Background Elements Volume

[rego21]

Hello,

I have a tendency when working on background elements (Pads, Rhythm Guitar, Synth Swells, Field Recordings, etc.) , to raise the volume so i can hear what I've just created, but it begins to interfere with the forefront element, and then i lower it down then it seems too quiet.

I try to find a balance in the volume but i just struggle at setting the levels for these elements.

I will also adjust the octave of the element to see if it helps being in a different frequency range.

But it doesn't.

I found reducing the dynamic range with a compressor has helped.

Just wondering if anyone else had any ideas on to stop background elements Interfering with forefront elements.

Thanks

[lfm]

I would look at having elements come and go, and that will also make mix more interesting to listen to.

So an arrangement thing. I often have to kick myself to remove some guitar since I am a guitarplayer more than anything else. I too often let it play all through a track.

And about direct interference carve out some offending stuff. I often hipass a piano of low end if interfere a bit with bass etc. Just a little bit. I think general rule is to carve, rather than boost something.

If some ambience any compression will bring that element more to the front, and then it might start interfere with other elements. So keeping things apart front to back is one thing to consider.

[rego21]

I would look at having elements come and go, and that will also make mix more interesting to listen to.

So an arrangement thing. I often have to kick myself to remove some guitar since I am a guitarplayer more than anything else. I too often let it play all through a track.

And about direct interference carve out some offending stuff. I often hipass a piano of low end if interfere a bit with bass etc. Just a little bit. I think general rule is to carve, rather than boost something.

If some ambience any compression will bring that element more to the front, and then it might start interfere with other elements. So keeping things apart front to back is one thing to consider.

Yeah i do agree with what you said about letting elements come and go.

I like the idea.

I should be more aware of the big picture of the track and simply remove parts of the Background element if its causing interference instead of trying to find a way of keeping it.

[BertKoor]

It's actually ok when it's a little bit too soft. A subtle hidden gem for the listener to find.

People can only take in so much: max 6 or 7 elements. When there is more, it's too overwhelming. So help them: put it really in the background.

[_al_]

Personally, I like to use upward multiband compression, so the lower sounds only come to the forefront when there is sufficient space for them

[rego21]

Personally, I like to use upward multiband compression, so the lower sounds only come to the forefront when there is sufficient space for them

Interesting! I will give this a try.

Thanks for the tip

[_al_]

Interesting! I will give this a try.

Thanks for the tip

Try something that allows custom curve drawing, like Image Line Maximus, or one of the Melda comps (I'm sure there is plenty of others by now, though)

Drawing a custom curve allows you to gently push up the lower sounds, without affecting any transients. (I know this is possible in a lot of comps, but it's a lot more intuitive when you can see and draw the curve)

I've been using this technique for so many years now, I would be lost without it

[rego21]

Interesting! I will give this a try.

Thanks for the tip

Try something that allows custom curve drawing, like Image Line Maximus, or one of the Melda comps (I'm sure there is plenty of others by now, though)

Drawing a custom curve allows you to gently push up the lower sounds, without affecting any transients. (I know this is possible in a lot of comps, but it's a lot more intuitive when you can see and draw the curve)

I've been using this technique for so many years now, I would be lost without it

Since i read your comment I've been messing around with Logic Pro's stock, Expander plugin.

And it's been giving me some nice results.

But it's quite limited in features.

I will look into some melda comps to try and get some more control like you said.

Thanks very much for the tip!

You've made my bad music slightly more bearable

[_al_]

As you have a genuine interest, I'll explain properly how to do this, as a lot of people struggle with this type of thing:

The 1st pic is showing you how to create a gate at -6db. In this position, everything playing lower than -6db is being completely silenced.

ng.jpg

This just gives you a reference point, so you can decide at what point you want the comp to start raising lower sounds. In this Gate state, you want to set it, so you can only hear the sounds you don't want to be raised.

Once you have set at the right db level, move on to the 2nd pic

nd.jpg

As you can see, the gate state is reversed, so you are now raising those lower sounds, instead of silencing them.
If you understand how that is working, you will realise that the lower a sound is, the more it is being raised to audible levels. And this also means that the closer a sound gets to -6db, the less it is being raised, until the audio that is at -6db is not being raised at all.

If you moved that highlighted node all the way to the left, you would have an unbearable noise, because everything between the noise floor and the -11db node, would all be raised to -11db.

So you need to set these nodes in the field, as you are working. There is no preset for this. It will vary track to track. That's why it's useful to use the gate technique in the first pic, to get an idea of where you should be working.

The beauty of this technique, is that those lower sounds will only be raised when there is nothing louder that is stopping the comp from triggering. So when a snare or kick hits, the lower sounds will not be raised in that instant.

The drawback of this technique, is that you need to have attack and release times set as fast as you can tolerate, otherwise you will lose some attack, before it starts to raise the sound.
That's not so important for really low background sounds (especially as we are working with multiband), but it's something to be aware of.

So for this reason, it's best to allow a bit of latency / lookahead in the plugin, so it can react fast enough.
With mids and highs, I can pretty much get away with zero attack / release times, but with bass, I need to give it a few ms, just to avoid distortion. This isn't really something that causes me a problem though.

I'm using Maximus here, but you want to raise sounds a lot lower than -6db, and Maximus doesn't let you zoom in to make accurate curves at -20db etc. I would advise Melda, or who whoever else may be making comps like this now, as Maximus is pretty fiddly to work with, especially when snap to grid is on (snap to grid helps to make sure you are only changing what you want to change)

Ok, hope that's of some use to you or whoever else

[rego21]

As you have a genuine interest, I'll explain properly how to do this, as a lot of people struggle with this type of thing:

The 1st pic is showing you how to create a gate at -6db. In this position, everything playing lower than -6db is being completely silenced.

ng.jpg


This just gives you a reference point, so you can decide at what point you want the comp to start raising lower sounds. In this Gate state, you want to set it, so you can only hear the sounds you don't want to be raised.

Once you have set at the right db level, move on to the 2nd pic

nd.jpg

As you can see, the gate state is reversed, so you are now raising those lower sounds, instead of silencing them.
If you understand how that is working, you will realise that the lower a sound is, the more it is being raised to audible levels. And this also means that the closer a sound gets to -6db, the less it is being raised, until the audio that is at -6db is not being raised at all.

If you moved that highlighted node all the way to the left, you would have an unbearable noise, because everything between the noise floor and the -11db node, would all be raised to -11db.

So you need to set these nodes in the field, as you are working. There is no preset for this. It will vary track to track. That's why it's useful to use the gate technique in the first pic, to get an idea of where you should be working.

The beauty of this technique, is that those lower sounds will only be raised when there is nothing louder that is stopping the comp from triggering. So when a snare or kick hits, the lower sounds will not be raised in that instant.

The drawback of this technique, is that you need to have attack and release times set as fast as you can tolerate, otherwise you will lose some attack, before it starts to raise the sound.
That's not so important for really low background sounds (especially as we are working with multiband), but it's something to be aware of.

So for this reason, it's best to allow a bit of latency / lookahead in the plugin, so it can react fast enough.
With mids and highs, I can pretty much get away with zero attack / release times, but with bass, I need to give it a few ms, just to avoid distortion. This isn't really something that causes me a problem though.

I'm using Maximus here, but you want to raise sounds a lot lower than -6db, and Maximus doesn't let you zoom in to make accurate curves at -20db etc. I would advise Melda, or who whoever else may be making comps like this now, as Maximus is pretty fiddly to work with, especially when snap to grid is on (snap to grid helps to make sure you are only changing what you want to change)

Ok, hope that's of some use to you or whoever else

Thanks so much for that! it's gonna take some time to get my head around all of that and some trial an error but i think it will be worth it as just using an expander with basic features sounds much better.

[donkey tugger]

I would look at having elements come and go, and that will also make mix more interesting to listen to.

So an arrangement thing. I often have to kick myself to remove some guitar since I am a guitarplayer more than anything else. I too often let it play all through a track.

And about direct interference carve out some offending stuff. I often hipass a piano of low end if interfere a bit with bass etc. Just a little bit. I think general rule is to carve, rather than boost something.

If some ambience any compression will bring that element more to the front, and then it might start interfere with other elements. So keeping things apart front to back is one thing to consider.

Yeah i do agree with what you said about letting elements come and go.

I like the idea.

I should be more aware of the big picture of the track and simply remove parts of the Background element if its causing interference instead of trying to find a way of keeping it.

Arrangement is the key as above. Plus it can make your song much, much more interesting to gradually introduce parts/drop them out etc. Try and think of parts as 'themes' which can come and go, rather than as specifically 'verse', 'chorus' etc, which may help you (does me) be a bit more adventurous in cutting stuff and reintroducing it.

Another thing (which I don't think was mentioned) is using dynamic eq for ducking so when your 'lead' instruments (be they vocal, guitar or whatever) are playing then specific frequencies which interfere with these are automatically cut in other tracks. I use Toneboosters EQ4 a lot for this, but I'm sure a lot of other ones exist.

[legendCNCD]

Or Trackspacer, or Soothe2, or TDR Nova (free btw) or.. there are many ways