Newsgroup: it.comp.musica
Titolo: Mastering with Waves C1+ [english, lungo]

da 
dnbscene.com
, "Producers' Forum":
The C1+ series from Waves is a great multi-band compressor. You can use
various 'type' schemes to get the major work done in shaping of the
isolate frequency ranges where you want the compression to be applied
and you can specify the floor and ceiling values for the release and
attack working on the transfers at very specific EQ frequencies. The
range of control is astounding really.
For example ... lets say you had a mix, and it really rocked the house,
except you have a sound that really stands out too much to the ear at
various places in the track, but the amplitude of the sound isn't
necessarily peaking. Then when you drop your drum track down down in the
mix, you find that the whole of the drums lose the 'presence' they had
before even with a very minor adjustment to the level of the track just
to take that one sound down to a non-annoying level. After-all, the drum
sounds have already been mixed down to a drum track well before the
final mix in most cases. In the case of DNB, you probably have 4 - 6
different snare sounds (if not 15) ... you aren't likely going to
maintain a single track for each right up to final mix.
Problem is, you will not usually see an issue like our jumpy snare
coming til it is time for final mix down ... or worse not until you go
to use your awesome L1 ultrmaximizing limiter that is going to bring
this sound out EVEN MORE because the limiter is only concerned with
amplitude and every sound that has a higher amplitude (not a higher
presence) is going to be cut down to -.1 dBFS before your already
questionable snare (this is a problem with vocals and snares
particularly in limiting with any limiter - even the L1).
You don't want to have to go back and re-EQ after your limiting -
limiting is last ... say again .. limiting is last. And ... EQ isn't
really the answer in and of itself, because an EQ adjustment might have
to be pretty severe to remove the occasional over presence of the snare
and will likely cause a very noticeable inflection in timbre if applied
in a patchwork manner (the snare where the EQ is applied only to the
over present parts may sound hollow in those places compared to the
punch of others).
What is a produca ta do? Well ... prior to your limiting, you take your
multi-band compressor (C1+) in this case. You isolate the EQ frequency
of the sound that is the most present (this is trial and error, but
you'll hone in pretty quickly if you do it a lot). You try to determine
if the particular sound is more present on the attack (the hit), or the
release (the verberation or tail of the snare ... for instance a loose
jazz snare has more presence on decay and release than the attack in
most cases). In the day and age of crappy samples, you might not be able
to tell the difference, because a lot of techno oriented producers use
snare sounds that are severely cut before they have a change to decay or
release. So in essence these snares have no decay ... they are like a
square plateau. This is likely part of the problem in our example if we
didn't go get quality sounds. With sounds like this, a very slight
change in amplitude or velocity can make a big clunky difference in
presence.
We take our C1+ and we select a compression ratio ... probably somewhere
around 2:1. But we don't want it on the whole mix ... we don't even want
it on that snare at all times. We really only want it when it jumps out.
So we have our EQ frequency, we have our ratio, we now need to determine
our threshold - whenever the temper bar turns yellow instead of green
(or red instead of blue depending on version) only when you hear those
spots come out during monitoring. We adjust the attack or decay ever so
slightly and BAM ... now those spots should level out in the mix a bit
WITHOUT having effected any other drum sound - and without having
effected the hits for that particular snare that were behaving all along.
What you essentially did is saved yourself from having to go back and
recreate your drum loop with a totally different snare sound ... or with
a different EQ on the snare sound, or after changing the amplitude (the
velocity) in your drum sequencer ... and having to dump it back out to
your multitrack program as an exported wave ... then hope that you got
it right and don't have to do it all over again because you changed it
too much or just in an incorrect manner for the problem.
In these slight troublesome instances, compression is king. Some people
use compression as an -effect- ... trying to use it to make their whole
drum loop super punchy and poppy with a high compression ratio as it is
put into the mix and prior to mix down. I don't really have a major
problem with this, but I don't engage in it myself. That type of use of
compression has little to do with mastering. And if in mastering, you
have to use compression at all to fix an issue like I mentioned above,
you can't if you have already compressed the hell out of it in the mix.
Compression ratios are compounded geometrically when layered [qualcuno
puo' confermare? -- n.d.deelan] ](if I remember correctly). meaning if
you apply a 2:1 compression on something already 2:1 compressed, you get
4:1 compression. Do it again, you get 8:1 compression, and again ...
well, you get the picture. If you put a 16:1 compression on your drums,
then some joe comes after you and puts a 2:1 compression on it (hello
... radio - hello ... dj), you have drums that have a 32:1 compression
on them from the original sound ... now your drums are not going to
'thump', 'thump' at all, they are going to go 'ush' 'ush' (like push
without the 'p').
So ... I say to you all, compress only when necessary, and try to let
sound selection, mix, and dynamics be the workhorse of your product.
Please don't take this to mean you can't have a high-fi product using a
few low-fi sounds ... I know people who do it - and do it in some mad
style, but the other areas of the process are impeccable for these
producers when they do this, and they still have a way of making that
low-fi sound be an exception or feature and not the rule in the sound
selection.
Again the disclaimer ... nearly every producer has a different opinion
about this stuff. And I am not the foremost authority, I just do it a
lot and receive much positive feedback. I hold my own for basement diy
mastering for self release. Production and mastering are something to be
constantly learned and discovered as the standards change almost yearly.
New techniques are developed all the time. A mathmatician isn't
necessarily an artist, but there are some basic ideas that stand strong
through time.
-global
da (richiede password):
http://www.dnbscene.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=1985
-- 
email: goldicus1970 AT 
yahoo.it
web: 
http://www.deelan.com

 The C1+ series from Waves is a great multi-band compressor.
"Multibanda"? Grat grat... è successo qualcosa, mentre ero via?
Ciao,
Paolo
-- 
Paolo Tramannoni
Porto Recanati, Italy

 The C1+ series from Waves is a great multi-band compressor. You can use
Multibanda è il C4
Augh
Simo
UNDAtheC Studios          MeridianoZero
www.UNDAtheC.com
 
www.meridianozero.net

 "Multibanda"? Grat grat... è successo qualcosa, mentre ero via?
non lo so, io ho usato al massimo il C1. :)
nel thread poi parlavano del C4, credo sia una svista.
-- 
goldicus1970 AT 
yahoo.it
http://www.deelan.com

 nel thread poi parlavano del C4, credo sia una svista.
Non ne sono sicuro. Forse si riferiscono alla capacità di C1 di agire su
una banda ristretta.
Grazie comunque per il post.
