Bub 
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Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
I was working on a mix and got frustrated trying to do some multiband compression with the Sonitus MB Comp, so I decided to take a different approach.
I turned my threshold settings all the way down to -60db, and ever so slightly adjusted my ratio settings, highest being 1.3:1, and it sounded really good.
Is this a known technique?
Does anyone else use a compressor this way?
It goes against everything I remember reading on how to use compressors, but it really smoothed the sound out nicely.
"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
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Old55
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/12 23:43:46
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As long as it sounds good--it's right. Roight?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot--hey, who the hell are you guys? X2(X3 pending hardware upgrade), Emulator X2, E-mu 1212M, Virtual String Machine
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bapu
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 00:27:07
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I think Jan may be on to something.
Note to self; On my next mix, make it sound good.
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craigb
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 02:36:28
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Time for all of you to head over to Beyond My DAW!
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Karyn
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 05:18:34
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By running the threshold setting at -60 your signal is constantly in the gain reduction portion of the compressor.
Thus all you've effectivly done is bypass the compressor and reduce the gain of different frequency bands a little.. aka, eq...
Mekashi Futo. Get 10% off all Waves plugins.Current DAW. i7-950, Gigabyte EX58-UD5, 12Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD, 2x2Tb HDD, nVidia GTX 260, Antec 1000W psu, Win7 64bit, Studio 192, Digimax FS, KRK RP8G2, Sonar Platinum
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Jonbouy
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 06:39:46
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☄ Helpful
Ya know Bub I look at using compression on audio much like making love to a beautiful woman. Sometimes she'll want to be squashed flat with a fast attack and sometimes she'll want her key features gently emphasised by you so that she feels like rising to the top. There is no right or wrong Bub, it depends on the lady, the mood you want to set and how much you want to spend on pampering her with belgian chocolates. Always remember that the lady is the key consideration here for without her there is no music. HTH Swiss Toni
post edited by Jonbouy - 2012/04/13 06:52:18
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves" - Banksy
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Beagle
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 08:14:26
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Karyn
By running the threshold setting at -60 your signal is constantly in the gain reduction portion of the compressor.
Thus all you've effectivly done is bypass the compressor and reduce the gain of different frequency bands a little.. aka, eq...
+1!
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Jonbouy
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 08:49:29
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Beagle
Karyn
By running the threshold setting at -60 your signal is constantly in the gain reduction portion of the compressor.
Thus all you've effectivly done is bypass the compressor and reduce the gain of different frequency bands a little.. aka, eq...
+1!
I'm almost agreeing but I'm thinking there is something missing from this idea that I can't put my finger on, I think it has something to do with relative energy levels and decaying momentum. I think there is a case for extremely low thresholds on a gentle compression curve (small ratio, soft knee) although I've never really tried going that low. Oh no, I feel a test coming on, and there I thought I was going to do something useful today instead.
post edited by Jonbouy - 2012/04/13 09:00:39
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves" - Banksy
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Beagle
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 08:53:40
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Jonbouy
Beagle
Karyn
By running the threshold setting at -60 your signal is constantly in the gain reduction portion of the compressor.
Thus all you've effectivly done is bypass the compressor and reduce the gain of different frequency bands a little.. aka, eq...
+1!
I'm almost agreeing but I'm thinking there is something missing from this idea that I can't put my finger on, I think it has something to do with relative energy levels and momentum. I think there is a case for extremely low thresholds on a gentle compression curve although I've never really tried going that low.
Oh no, I feel a test coming on, and there I thought I was going to do something useful today instead.
go fer it! 
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Karyn
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 09:22:14
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Soft knee is a different ball game..
I regularly use a very soft knee compression with very low threshold (almost a pure curve from input to output) on assorted instruments to give a level correcting effect, as opposed to peak taming.
But doing that using a multi-band compressor would give a variable EQ effect... hmmm... could be interesting...
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Bub
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:07:38
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Work made me take today off because they cut out overtime, so I set up a job interview with another company. Gotta go now. I'll post some A/B test's when I get back. Hopefully things will still sound as good today as they did last night.
"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
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Old55
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:10:22
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Bub
Work made me take today off because they cut out overtime, so I set up a job interview with another company. Gotta go now. I'll post some A/B test's when I get back. Hopefully things will still sound as good today as they did last night.
Good luck.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot--hey, who the hell are you guys? X2(X3 pending hardware upgrade), Emulator X2, E-mu 1212M, Virtual String Machine
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Jonbouy
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:17:16
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Soft knee is a different ball game.. I thought the 'ball game' here was compression. And yes I use settings like that for levelling out rather than peak taming too, usually on a sub-mix bus. I wasn't taking into account multi-band considerations though. I tend to limit my use of multi-band compression to corrective practices such as de-essing and such, mainly because I'm not too good at controlling the cross-band weirdness.
post edited by Jonbouy - 2012/04/13 10:23:04
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves" - Banksy
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bapu
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:22:06
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I like the combination of 'ball game' and plying a woman with Belgian chocolates.
Gives me soft knees.
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Jonbouy
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:25:12
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bapu
I like the combination of 'ball game' and plying a woman with Belgian chocolates.
Gives me soft knees.
See, that was gently humourous and not harmful dribble, well done Bapu keep up the good work, I enjoyed your light humour in this context and think others could do well to learn from this particularly good post.
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves" - Banksy
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Karyn
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:31:50
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Jonbouy
bapu
I like the combination of 'ball game' and plying a woman with Belgian chocolates.
Gives me soft knees.
See, that was gently humourous and not harmful dribble, well done Bapu keep up the good work, I enjoyed your light humour in this context and think others could do well to learn from this particularly good post.
ja
Mekashi Futo. Get 10% off all Waves plugins.Current DAW. i7-950, Gigabyte EX58-UD5, 12Gb RAM, 1Tb SSD, 2x2Tb HDD, nVidia GTX 260, Antec 1000W psu, Win7 64bit, Studio 192, Digimax FS, KRK RP8G2, Sonar Platinum
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SCorey
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:45:45
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I use the very low threshold with very low ratio on compressors and multibands a bunch. I agree, it can be very smooth sounding. Even as low as 1.1:1 can work wonders on certain stuff.
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bapu
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:50:52
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I've been trying to record certain stuff for a long time now.
EPIC FAIL.
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daryl1968
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 10:59:40
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Jonbouy
Ya know Bub
I look at using compression on audio much like making love to a beautiful woman.
Sometimes she'll want to be squashed flat with a fast attack and sometimes she'll want her key features gently emphasised by you so that she feels like rising to the top.
There is no right or wrong Bub, it depends on the lady, the mood you want to set and how much you want to spend on pampering her with belgian chocolates. Always remember that the lady is the key consideration here for without her there is no music.
HTH
Swiss Toni
VERY well done - I wish I had started this thread so that I could give you one of those yellow helpful bar thingys
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bitflipper
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/13 11:46:38
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Bub, you've discovered my longtime secret weapon. Let's not advertise it too broadly, though, lest it no longer be a secret. What you've implemented is essentially a dynamic equalizer. If you like the effect (it can also be used to squeeze an extra 1 or 2b of compression if you're going for a very loud mix) take a look at Meldaproduction's MDynamicEQ and MAutoDynamicEQ. These let you do the same thing but with more finesse. Try it as an alternative to traditional leveling compression on bass and vocals.
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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Bub
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/14 17:22:06
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Hi bitflipper, Thanks for the link. I will check out the demo of it. I've been tinkering with this some more today and it's completely changed how I approach mixing and mastering. Every once in a while I'll come across something like this by accident and I end up going back over all of my old projects and start from scratch.
post edited by Bub - 2012/04/15 21:16:14
"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
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bapu
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/14 18:46:57
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Without being able to load them both in, say, SONAR to do a proper A/B it was hard for me to tell the difference.
Now if you took select sections (30-45 secs long), in lieu of giving full mp3's out, and played them back to back with just a two second space between them, that would be helpful to me.
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Bub
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/14 19:05:53
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Excellent advice Bapu.
One thing I noticed, these really lost a lot of upper end when I converted them to MP3. There is hardly any difference between the two as MP3's.
I'll make some shorter clips, maybe even post them as .wav.
Thanks,
Bub.
"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
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Jeff Evans
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/14 19:14:17
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I have always been a fan of low compression ratios. Many use ratios that are way too high for the job at hand. Even a 2:1 ratio is fairly dramatic. I often use ratios between 1.5:1 and lower. The higher the ratio the smaller the sound becomes. Lower ratios make a sound bigger and you can turn them down in a mix and still hear them clearly. (Maximum illusion, minimum voltage) Even when the threshold is reasonably high and you use a low ratio a mix can start to sound quite different. When I mix into a 2 buss compressor (which is not all the time BTW) my Yamaha digital mixer has got a lovely very transparent compressor on its stereo out. With a gain reduction of only 2 to 3 dB and a very low ratio eg 1.3:1 I can hear it very easily over a mix. It sounds good actually and starts acting like the glue effect. But it is interesting also from the OP that using very low thresholds and low ratios can also produce interesting results. I will give it a shot too. BTW when I am mastering I set the compressor around 1.5:1 or even less. Never rarely go as high as 2.1 One thing I don't like about the Smart C2 is the ratios are limited down there. Wish I had a few in between.
post edited by Jeff Evans - 2012/04/14 19:26:38
Specs i5-2500K 3.5 Ghz - 8 Gb RAM - Win 7 64 bit - ATI Radeon HD6900 Series - RME PCI HDSP9632 - Steinberg Midex 8 Midi interface - Faderport 8- Studio One V4 - iMac 2.5Ghz Core i5 - Sierra 10.12.6 - Focusrite Clarett thunderbolt interface Poor minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas -Eleanor Roosevelt
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Bub
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Re:Am I doing this right or is there no right or wrong?
2012/04/15 21:45:13
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"I pulled the head off Elvis, filled Fred up to his pelvis, yaba daba do, the King is gone, and so are you."
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