Multiband compressor to tame guitar palm mutes?

Howdy Folks,

I am working to complete mixing of about ten songs for my album. Most of the songs have heavy rhythm guitars that were recorded using various distored sounds from a Line 6 POD. I like the sounds, but excessive bass is a bit of a problem during palm-muted sections. It sounded good during tracking, but once it is in the mix, the 100 to 200 Hz area can get a bit crowded. The palm mutes can make certain speakers sound like they are overloading. I want some nice low end thump, but I don't want things to sound muddy. Applying EQ helps, but I often cannot tame the loudest mutes without making the rest of the track sound thin.

In comes Sonar 5, with its mighty impressive array of Sonitus effects. I've started to play around with the multiband compressor just to squash the lows and low mids (below 350 Hz). I set my knee pretty hard (3 db), the attack very low (15 ms), my ratio is reasonable (3:1), and I try and keep the threshold set so that I cut no more than about 3 db from these two channels. I want to tame the low end-transients. I am encouraged by the results so far. Does anyone else use this effect for this purpose, or am I missing something simpler? Using the normal Sonitus compressor colored the sound too much for my tastes.

Howdy Chaz,

Thank you for the quick reply. In your opinion, should multi-band compression only be used for mastering, or is there a place for it on individual tracks? I'm using the built-in Sonitus EQ on S5PE as my high pass filter and I am only cutting a few dB with it. I will give it a try both before and after the compressor. Thanks again for your help.

ORIGINAL: Clydewinder

you could put an automated EQ envelope on the track and only low-cut during the CHUG CHUG parts.

I could do that, but that would require dozens, if not hundreds of EQ automations. I might be able to do a copy and paste to get it right, but I want to save myself some time, if possible. That's when I started thinking about multiband. I wanted something subtle to back the chugs off for me.

ORIGINAL: Clydewinder

you could put an automated EQ envelope on the track and only low-cut during the CHUG CHUG parts.

This could be done without the use of any automation whatsoever. All you have to do is find the sweet spot that will cover everything or divide the tracks so the parts are seperated and treated differently fromn each other. Then again, I would have to hear the track to give specific advise.