Advice on setting my Master Bus - who does what?

[RDBOIS]

I'm currently mixing a song that starts with only one instrument: acoustic guitar. The song builds up and eventually has more instruments and more power. No drums, but a native tamtam (thus some transient spikes going on throughout the song that need to be heard).

The thing is this: I only slightly EQ'd and compressed the acoustic to keep it sounding more natural. But once the mix is more or less done and I turn my attention to the Master Bus I'm having some issues: technical, sound, and philosophical.

It is common practice to put compression on the Master Bus to serve as "glue". It is also common practice to slap on a limiter to increase the loudness (with a ceiling to catch peaks above 0db). I don't need to make the song super loud, but because it is not going to be Mastered by a pro I feel like I need to do something...

But when I add a compressor and limiter the acoustic guitar loses the sonic characteristic I worked so hard to capture in my mix. Same goes for the vocals. Both suffer from the additional compression and limiter. I hate when this happens.

I could simply NOT have any effects on the Master Bus. But then gone are the glue and loudness. I can use reverb to glue, but it doesn't seem to be enough (I don't want too much reverb...). I could crank the fader to make the song louder and then simply CLIP some peaks. Who does that?

I could also MIX in the Master Bus compressor and limiter? This means that I'm not going to compress the guitar and the vocal so much in the mix (maybe only half of what I'm doing) and let the Master Bus finish the job. Who does that?

I could automate the threshold of the Master Bus effect so they don't impact the acoustic guitar at the start of the song and work harder near the end? Am I setting myself up for disaster?

I don't know... I feel like something is missing --- I'm missing some piece of information.

Again, this is a song that is acoustic and soft in the beginning and develops into power.

Any suggestions?

[foxAsteria]

Yes those are common techniques, though easy to overdo and difficult to master (heheh, a pun ).

A better technique for you would be to make a parallel compression buss. The idea is that you send the signals you want to glue to that bus track, compress there (as much as you like) and then bring up the buss track underneath your original tracks. You get the glue effect you want, but the original transients are unaffected.

If you don't know what I mean by buss, it's just another track that gets its input from one or more other tracks. You can actually left-drag from one routing button to another to achieve this easily.

It's also a good idea to do this with reverb. Just send a little bit from each track and it will help them all sound more cohesive (like they're in the same room), but the reverb doesn't even need to be that noticeable in order to work.

[Tod]

I think it's a mistake to call these technics common place, in doing so you're almost painting yourself
into a corner right off the bat. I'll admit I end up with a limiter in my Master-FX track 95% of the time,
but that's because they work well with the songs I'm working with.

Personally I almost never use a compressor on the Master FX, I only use compressors on the tracks that need
them. I might add that a limiter is also compressing only in a different way which can be very pleasing.

It appears your acoustic guitar is the main instrument and I think that should be your biggest concern, make
it sound as good as you can, then don't put it through any FX that will diminish it.

Don't fall into a syndrome of doing something simply because it's always done, get rid of the rules or common
technics and only apply things as they are needed.

Reaper's routing is the greatest and there are so many ways to be creative to make your mix easier and better.
foxAsteria mentioned parallel compression, that's a very useful way to compress things.

[RDBOIS]

Yeah I think I need to focus on getting the best acoustic guitar sound and deal with the rest in the mix, not the Master bus. Maybe it won't need anything or only act when things start to pile up.

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by RDBOIS

Yeah I think I need to focus on getting the best acoustic guitar sound and deal with the rest in the mix, not the Master bus. Maybe it won't need anything or only act when things start to pile up.

Sounds good, it's also possible you are simply overdoing them because we tend to expect them to be doing something immediately noticable. I've often had a compressor which eventually hits another compressor which eventually hits a limiter but...

1. Any one of them may only be shaving .5 to 1 dB.
2. They don't have to be acting all the time but just once in awhile during the loud parts and even then not that much.

The right amount of compression is often similar to the right amount of reverb, you don't really hear it but it makes a difference. It's also possible to not even need it.

[RDBOIS]

Originally Posted by karbomusic

Sounds good, it's also possible you are simply overdoing them because we tend to expect them to be doing something immediately noticable. I've often had a compressor which eventually hits another compressor which eventually hits a limiter but...

1. Any one of them may only be shaving .5 to 1 dB.
2. They don't have to be acting all the time but just once in awhile during the loud parts and even then not that much.

The right amount of compression is often similar to the right amount of reverb, you don't really hear it but it makes a difference. It's also possible to not even need it.

Hey thanks.

Funny thing that is - the art of mixing: Reverb you can't really hear, compression you can't really hear, saturation you can't really hear, etc. But all these make the difference?!

I love it.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by Tod

Don't fall into a syndrome of doing something simply because it's always done, get rid of the rules or common
technics and only apply things as they are needed.

Wise words right here.

Another option:

Send all tracks EXCEPT the acoustic guitar to a bus with a compressor on it, if you like the "glue" with the rest of the instruments but it's wrecking your acoustic guitar sound.

Automating the threshold on the final bus compressor is also an option.

To be honest, it's only really drums and bass at full whack that tickle my bus comp. I tend to end up with somewhere around -3dB of gain reduction when the bass drum and bass guitar hit on the same beat. Guitar intros would not usually kick off any gain reduction.

Another thing to consider is the ratio, attack and release of your master bus compressor. What values have you got dialled in?

[RDBOIS]

Originally Posted by Judders

Another thing to consider is the ratio, attack and release of your master bus compressor. What values have you got dialled in?

Well. For this project I've been testing out the Slate Digital FG-X plugin.

I felt inclined to try the SMOOTH MASTER preset, with has:

Compression: Attack 10ms - Release 7ms - Ration 2 - Threshold set to reduce 2 db in the loudest section.

Limiter: 0 Lopunch and 0 Details (i.e. Transients) ; Gain 2 ; Dynamic Perception 2; ITP smooth. Basically the limiter setting are not over emphasizing transients so the song is not coming out as tight and punchy. This portion of the plugin is more or less doing very little. Just a small GAIN in overall volume to compensate for the compression. I set the ceiling to -1.0db.

But... I also put the JS- NP1136 Peak Limiter on the drum bus to catch the loudest peaks BEFORE sending to the Master Bus. If I don't do this the kick drum and snare (sometimes) seem to dominate and hog all the final compression action. I set the JS Peak Limiter so that the drum peaks are more or less on equal footing to the sum peaks of the loudest areas where all the instruments play together. I also find that if I don't tame the kick drum with a Peak Limiter I can't raise the volume high enough for the kick to be heard in the mix; in other words, without a peak limiter the peaks of the kick are way too high and I can't raise the volume sufficiently. I really don' have a clue what I'm doing here --- in my world this seems to work.

[Judders]

Originally Posted by RDBOIS

Well. For this project I've been testing out the Slate Digital FG-X plugin.

I felt inclined to try the SMOOTH MASTER preset, with has:

Compression: Attack 10ms - Release 7ms - Ration 2 - Threshold set to reduce 2 db in the loudest section.

You could try a longer attack time, maybe 30ms, and a quicker release, maybe 1-3 ms. This will let it breathe a bit more.

Originally Posted by RDBOIS

Limiter: 0 Lopunch and 0 Details (i.e. Transients) ; Gain 2 ; Dynamic Perception 2; ITP smooth. Basically the limiter setting are not over emphasizing transients so the song is not coming out as tight and punchy. This portion of the plugin is more or less doing very little. Just a small GAIN in overall volume to compensate for the compression. I set the ceiling to -1.0db.

That sounds fine.

Originally Posted by RDBOIS

But... I also put the JS- NP1136 Peak Limiter on the drum bus to catch the loudest peaks BEFORE sending to the Master Bus. If I don't do this the kick drum and snare (sometimes) seem to dominate and hog all the final compression action. I set the JS Peak Limiter so that the drum peaks are more or less on equal footing to the sum peaks of the loudest areas where all the instruments play together. I also find that if I don't tame the kick drum with a Peak Limiter I can't raise the volume high enough for the kick to be heard in the mix; in other words, without a peak limiter the peaks of the kick are way too high and I can't raise the volume sufficiently. I really don' have a clue what I'm doing here --- in my world this seems to work.

Nothing wrong with that!