I'm not at my DAW so can't try this out till later, but was just doing some thinking.

Going for a wall of sound type feel here. Rhythm guitar, clean, crunchy or distorted, and we simply put a dual band multiband on it. Pretty wide crossover at maybe 800-1000Hz ish. The low end is compressed to hell and back. Maybe even with parallel compression too. As far as you can go without distorting. No dynamics left. Flat. But the high end is very lightly compressed. It retains the rhymth. I'm sure you'll lose some punch, but that's ok, cause other things are there for that. Almost trying to make a thick pad type sound with it.

Drums and bass hold the groove. They hold the dynamics. Guitar pretty sharply highpassed to let the bass rein supreme in its region and then guitar takes over with its thick, mid wall of sound. Vocals still have plenty of room on top. of this wall. Eqed to suit. The guitar is also heavily eqed or preferentially very well recorded to fill everything in that 200-1000Hz area well. Then whatever other elements sit on top of all this. Snare would probably have a body in between bass and guitar, with the crack above guitar but under vocal.


Anywho, sounds potentially good in my head. Anyone tried anything like this? I'm curious to try it out and see if it works!

With the exception of the heavily compressed rhythm guitar, this sounds pretty much like my standard mixing start point to me. Am I missing something?

You said it first with 'the exception of the heavily compressed guitar'. That's what I'm talking about here. The rest was unnecessary. I just got rambling!

I have never really tried multiband compression on rhythm guitars before and usually just give light single band compression. So just curious to keep the top end still light, but slam the hell out of the mid lows. I'd only expect to use something like this in a chorus to really beef it out. The hope is that in the context of the mix it won't sound hyper compressed, just big and engulfing.

I'm talking ultimately a pretty processed, modern pop sound here though. So it would be the kind of thing only used in certain instances, and in certain instances in a song.

Hi Matt,

Anything is worth a try even if it sounds far-fetched or way out of the box. That said, one thing to remember about MBC's is that they work more on compressing frequencies than actually compressing a signal. Therefore, you're going to experience pumping and breathing faster than you would using a full out compressor.

The sound you choose is what will determine how a MBC reacts to it. Even with minimal settings, you can sometimes pick up pumping depending on how much of something your sound may have.

For example, most of my heavy guitar sounds seem to pump a bit at about 120 hz. If I run a MBC I can make it control that perfectly. But if I try to run it hot in hopes of getting that compressed effect sound, the MBC is not the tool that will do it for me. It will definitely give me artifacts without that happy medium when used to the extreme.

Another thing to consider is the actual MBC you use. I have several here but only the UAD Precision MBC gives me control with less artifacts and more transparency than any MBC I've ever used. It's just fantastic in all aspects and I personally put it at the top of the MBC ladder when compared to all the others I have.

But even that...when used to the extreme, it doesn't tighten things up the way you're talking. You can try what you're saying here...who knows, it just may work. But I have other methods that I use for that "wall of sound" that I think will work much better at least for the stuff I do. In my use here, MBC's help me to control frequencies in the material that may need a bit more help other than eq and a conventional compressor. See how you fair with that though and please report back with your findings. I'm interested in hearing how this works or doesn't work for you. Good luck!

-Danny

Gave it a quick go with just one sample guitar recording. Pretty clean and basic recording but I liked the result. It was surprisingly subtle though, one in the context of the rest of the music. Didn't really make the wall of sound I was expecting but really tightened the area up a lot. That said, I didn't compare with what result I would get from just standard compression. I may find the results similar.

So I don't think it was a complete success, but also not a complete failure! Something I'll keep in mind for sure but it needs more experimenting with.


Anywho, now that you mention it, Danny, I might start a 'wall of sound' thread and if you feel kind enough to share a few of your methods I would be eager to hear them!