i didnt realize how much i was ruining my songs by being guilty of over half this list haha thank you a million times for all these wonderful videos, its so refreshing to hear actual explanations. i feel like ive learned more snooping around your channel this morning than i have in the last month watching other videos

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Wow, thanks for the kind words. Glad we could help!

What a great teacher it seems like he is on a mission! I just love to learn from him! THANKS!!!!!!

Owning too many compressor / plug ins. Guilty as charged. Can't help it if Waves has a mega sale though.

@xgoosey

4 жыл бұрын

Facts 😂

Wonderful tutorials. Concise, useful, easy to listen to... just great stuff! Thank you!

Useful as always, Rob. Thank you.

Your instruction is excellent. You manage to clearly convey useful and understandable information in 10 minutes instead of explaining for 40 minutes, which loses the audience. Great job.

I am very grateful for this enlightenment. Thank u Rob.

Excellent explanation !

i love all of your videos keep up the great work

your tips are really really really good!!

Best mixing channel on KZread! Hands down! 😎👍

Excellent video! Thank you!

Gr8 video it helps a lot! I'm only watching your videos for 2 days now and i've already learned so much. Especially these cheat sheets are very handy!

@masteringcom

5 жыл бұрын

So glad we could help!

Excellent video, thank you

I knew it I knew it, I will open KZread and find some really useful tutorial... Thanks a lot :)

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

My pleasure :)

TOP LEVEL STUFF.. GREAT

Most helpful compression video I've seen. Thanks!

@masteringcom

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the kind words! Glad we could help :)

Gonna use this info!

Very useful, I acquired a lot from this tutorial, KEEP ON SPREADING Knowledge!!!! I'm with you

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Will do! Thanks for watching :)

Chris Lord-Alge uses limiters in addition to compression on toms, vocals, guitars and basses when the EQ and compression aren't enough to control what he calls instruments "sticking their heads out of the crowd." So, his typical effects chain is EQ-compression-effects-limiter. Albeit, he uses and SSL console. And, he always starts the mix with a compressor already active on the mix bus. This is based on two complete mix sessions I saw on Puremix website.

man your teaching and explaining skills are top notch. thanks for everything

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the kind words!

Very helpful tips!

simply informative ! many thanks.

@masteringcom

5 жыл бұрын

Our pleasure!

This guy's explanations are amazing 👍🏼

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Glad we could help.

@bkxt

6 жыл бұрын

often misleading and opinionated

nice video, solid tips

Damn you I'm trying to close the gazillion tabs on my browser and a glance on this channel causes me to open ten new ones :D

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Hahaha! Glad you're enjoying!

Thank you! Very helpful!

@masteringcom

5 жыл бұрын

No problem!

Good Information!

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Amazing video as usual, Rob! When you say don't stick to analog compressors, do you mean get a hybrid one like waves h-compressor or favour a strictly digital one?

Great video. Useful like your other videos.

@masteringcom

5 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed!

LOVE these tutorials - Rob Rules!!

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks buddy!

i found having several compressors useful because it gave me the opportunity to understand why everyone has favourites for different uses, for example an la-2a or 1176. the stock logic one doesn't really work like those, at least not without lots of tweaking, and even then it's more of a resemblance rather than the same. of course as a beginner, you can't even hear the difference between them, but as I spent time playing with them, I found what I felt is the characteristic of each of them and now I have favourites for each use: levelling, aggression, new york etc. now, I would hate to just have my stock logic compressor, or plugins in general

@DavidBoura

5 жыл бұрын

Exactly the same here ; )

@radofficial4672

5 жыл бұрын

Then you're not using it properly.. the Logic compressor is the most used by pros, and it's a secret weapon if you know how. Once you master it, there is no need for other compressors. Example.. on bass/vocals use the limiter and less of the compressor. On drums/perc use the limiter slightly to tame dynamics.. this is what you master bus is struggling with. Also use the filter to compress only certain frequencies "that's a different world of processing". The limiter is the key.. Dig deeper.. it may change everything you've been doing.

With all due objectivity and humility, I have to say I'm not guilty of most of these, except the tendency to try to use a wide array of compressors. But I'm guilty of something else - I have a bias towards not using enough compression (favoring musicality) and that isn't a good thing in a heavy rock genre (which is mine). So, this is all great advice, and the rest is a fantastic reminder of points I work to keep in mind all the time. Having an intention is HUGE and requires daily, constant reinforcement. Another piece of advice - if you want to learn compression, be fearless - try things, and push it, just so you can see what it really does - how much is too much, when it works, when it doesn't etc. I burn a lot of time working through scenarios just to see what a plugin can do.

Great video :)

@masteringcom

4 жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoyed!

You evaluated half a million mixes and compression mistakes came up again and again? Impressive! /s

Thanxz

I agree with stock compressors and sticking to one. I use Cubase and it actually comes with 3 or 4 stock compressors.

Great video, but that vocal is epic!

I like the start of background sound I was looking at my left thought a little girl ghost at my left 😂

What music is that at the end? Nice.

i use only abletons on board stuff. works fine for me and sounds good. i only use one plugin and thats an instrument that emulates a roland tb 303 by audio realism :D

I wonder how this channel has ONLY 60k subs

So do you prefer 'Dynamics' (less compression, used in passed musical rock, country analog signal), or 'Loudness' (loads of compression, used in current hip-hop, rap music mainly a digital signal very compressed to increase a louder sound for radio play)??

Also, heavy bass or very loud kick drums will hog your compressor and it won't compress your track as a whole properly. Watch the needle of your compressor. Does it only react to the kick? If so, turn the kick down so the needle also moves with the snare or other instruments. Then you can add an EQ after the mix bus compressor to add 60HZ (kick ranged) if you need. Your mix will sound more evenly compressed. You can also set some compressors to high pass the lows if they are too loud.

Great series of vids but there is an M in 'combination' 😎

11: Not checking out frequencies/trying EQ before compression, and comparing EQ first vs. compressor first

Genre's for pedal compressors & limiters & how to use them, would be nice!

conbination? I'm picking holes, this is the best compression vid on youtube

A few reasons I personally use compressors for while not being sure if it even works that way: -I make symthonic black metal. So yeah I go ham with the compression on my vocals to squeze out every single detail of my voice. -I use compression when I'm playing an instrument infront of the mic to hese the instrument better and make it louder-I want 2 instruments to blend in with eachother so I put them in a folder and smack them together with compression.-I want to hear my pick hit the strings more so I aply comoression before as well as after the amp to expose that (I still feel like I can't gear it well enough)-I feel like my guitars take in too much space in the mix so I use comlression to make room for the orchestra. I am the most unsure if it actually works about the last 3. Mostly because I think it looks like it works but not fully...

@thekeysman6760

5 жыл бұрын

@ Thimo Vijfschaft Not sure where you got your idea from; that putting two different instruments together through the same compressor is going to help 'blend with each other'. I mean, two 'different' instruments, two 'different' recordings, 'one' compressor setting...Not going to help you much! You aren't 'smacking them together', as I see it. I'm wondering, with all you've described above, if you experience a lack of dynamics generally? A bit flat?

@NoahOD_22

2 жыл бұрын

I hope you’ve learned more about compression now, but in case you haven’t I’ll give some input. I’m admittedly still learning how to mix fully, but I’ve been getting a pretty decent handle on a lot of the aspects as of lately. It sounds to me like you may be over-compressing, but given that you’re making black metal you probably will indeed want to have a pretty decent amount of compression going on. I’m not entirely familiar with what your type of music sounds like, but assuming that it’s a fairly aggressive sound, compression (and likely quite a bit) on your vocals is the way to go. The compression can help the vocals pop out of a dense or aggressive mix; it’ll counterintuitively bring out the dynamics of the performance when done right, as the smaller nuances won’t simply get lost in the mix. Your next point though, about compressing to make your instruments louder doesn’t make much sense. The solution there would be to record it better as well as properly gain stage it to capture the fullness and the articulation of the instrument. From there, you can EQ/compress in a way that compliments the track (however much or little it may need). The most important thing is getting good source material; you’re just going to waste your time trying to make shitty source sound good. As far as the whole blending of instruments together with a compressor, it can work but be careful with how you use that technique. It’s quite common to use on the mix bus, and it can also be used to similar effect on smaller groups. Let’s say you have a few similar, complimentary synth tracks, for example, that are meant to blend together. Once you have them level balanced at the very least, along with whatever processing needs to be done on the individual tracks if any, you can throw them into a bus, wherein you can apply tools to process the tracks as a group. You can compress the group however it may fit the song, but if you’re solely looking to “glue” the tracks together a bit, use a compressor with a low ratio, really low amount of gain reduction, and towards the slower side with the attack and release settings. Ideally, you’d probably want it to be hardly even noticeable (this philosophy GENERALLY goes for the mix bus as well). For the pick hitting the strings thing, compression WILL probably bring that out, but I wouldn’t necessarily use that as the tool to do so. Firstly, make sure to record in such a way that it’s already present (the importance of getting good source cannot be overstated). Then, you could probably find the frequency area that it’s present in and do a subtle EQ boost, and any normal compression you’d be doing to the guitar would accentuate those pick hits even further. Compression takes those quieter sounds and brings them up closer to the level of the rest of the signal. If your guitars are taking up too much space in the mix, you probably want to look at volume, EQ, and panning before you look at compression. They could simply be too loud, they could be frequency masking other instruments, they could be panned in a way that doesn’t make sense, or it could be a different problem altogether. Proper leveling, EQing, and panning will get you a lot of the way there in terms of sitting in the mix, and then you can compress if you want the transients to “poke through” but have the sustains duck under the other instruments. Keep in mind that there are tons of ways to creatively use a compressor, and I only but scratched the surface of all you can do with them. It’s one of the most powerful and most versatile tools we have to control the sound. It goes back to the old cliché though: with great power comes great responsibility. Compression can make something sound 10 times better, or it can make it sound 100 times worse. With all that said, you’re not super far off the mark with your uses of compression. It could definitely be used in all those scenarios, but the more important part is HOW you use it. You want to always use it with intention and in a way that makes musical sense. To figure out what that means, there’s really no other way than experimentation and experience.

hi rob, nice vid. could you maybe do a vid. about compression for tech house/house? or maybe a tutorial on parallel compression and sidechaincomp.? something I would pay for ;)

For me having a hardware compressor is forcing me to learn it well, how to physically connect it, tweaking knobs, and learning to listen to it closely as opposed to slapping on a preset in a DAW and forgetting about it which is what I used to do, lol

Should I use 2 o 3 different types of compressors or use the same plugins 2-3 times?

The biggest mistake for me is limiting my options, when I'm mixing every compressor has a different sound and can decide wether two instruments clash in frequencies or not, they can be used as a subtle EQ to give two identical signals some minor differences. Important for stereo shaping

Centrarse en el medidor del gain para comprobar que se está aplicando la compresión bien. Evitar un attack rápido, porque le quita agresividad a la voz Evitar un release rápido porque las notas se van muy rápido Usar más de un compresor porque suena más natural y dinámico Dependiendo de la agresividad de la canción varía la fuerza de la compresión.

The release time should be synched to the BPM and be related to the note size.

Please make fabfilter compresor tutorials and please explain when or if compressors need to go on a send or in the original track please. All tutorials say do this and that but they never explain where to put the compressors

@dylanjantz1

4 жыл бұрын

You have to learn on your own with experimentation. You could have a compressor before the eq, or after eq or even both if you think it's what you really need. Or you can decide not to use a compressor on individual tracks, send the tracks to a bus channel, and compress a bunch of them together to have a more unified sound

I have subscribed for the email but am not getting any emails for the cheatsheet downloads :/

Jude Law- great job

Gotta love the comments section. Anthropologists will be studying this for years

I'm struggling to receive the cheat sheet

3:20 Why do drums have fast attack times? Surely drums need to retain their transient?

intro song what’s the name

Can you change a song?It doesn't sound very comfortable to this vocal range.

I think you've really hit on what I think is the biggest difference between straight hard rock/metal and industrial. Rock and especially metal want to make sure they're loud and in your face through the whole song, and while industrial has that aspect to it, it also really benefits from some extra dynamic space.

I left a liek for the pancake

Don't agree with not having lots. It takes seconds to narrow it down to the more suitable ones. Not all compressors are good for all tasks. Some compressors have a min ratio of 1.5. I rarely go that high. Also sometimes colouration can be desirable. I never have enough compressors. Same with EQ's too. Not dissing your video though as it's really good and informative. I just don't agree with that point. You can never have too many to choose from. Edit: When mastering a good mix you shouldn't need to have a high ratio. You will squash the life out of your mix and lose your drum sound. You can still almost flat line a master with a very low compression ratio if the mix has been done well.

Need to spend time with the same sample and analyzing how the setting affect the sound and how much. The same setting on different compressors isn’t the same. Just having a rough idea of the concept won’t teach you how specific comps react. Also if the needle isn’t moving then there might not be any compression but a lot of units will still colour the sound.

What's the thing that makes multiple lighter compressors in series sound better than one single compressor working hard? You mentioned it, but didn't really explain why.

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Use two or more compressors with lighter settings one after the other. Less aggressive but can dial in a good amount of compression and still sound natural!

100% OTT confirmed...

Better not to use compression than use it wrong.

@izvarzone

5 жыл бұрын

if you dont use you wont learn how to use. Too much dynamic range hurt ears more than overcompresed sound imo.

ive been half-deaf my whole life and of course i had to choose music as a passion lol playing instruments is the biggest joy i have in life, but all this mixing stuff is beyond me. i understand most of the concepts but i will never have good hearing and i dont know what to do about that. a buddy of mine mixed a short little doodle once and i hated it. everyone thought it sounded great but i didnt like how different it was from what i was aiming for. (probably just my ears) but i dont want to just forfeit all my mixing/mastering interests. i can get the songs to sound okay by myself but if im mixing these things according to what sounds good to me would that be a waste of time since an engineer is going to finish the process? as someone who is obviously well-educated on the subject, should i leave the mixing/mastering alone? i need some real life advice and youre super qualified for the questions!

@JonnyPoy

6 жыл бұрын

Regarding this whole half-deaf thing: There is a device that "checks" your hearing and manipulates all incoming signals so that you can hear them like you would with "normal" ears. If that sounds interesting to you just look at this video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/poaE17yAqKjKmMo.html

@hallelujahlantay2194

6 жыл бұрын

Im not sure the extent of your hearing loss, but this video might interest you kzread.info/dash/bejne/poaE17yAqKjKmMo.html

@larrytate1657

5 жыл бұрын

Try doing the mathmatical approach and then hearing aids made just for you with thre frequency’s you’re missing boosted may help.

wish you woulda compressed the audio track on this video...

Tip 3 (fast release) is wrong . . . with a fast release the compressor doesn't let go of the signal (disengage the gain reduction) "straightaway", it only 'lets go' _after_ the signal has fallen below the threshold.

You're always supposed to compress in context with other elements in your mix.

Do you use a compressor on your master?

hahaha, "just head to the description in the link"... First time I've heard that one

@aixcastles

5 жыл бұрын

and don't forget to video the like!

Plug-in compressors will rarely be desirable for its intended use; giving a colour/tonality to a sound is a better use for it, actually. Volume automation will give you a far better mix! However, certain compressors, like The Glue, will work wonders for a drum-bus, where you need, as the plugin's name implies, to glue it together. People tend to squash their mixes by putting compressors on everything; while they only need one, maybe two (one for drums, one for the master fader (SSL Channel is a good one here.))

i do mixing just simply processing .....

Anybody else with headphones got freaked out when the video first started?

up next: plosives.... :-)

On using several compressors in series . . . . _"It's going to sound more musical because you're not making one plug-in do all the work"_ . . .what does this even mean !? Lol. It seems like studio mythology to me, you're actually making a circular argument, you're essentially saying _'use several compressors in series - it will sound more musical - why ? - because you are using several compressors in series'_ . . . you've given no reason as to why this sounds 'more musical' or even what 'more musical' means in this context.

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Basically mean that it will sound a lot more natural and pleasing to hear. Hope that helps!

@davelordy

6 жыл бұрын

Thanks for the reply, still unclear why this should be the case.

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Try compressing something by 8db with one compressor, then take two compressor with the same settings and only compress by 4db on each compressor. You will hear that the compression is much more transparent and natural sounding!

@davelordy

6 жыл бұрын

_"Try compressing something by 8db with one compressor, then take two compressor with the same settings and only compress by 4db on each compressor"_ Tried it, I went through a few compressors, The Glue / iZotope's Neutron and Ozone's compressor, Logic Stock compressor - the first issue was that using the same settings on two compressors is not the same as using 1 compressor with twice the gain reduction, the fact that the signal has gone through one compressor first necessarily means you must change the settings on the second (if only the threshold) to further compress the signal . . . . . The second issue is that (annoyingly) none of these compressors give you an accurate gain reduction reading . . . but putting all that aside, running the same signal through two compressors and halving the gain reduction on both - and comparing that to a single compressor with the full gain reduction (I used 8dB vs 4dB/4dB) - and level matching the output (post compressor so as not to effect the compressor itself) resulted in no discernible difference, in fact with both the iZotope compressors I was able to pretty much null the results from each output (I'm reasonably sure they would null to silence if there was a viable way to accurately set the gain reduction to match) . . . So, I still suspect this idea is little more than a studio myth, I've asked various people over the years about this, no one is able to explain how this might work, what it's supposed to do (technically) or even what they mean by 'more musical', 'more transparent', 'more pleasing' (and so on) . . . but at the end of the day studio myths like this are pretty harmless, if it lends some psychological / placebo helping hand to your working day then go for it . . . I'm off to cut my speaker cables to half their length, then solder them together again because I hear using two cables in series gives you a more 'musical' sound than one. : P

@neovxr

6 жыл бұрын

math is not the point here. the goal to eat up 8db is not a sharp one. two different plugins sharing the task may or may not sound better, but it is worth a try. we need not always express our musical feelings about a mixing decision in math language. at a certain point it is art, not industry.

Your tips are really great, but not in every DAW the stock compressors are good. In cubase the stock compressor is not an intelligent and musical compressor. it makes exact the releasetime that you give him. Its not what you want in all situations.

@A21music

5 жыл бұрын

MrJinusean90 Are you saying that you want your compressors to disobey you?

@MrJinusean90

5 жыл бұрын

@@A21music you have a lot to learn. Mix a few years and you will understand me

@larrytate1657

5 жыл бұрын

I like the slate vmr compressors? Have you tried them. I get an amazing drum and vocal sounds with the vmr plugs.

i thought you had to use the same compressor plug in as it makes things consistent. And that overtime, all the compressor plug in's add up and could be bad. Or is this another...music has no rules moment?

The attack/release tip just changed my life lmao

@DjNikander

3 жыл бұрын

Exactly my thoughts! 👌

did this man just say he taught half a million people? he's like 35

@jeremybenson5782

4 жыл бұрын

He's definitely counting social media views.

@hatusage

4 жыл бұрын

What does age have to do with it? By your pic you aren't much older. How does this guy get to critique advice? How old is he?

@hatusage

4 жыл бұрын

*Checks out Nathaniel's channel.. 0 views..lol

@hatusage

4 жыл бұрын

Fledgling troll, doesn't even bother with capatilising the start of a sentence.

@jeremybenson5782

4 жыл бұрын

@@hatusage I don't think he's counting online.

Yeah yeah, "It's completely free" sure sure

@szabolcsmate5254

5 жыл бұрын

Apart from having to give him your email address, and probably signing up for marketing emails. :(

@costanzauk

5 жыл бұрын

Well just get the cheat sheet and then unsubscribe if you don’t want further emails.

Sound advice (not pun intended, really)

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

😂

cringe vocals at the start but awesome tutorial

holy shit batman its jude law's brother

Number 8: Haha the compressor in FL Studio doesn't even have a gain reduction meter.... XD

@Danko_HS

5 жыл бұрын

You do know about Maximus and using FL Limiter in comp mode right? They both have visual representations of what's going on. Seems to me that everyone complaining about FL Studio don't even know that daw to begin with. Start reading the manual and learn your daw, otherwise you're just embarrassing yourself. Contrary to popular belief FL Studio is not a beginner's plug n' play, you still have to master the daw to use it efficiently, just like every other daw.

@DOZEMusic

5 жыл бұрын

Yeah, I'm not complaining about FL Studio, I'm actually a diehard FL User since more than 2 years and of course ikr about visual representation in Maximus and Fruity Limiter. Maximus is a gr8 Mastering tool and the Limiter is gr8 for sidechain compression when your song is not 4-to-the-flor. I am NOT looking on FL as a beginner software, it's a fully featured DAW and I absolutely like how it works!

@Danko_HS

5 жыл бұрын

Maybe i misinterpreted the "haha" at the beginning of your sentence. The original compressor in FL hasn't been updated in years. Image-line decided to focus on Maximus and Limiter (which is a great compressor, not only for sidechaining duties). Ofc none of them can compare to Pro-C2 for example, but then again no DAW has something like that by default.

@RobFrank22

5 жыл бұрын

Once you use Logic, FL Studio seems bootleg

So much auto tune on that vocal, or is it just me?

Combination not conbination love you

“Sing in tune I never I never I never never learned to Sing in tune, i never I never I gotta use auto-tune”

@danfawcett8056

4 жыл бұрын

Ok

Actually, actually my compression is soft 🤣

Use a medium fast slow attack time but you didn't define what those times are we need to know millisecond examples. Everyone always shies away from saying those.

the most difficult for me is editing Bass and vocals (compression) i get most of the time very frustrated when can't get _that_ sound if you know what i mean grrrrrr

@masteringcom

6 жыл бұрын

Yeah it can be tough! Keep at it!

How could he put compression on mix ?! Thats non-sense !!!!!

@NZsaltz

4 жыл бұрын

Where do you put compression?

So it would be free, if I didn't have to give my email address to you. I see.

No Free Compression Cheat Sheet-----Carries you to REVERSE ENGINEER with a video. No sheet.

It doesn’t matter how you use a compressor because your ears will tell you what you want to hear. Looking at a meter is useless. Music is an emotional and auditory medium. So who cares what a meter tells you. Cheers.

@izvarzone

5 жыл бұрын

not completely useless - when you trying to get exact amount of reduction for headroom. And some things really hard to hear, like slow RMS compressors, but you can see on meter they're reducing by 1-2dB.