanks!

This is the kind of stuff that helps! More of this kind of post is most welcome! You can be sure I'll be trying these ideas out.



BTW, I'm doing punchy, heavy guitar-oriented Dinosaur Rock.
 
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