What kind of sound you are looking to achieve? Take a look at what is available. Maybe your DAW already has one that works for you? Demo different products. Are you consistently working with the same type of material? You might only ever need one good mix bus compressor plugin. In any case, the key is to test it for yourself.
For your convenience, here is a list of all of the chosen plugins. Continue reading for the blog post and video below. Starting off with something a little bit controversial! I am the first to admit that The Softube Valley People Dyna-Mite is not what most people would consider a mix bus compressor at all. Like, it can make your music sound as if it was glued in your face, with some duct tape wrapped around your head.
Treat this compressor the right way though, and you have bucketloads of tight goodness at your disposal. The project called for some serious smack and glue. The Dyna-Mite helps give all of the music a unified character. I ended up with this compressor after testing all of the plugins mentioned in this post and many more.
That should say something. Valley People Dyna-Mite used to be just one plugin, but it now comes with three different plugins:. These features make all the difference when working on the mix bus.
I love the interface on the Slam version, too. Beyond mix bus use, Dyna-Mite offers a huge amount of creative possibilities. And whatever you decide to do with it, the plugin will deliver when it comes to sound.
I also often use this compressor in mastering. The compression action on the U73b is very smooth even on aggressive settings. It is hard to describe in words but it can give your music great breathing movement. It is not a transparent compressor at all, so as such it does not suit all situations. The U73b sounds very analog and gives you music a little bit of edge and attitude, bringing out the upper mids slightly in a very pleasant way. Link: Audified U73b Compressor.
The compressor on the TG Mastering Chain sounds chunky and has lots of character. It has three modes to choose from, each bringing a different flavor:. The compression sounds smooth, solid and deep.
It brings together the low end of the song and makes it sound stronger. The different release characteristics and compression modes offer plenty of options for finding just the right timing for the material. This SSL bus compressor clone has been around for a long time but I find it still holds up nicely. There is nothing wrong with it, it can be had for a great price and it works in many situations.
I typically use this to create just a small amount of movement in the mix, barely making the needle move. The iZotope Ozone is a full mastering suite brimming with useful tools. The standard and advanced versions of Ozone both come with two different compression modules: Dynamics and Vintage Compressor. The Dynamics module is a multiband compressor that can also be used as a single band one. It is a perfectly good compressor, but for single band mix bus duty the Vintage Compressor is the star of the show.
The Vintage Compressor is a single band compressor with three characters: Sharp, Balanced and Smooth. They all sound different and good in their own right. It is super clean and easy to operate. The great metering section is very helpful also. Ozone offers great tools for mix bus compression. The added benefit is of course that you also get a lot more for your money.
The Standard version of Ozone works as a single plugin. With the Advanced version, you get that, but you also get all of the modules as separate plugins. Link : iZotope Ozone. This plugin can do some seriously good things on your mix bus. The Waves MaxxVolume is quite a unique plugin in that it offers both low and high-level compression. It brings together algorithms from different Waves plugins such as the L2, C1 and Renaissance Compressor.
In a standard compression setting, any signal above the set threshold gets compressed and attenuated. With a low level compressor, any signal that goes below the set threshold gets compressed upward, resulting in an increased gain. The dynamic range is thus compressed, pushing low levels up while leaving high levels as they were.
This tutorial will introduce how compression works and how to approach each control. The aim when compressing audio is to reduce the dynamic range by lowering the level of the loudest parts, therefore creating a more balanced sound. Careful compression can produce a definitive and well balanced consistent mix, poor compression can cause mixes to sound weaker then they did before causing slurring and imbalance.
Threshold : This highly important setting in dB determines the level at which the compression reduction kicks in. For example a threshold setting of -6dB would mean that any signal above this level would be compressed. Ratio : Another significant compression setting, the ratio determines how much gain reduction is applied after a signal passes the set threshold value.
A ratio setting of means that for every 3dB over the threshold, the level is reduced to 1dB over the threshold. Nevertheless all compressors, virtual or hardware, share about the same set of parameters. The threshold parameter is one of the most important ones. For example if the threshold of a compressor is set at dB all the peaks of the signals that exceed dB will be reduced in gain according to the gain reduction ratio.
Ratio is the parameter which lets the user decide how much gain reduction the compressor will apply to the signal. It is called ratio because it is expressed as a division between the amount of dB that the incoming signal is over the threshold and the amount of dB over the threshold the signal coming out of the compressor is.
For example, if the ratio of a compressor is set at and the incoming signal is 4 dB over the threshold the signal coming out of the compressor will be 2 dB over the threshold. This parameter enables the user to amplify the signal that is coming out of the compressor in order to match the incoming level and make up for the gain reduction applied by the compressor. Why would you do that, some may ask? Because, in order to flatten out the dynamic range you need to reduce the gain of the spurious peaks, but by doing so you also reduce the average level of the signal; thus, by applying make-up gain you get a flatter signal coming out of the compressor that has the same amplitude as the incoming signal.
These are separate parameters but I will explain them together as they serve similar purposes. The attack parameter controls the amount of time, usually in milliseconds, after which the compressor starts applying gain reduction after it detects a peak exceeding the threshold.
Similarly, the release sets the amount of time, also in milliseconds, after which the compressor stops applying gain reduction after the initial detection of a peak. The kn ee parameter controls how quickly the ratio gets to the set level after a signal exceeds the threshold. Per short, it controls the response curve of the ratio parameter. After the compressor detects a peak exceeding the threshold the ratio will increase rapidly from to In the case of a soft knee, the ratio will increase slower.
There are many types of situations in which compressors come in extremely handy. From treating tracks directly via an insert to controlling the dynamic of entire mixes, compression is truly one of the most useful mixing tools.
Serial compression, as the name suggests, means adding a compressor in-line with the flow of signal towards the fader. This is the most common way to use a compressor. You can use it this with bass, vocals, drums, guitars and anything else that ever needs it. This kind of compression is set up by creating an auxiliary track and inserting a compressor onto it. Then, from a track or multiple tracks you create sends towards the auxiliary track and via the send fader you can control the mix between the dry signal and the compressed signal.
This kind of compression is common for drums, vocals or whole collections of instruments in the mix and is commonly used in conjunction with serial compression to add weight and character to instruments. This is a general compression which is applied on the whole mix by inserting a compressor on the master fader track.
This type of compression employs signals from two different tracks. Basically, when you apply this kind of compression to a track gain reduction is applied every time a signal from another track also called key signal exceeds a certain threshold.
A common use is, for example, compressing a bass track using a key signal from the kick drum.
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