SOLID BUMP RECORDS

Hey geeks, it’s been a minute since our last nerd out. The blog has been so saturated with goodies from Pleasure & Pressure Vol.2 that there just wasn’t the space. But… here we go again – our series of quick and basic looks into elements of production nerdery. As always, these columns are just a fast intro to concepts. If something catches your interest, do some research and you will find much more in-depth articles.

2 Buss Compression – The Glue
Previous Nerd Alerts have looked at compression basics, parallel compression, and how compression and limiting can ruin your tracks. Now let’s look at a somewhat advanced use of a stereo buss compressor.

The overview idea is that you want to tie all the individual elements of your track together to make them sound less like 15 channels of individual noises and more like a solid complete track. Basically you want a common unifying sound – in other words – you want to glue your track together. Some elements that can help unify the sound are using your send and returns to utilize common effects across multiple channels – like reverb. But when all the composition is complete and you are starting to refine your mix – this is the next level.

1) Set up a buss and insert a high quality stereo compressor. We use Cytomic’s “Glue” compressor. It’s a great plug in at a great price point that many feel is just as good (if not better) than costly UAD or Waves plug ins.

2) Route every channel and/or buss to this new buss. Chances are that whatever the default preset is on your compressor will completely throw off your mixdown. It is probably compressing it way too much or not at all. Eventually you can develop your own preset that is a good starting point for you.

3) Adjust the compressor. I almost always go with a light ratio of 2:1 – just a little something to provide that glue. Attack and release time are very program dependent so it fits in the song’s groove. I usually start with a slow attack time (30 ms) and set the release to auto. Adjust these after you get the next step done.

4) Adjust the threshold to where you are getting just barely any gain reduction – maybe 2db. Sometimes for a more pumping sound, you can adjust up to 6db. Be careful to not over do it – this is where you can really mess up your track! Remember to match your make up gain to your gain reduction – otherwise you might just be hearing the output get louder and trick yourself into thinking it sounds better.

**IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not mistake this for final mastering. You should not be pumping the master up to 0db! As you may have learned in previous Nerd Alerts, you should be giving your mastering engineer around -6db of headroom to do his thang! If you use 2 buss compression correctly – it shouldn’t be making it “louder” necessarily – just giving the sounds more presence and “gluing” them together.

As to when to do this… everyone has a different opinion. Some people start off really early in the composition phase, others wait until finalizing the mix. Really it is up to you – just be sure you understand what you are doing – and always be aware of what this compressor is doing. There is also a debate if you should deliver files to your mastering engineer with any 2 buss compression. I think this is something that you should discuss with them. Often we will deliver versions with compression and another without – thus letting him use his best judgment.

Later geeks.