"Michael Brauer is an engineer who uses a technique he originally developed in the mid-1980s working with Aretha Franklin called multibus compression. "
Hello,
Here is a try on a Brauer mix template.
This is a work in progress. Please contribute with your own variations.
The brauerize thing could be dissected as:
- Group your instrument tracks into compresion buses 'by role'. A (top end), B (Base), C (center), D (dimension). Inter-bus sends are allowed.
- Split the lead vocal into 5 parallel compresors. This can allow you to dial in for example 'aggressive' vs 'mellow' by simply varying the mute sends.
- Send to Drive for distortion and to Clean as a path to avoid the bus compression from any of your instrumental or vocal tracks.
It's easier understood by just looking into the attached project.
The idea is to compress with the faders into the ABCD buses. You start mixing and the more you push your fader the more compression you get. As long as you stay within the -20dB mark you get no compression. You go over that you start compressing signals.
Calibration
Bus compressors must be calibrated to compress -1dB when the signal raises -18dB.
If you insert a new compressor in the multibus, then you must calibrate it by soloing the corresponding tone genertor track (called TONE BUS). Then hit play and set the compressor to reduce -1dB and the output not to increase volume.
Latency
Avoid plugins with latency (see Performnce meter).
Because of the intensive use of cascaded parallel buses it´s important for all of the inserted plugins to be phase consistent among them. The DAW is supposed to compensate for latency, but the problem is that some plugins report 0 latency but are phase-delayed at the output.
You can check for any phase inconstency among buses by soloing a TONE generator (ex. track TONE INST) and record the output of the bus tracks. Then zoom in. Just make sure that every track is phase-aligned before trying to start mixing.
antiClick,
Thanks for your work on this... I've always been interested in this set-up. I've done some simple (A,B,C,D Busses) but I have not set up a full blown routing template.
I am curious to read through some details of the set-up. If you have good articles and descriptions, will you post links, please. I have read through some, but several are not helpful.
I'll take a look at this in the next few days/weeks with music.
I do have some questions for you:
>>> Good points about latency... that's something that I didn't consider. I just took it for granted.
>>> Your CLEAN buss is missing plugins. Is this intentional?
>>> When choosing plugins for each of the A-B-C-D busses, how did you come to these specific choices? (Sure I know that you'll at least want to get something similar to Brauer, but I don't own a 33609... so what do I use???) Your API2500 choice is a good example... I don't recall that being on his A buss, but I could be wrong.
>>> holy moly... Your Distortion buss is loaded. Surely you are not using ALL of those plugs at once are you?
>>> Why did you not extend Satson across the other busses?
>>> Your CLEAN buss is missing plugins. Is this intentional?
Yes, it's a path to avoid compression
Quote:
>>> When choosing plugins for each of the A-B-C-D busses, how did you come to these specific choices? (Sure I know that you'll at least want to get something similar to Brauer, but I don't own a 33609... so what do I use???) Your API2500 choice is a good example... I don't recall that being on his A buss, but I could be wrong.
i'm not sure about that, they are just examoles. Choose whatever works for you, just remember to avoid the ones with latency.
Quote:
>>> holy moly... Your Distortion buss is loaded. Surely you are not using ALL of those plugs at once are you?
yes, cpu at 15%, core2duo here
Quote:
>>> Why did you not extend Satson across the other busses?
in principle, they are just for metering pourposes (to see 'how much' are the buses into compression).
Great work! I've been a fan of mixing Brauer-style myself.
I would add that there is a lead vocal multibuss setup that's also written up at the site you list. Here is a direct link to Jamie's HowTo. About halfway in he discusses the lead vocals: https://brauerizing.wordpress.com/20...-how-to-guide/
Essentially setup 5 parallel 'character comps' plus a clean aux and route the lead vocal to them at varying levels and varying mutes throughout the song to get the vibe you want on that part. This can allow you to dial in for example 'aggressive' vs 'mellow' by simply varying the sends to the parallel vox comps.
I would add that there is a lead vocal multibuss setup
(...)
Essentially setup 5 parallel 'character comps' plus a clean aux and route the lead vocal to them at varying levels and varying mutes throughout the song to get the vibe you want on that part. This can allow you to dial in for example 'aggressive' vs 'mellow' by simply varying the sends to the parallel vox comps.
Reporting back to the group:
I spent 5-6 hours reading, working on Reaper templates, playing with options and landed on something that I think is useful for my workflow. One of the things that could possibly take MUCH more time is the choice of which compressors live on which buss for which reason. Obviously I have my favorites, but we all know that ReaComp is just not a bad option for us. (i.e. http://reaperblog.net/2013/01/reacom...ressor-engine/ )
So, I set up 5 parallel busses for Lead Vox, then 4 or 5 busses for music. I saved my template and days later, dropped the template into a new project. It took 5 minutes to group/buss the tracks appropriately. The result was a sound that startled me. In a very good way, I was shocked that such a simple move on my part could make such an enormous difference to the song with such little effort.
This is certainly worth investing in. And, frankly I think that it's fun. I really HATE seeing all these folders and tracks and busses and such, but I don't know of another way to do this and not having 15 extra tracks. I guess I could hide some, but I hate to lose metering. Any ideas there?
I used Reaper Folders to try and allow me to hide some of the complexity as the mix progressed. In fact I've got Folders into Folders... lol... I have a SUBMASTER folder that collects my LV SUB, A, B, C, D, 1176s, and FX SUB.
"FX SUB" collects all my effect parallels into a single SUB so I can make the mix more wet or more dry with a single fader, without affecting the individual effects themselves.
All the voice parallels (4 comp, 1 distortion, 1 clean) are children of a parent Folder called "LV SUB". Once I get all of the sends and automation together on the vocal parallels I just hide the children and work with the metering, additional plugins, and additional automation on my "LV SUB" track.
You really do want to collect your instruments into the A, B, C, D, and 1176 busses so you can work with those 5.
What I tend to do is from the bottom up group tracks into Folders. Then I send from the instrument group Folders to A,B,C,D,1176s, setup automation, etc.
As I get farther into the mix I'll put automation onto the A,B,C,D,1176, LV SUB, FX SUB, and even my main SUBMASTER track as needed.
One of the things that could possibly take MUCH more time is the choice of which compressors live on which buss for which reason. Obviously I have my favorites, but we all know that ReaComp is just not a bad option for us.
Yeah, thats a very big question.
Would you share the list of the compressors you used, how you set them and why?
Well that comes down to a lot of personal preference. The key is to use compressors that add harmonics and color that you want. Jamie Donnelly did us all a favor with his starting point information shared via Wordpress: https://brauerizing.wordpress.com/20...-how-to-guide/
I'd recommend reading that linked article.
Ultimately you can use whatever compressors you have at the time. The most critical part of this is segregating the instruments into logical groups A,B,C,D so their compressors don't influence each other. For example, you don't want the drums compressor causing the guitars to drop out.
Yeah, thats a very big question.
Would you share the list of the compressors you used, how you set them and why?
I just realized that I never answered you. Sorry about that.
I've been working on a personal template lately.
Here are my choices for 100% ITB template:
Everything has Britson across it...
A - VBC RED & Pultec EQ from Ignite
B - Waves: API 2500 & 550A... although I may try 550B, I like it more.
C - VBC MU
D - MUJC - limiter and JS Widener
Clean - TDR Feeback II
Dirty - Sat Knob (softube) & Little Radiator & SGA1566 & Vintage Warmer 2 (all just doing a small part each)
1176 - parallel of two Rockets one for LEFT and one for RIGHT
Vox1 - MUJC
Vox2- OldTimer
Vox3 - Rocket
Vox4 - API2500 & Sat Knob (softube)
Vox5 - VBC MU
As for settings, I generally like to keep compression slower than 10-15ms attack and a release that is depends on the material. Natural and open...
Interestingly, I'm also working up a hybrid template for some pretty serious bussing on my current project. Hardware first, then plugins after it gets back ITB. It looks like this:
Everything summed through a Portico Satellite summing unit
A- Retro channels
B- API 312 pres - Distressors //Waves API550b once back ITB
C- UA610 & ProVLAii
D- API312 pres - Joe Meek SC2.2 (not sure that will stay... I may go with an ITB solution)
Clean - API pres //TDR Feedback II once back ITB
Dirty - Culture Vulture
1176 - API pres then ITB with probably Rockets actually.
Vox Submaster - all 5 busses routed together; If I can swing a mono stem, then I'll run Vintech x81 into TLA100a; If stereo then I'll go Portico channels.
Master - portico channels (if not used for vocals) into Burl convertors.
My intention is to use this routing for stems and record ALL then stems back into Reaper via a mult out on the patchbay. Then I have tons of control on the back end.
If not, I'll duplicate the project and run one ITB and one OTB to compare the differences. I'll report back my findings.
This is going to be a routing nightmare on that patchbay! But worth the effort, I'm sure.
I forgot to mention this, but it's a good question.
So... yeah Brauer uses an SSL. So he has busses A-D. I'm thinking of ways to adopt these principles for our use ITB. DAW land has as many busses as we can stomach! What are some creative ways to use that availability?
Has anyone had more work come through and gained more experience with the multi-buss technique?
I've found myself using the following Busses: Vox, BGV, A, B, C, D, Clean, Dirty, 1176.
They all get routed to a Sub-Master which is sent a set of three compressor tracks, for varying levels of 2Buss processing, before hitting the Reaper Master.
I've found that the workflow is a little wild with so many tracks, but that the sound is great!
I'm just digging into this workflow again and ran into a question. Please have a look at the linked picture with the new Brauer Flow Chart for his new setup.
I'm just digging into this workflow again and ran into a question. Please have a look at the linked picture with the new Brauer Flow Chart for his new setup.
I'm just digging into this workflow again and ran into a question. Please have a look at the linked picture with the new Brauer Flow Chart for his new setup.