KVR Audio

thecontrolcentre · Post by **thecontrolcentre** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:41 am

yellowfever wrote:I think all compressors should... be banned

Don't you mean multi-banned?

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:27 am

yellowfever wrote:I think all compressors should... be banned

I think all compressors should... compress

brok landers · Post by **brok landers** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:28 am

yellowfever wrote:I think all compressors should... be banned

I think all compressors should... be compressed

jens · Post by **jens** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 9:54 am

matt42 wrote:My first thought was a side chain, but it really depends. If he wants to squash the crap out of the kick, but leave the cymbals unmolested then a multi-band would be the only way.

wrong

jens wrote:Reacomp (part of the free Reaplugs bundle) has got both highcut and lowcut filters in its detector path - as simple as that...

but - and it is a big BUT:

the kick ain't just low frequencies - a lot of the punch is in the attack transients which are mainly high-frequency content... this can at least partly be cared for with fine-tweaking the compressors' attack though

then again: often it is best to leave the transients untouched anyway.

de la Mancha · Post by **de la Mancha** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:09 am

sidechain filter and multi-band are two different things with different effects

1. sidechain filter. A HP on the sidechain signal will filter out the bass frequencies from triggering the compressor. When the compressor is triggered, it will however compress the whole audio signal

2. multi-band. This will split the audio into several bands, each one with it's own compressor detection and action. The high band is only compressed when the high band audio crosses the threshold and does not influence the low band. The low band is only compressed when the low band audio crosses the threshold and does not influence the high band

The most flexible approach would be a multi-band with external sidechain, where each band also has a sidechain input, allowing you to route audio through any effects chain before going into the sidechain.

Alternatively, a frequency splitter plugin, with compressors of choice on each output channel.

deaf dunderkwac · Post by **deaf dunderkwac** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:34 am

actually the best way would start with all your drums on separate tracks to begin with. Other options are also available most of which involves no compression whatsoever, but those should wait until the nxt wave of popular processing techniques on the internets

de la Mancha · Post by **de la Mancha** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 10:52 am

sure, but lots of us use drum loops, sliced audio, samples, stems etc and separate drum tracks isn't always an option.

edit

Also, the technique doesn't just apply to drums, but could be an individual bass or vocal channel for example, where you want the compression on only part of the frequency range.

yellowfever · Post by **yellowfever** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 12:25 pm

de la Mancha wrote:sure, but lots of us use drum loops, sliced audio, samples, stems etc and separate drum tracks isn't always an option.

That's just lazy AND cheating

matt42 · Post by **matt42** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 1:26 pm

jens wrote:
matt42 wrote:My first thought was a side chain, but it really depends. If he wants to squash the crap out of the kick, but leave the cymbals unmolested then a multi-band would be the only way.
wrong

Well, I'll put aside you're rudeness/ignorance and take the time to give you a sensible reply.

In the context of the question he's talking about compressing a drum group, so individual drum compression doesn't apply in this case - of course this would be preferable.

Imagine a kick and a cymbal hit at the same time. For some crazy reason you want to squash 10 dB out of the kick but leave the cymbal alone. Sidechaining aint going to get the job done here you'd need an MBC.

You feel me?

xybre · Post by **xybre** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 4:45 pm

I think all general purpose effects should be forced to fit a very specific use case, even though specialty tools already exist for doing the same thing.

justin3am · Post by **justin3am** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:14 pm

xybre wrote:I think all general purpose effects should be forced to fit a very specific use case, even though specialty tools already exist for doing the same thing.

The problem with side chaining in this case is the fact that the VCA is still controlling the volume across the full frequency range, it just won't be triggered by audio that is being filtered out before the envelope extractor (or however the compressor generates it's envelope).

If you would like the compressor to respond to different frequency ranges independently and process then process those frequency ranges independently, a multi-band compressor would probably be the best tool for the job.

Aleatoriac · Post by **Aleatoriac** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 5:18 pm

... make things phat ...

jens · Post by **jens** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 7:01 pm

matt42 wrote:
jens wrote:
matt42 wrote:My first thought was a side chain, but it really depends. If he wants to squash the crap out of the kick, but leave the cymbals unmolested then a multi-band would be the only way.
wrong

Well, I'll put aside you're rudeness/ignorance and take the time to give you a sensible reply.

In the context of the question he's talking about compressing a drum group, so individual drum compression doesn't apply in this case - of course this would be preferable.

Imagine a kick and a cymbal hit at the same time. For some crazy reason you want to squash 10 dB out of the kick but leave the cymbal alone. Sidechaining aint going to get the job done here you'd need an MBC.

You feel me?

well, you (and de la Mancha etc.) are absolutely right of course - that was pretty stupid from me...

my thought process in regards to the problem at hand was indeed an epic fail.