Be happy Alex, be very happy. LP-64 is really very good.

Thanks for all your commens. Wow a lot of opinions... Still counting the costs, for now yes what Cake supplies is pretty good.... But the next round of sales I feel will be that much lighter... Cheers and happy new year!

AJ_0000

Sanderxpander
I have it and I'm just wondering why. I think it's one of the oldest perhaps? Even Waves have since then moved on to C6 and LinMB. C4 doesn't have the best reputation for transparency, even with the bands switched off, ultimately leading (more than ten years later) to people like FabFilter trying specifically to keep audio completely transparent when not processed.

In truth, I doubt many top mix engineers use multiband compressors very much. They may be slightly more prevalent among mastering engineers, but I'm not sure about that either. The impression I get from the top mixers is that they prefer to use parallel compression (create a copy or aux with all but the desired frequencies filtered out, then hit it with a regular compressor and mix it back in), which is unquestionably a better way to do it, albeit much more time consuming.
 
That's what the Manny Marroquin Tone Shaper plugin does - multiband parallel compression. It gets pretty nice results too, for being kind of a simplification of that process in a single plugin.

It may be part of the underlying tech of Pro-MB too, since it lets you create bands freely and doesn't process audio where you haven't created a band.

"Flux Alchemist" - That's probably the funniest plugin name I've ever heard - my devious little mind is thinking along the lines of colonic irrigation or something! I'll check it out, it certainly looks the job - thanks..

Wow, 569 plus an iLok or their own dongle. It looks nicely featured with some quirky options the others don't have. I'll stick with my Pro-MB for now though :)

Sanderxpander

AJ_0000

Sanderxpander
I have it and I'm just wondering why. I think it's one of the oldest perhaps? Even Waves have since then moved on to C6 and LinMB. C4 doesn't have the best reputation for transparency, even with the bands switched off, ultimately leading (more than ten years later) to people like FabFilter trying specifically to keep audio completely transparent when not processed.

In truth, I doubt many top mix engineers use multiband compressors very much. They may be slightly more prevalent among mastering engineers, but I'm not sure about that either. The impression I get from the top mixers is that they prefer to use parallel compression (create a copy or aux with all but the desired frequencies filtered out, then hit it with a regular compressor and mix it back in), which is unquestionably a better way to do it, albeit much more time consuming.
 
That's what the Manny Marroquin Tone Shaper plugin does - multiband parallel compression. It gets pretty nice results too, for being kind of a simplification of that process in a single plugin.

It may be part of the underlying tech of Pro-MB too, since it lets you create bands freely and doesn't process audio where you haven't created a band.

Yep, but anything you do going through a plugin is going to have more potential for artifacts than true parallel compression.

Sanderxpander
In other words, it's the same as the MM Tone Shaper? :)

Right. The same thing applies to both of them. Any plugin you're inserting directly into the signal path, that splits things into bands, as opposed to doing it parallel the way I described.

Sanderxpander
Ah in that case I disagree. Pro-MB has a wet/dry balance too. I do understand your point, but the convenience far outweighs the possibility of one plug screwing up, especially when it specifically states to leave the dry signal completely untouched.

Plugins are pretty good now, so it's less likely you're going to get severe artifacts. But still, doing it the other way is ideal. Especially considering that the big name guys do it using expensive outboard gear.

what about softube drawner 1973? parallele Multiband
seems good. but for master bus? not sure.
http://www.softube.com/index.php?id=drawmer1973

Guitarpima
I still don't get it. Just like de-essers, I think the best way is to go in and lover the volume on the specific culprits in the wave file. It seems the easiest way rather than suck the life out of the track.

here is how I look at it.
 
I compress each individual track as needed.  I buss similar instruments, and then I compress those buss as needed to glue each instrument group together.
 
here is where things can get funny.
 
once you are mixing everything down to that one stereo bus and putting it all together.
 
Some 'glue' obviously helps here as well, and this is best accomplished with some compression.  But I dont want a "one size fits all" compression.  The attack and release setting and amount of compression on every track I compressed, and every buss I compressed is tailored to the specific instrument and what my ears think sound good
 
my drum compression for example is going to look different than say lead guitar compression
 
so when I go to compress that stereo buss to glue it all together...  I certainly dont want to be limited to 'one type of compression' if you will.
 
I want things to sound transparent as I "glue" them.  Being able to set individual attack and release on each band alone is good enough reason for me to use a multiband, because then I can preserve as much 'dynamics' and transient material as I want from one instrument group to the next via isolating their frequency ranges.  Basically all it does is help me glue the track together and get a little more volume out of it without destroying certain elements of the dynamics
 
same thing with a de - esser.  A smart de-esser compresses the frequency band where the SSSS is at.
 
eq vacuums out the frequency.  If you ask me...  this can be more destructive as its actually taking out the sibilance in its entirity, which could pull all the air out of the track everywhere and not just on the ssss that gets out of hand.  A good de-esser doesnt do that.  It catches that sssss and compresses it and holds it to a non obnoxious level.  otherwise leaving the sibilance in tact.  when the vocalist isnt ssss'ing, its nice to have those airy frequencies still available for every other word
 
 

beingsmythos
Came to this thread because LP-64 in Sonar X3 crashes my computer every time I open it. That and I also use Sonar more for synths and PT for mixing. I bought A UAD-2 Solo used but haven't heard from the seller in a week (gonna have to call e-Bay soon) or I'd go for the UAD plug-in. I need it for taming palm mutes on heavier guitar tracks which I've done with the UAD plug-in in another studio before to great results. Around 110 to 120 Hz it always seems in my case. 
 
Basically I've got a great guitar tone that sounds great 75% of the song until the 25% which has palm mutes jumping out dramatically in the speakers. So I turn on two bands for the multi-compressor, one below the target frequency range and one for the target frequency range. I set the ratio to around 4:1 and the threshold so that its only triggered by the palm muting. My intent being to pull the palm mutes down to the same level as the rest of the signal so that the guitar tone remains balanced during that 25%. 75% of the song the signal just passes through the plug-in. This is a general example of what i use it for. 
 
I've tried the sonitus MB, and the MB that comes with reaper, plus some other free plug-ins and it never worked out for me. Maybe the UAD one just worked better with my skill set or maybe it just worked better for my application. Maybe it's more transparent. I believe it's the only one I've used that adds latency to the signal. UAD on the page for this plug-in claims that is because it comes with the territory in how the special processing works in their MB. So maybe that has something to do with it, or maybe it's BS. 
 
I don't know how long my UAD prospects will be tied up in this eBay situation I find myself in, so I was thinking about buying the C4. Something around $150, preferably less. 

Please don't spend 150 bucks on C4, Waves goes on sale constantly and that is an old plug. If that is about your budget check out FabFilter ProMB, which is much nicer, or even Ozone Elements. If you'd like the C4, hang in there and wait for a sale.

brconflict

listen
A lot of discussion on various plugs out there -I have to take the opportunity to say check out - Voxengo - IMHO in conjunction with SPLAT stuff Voxengo gets the job done...

I don't believe Voxengo makes a MB Compressor, though, do they?

Voxengo has a number of plugins that do mulitband compression...
 
Voxformer (channel strip with two bands of compression)
Drumformer (channel strip with three bands of compression)
Soniformer (32 bands)
 
...but they don't appear to have your "typical" 4 to 6 band compressor.
 
Many times, 2 or 3 bands is all you need.

listen
For the Master Bus Voxengo  makes the what they call the Polysquasher (it has it's obvious presets) but affords you the opportunity to work behind the scenes as well...

I think the "Poly" part of Polysquasher is a bit a of misnomer.  From what I can see it's a single band, full range compressor.  (I've been wrong before though.)

My most recent master bus chain goes.. waves ssl 4000 stereo comp---> ozone 7. I use the multiband and eq in mid side mode almost always on my most recent mixes, and the ssl comp3s is a great stereo compressor

QUOTE
"Please don't spend 150 bucks on C4, Waves goes on sale constantly and that is an old plug. If that is about your budget check out FabFilter ProMB, which is much nicer, or even Ozone Elements. If you'd like the C4, hang in there and wait for a sale."



I downloaded some demos of single band compressors and I tried downloading the C4. It normally takes a couple minutes tops for me to download plug-ins but the Waves Central downloader wouldn't download more than 10% before crashing. I went through all the trouble shooting their support page has. Decided against it because A: Apparently when they come out with their new apps for downloading and managing liscenses you need to re-download all your plugs if you update B: Sending tech support a message resulted in requesting that I put in a ticket C: I'm only interested in one plug-in from Waves and don't see myself being a customer beyond that. Combine C with A and B and I just decided not to bother. I am currently checking out a demo of Fab Filter and it's pretty awesome so far. 
 

whattarush
+1 for the Precision Multiband (if you have a UAD card). I love this plug-in!!!

I can't find that MB in their available plug-ins page anymore. Isn't the precision name one they got permission to use, and if so did they loose said permission to use it? Or did I just fail in finding the product page? I noticed the tape echo I use at the other studio also wasn't in their products page anymore.