Disclosure: I am in no way connected to the Mellowmuse company, or the Auto Time Adjuster plug-in. No one approached me to write a review. This is not an advertisement. I am in no way getting any form of compensation for writing this blog post. I’m simply excited that there is a finally a tool that will allow us Pro Tools LE users to have a form of automatic delay compensation, and that this tool is inexpensive.

Here’s something I’m pretty excited about. Auto Time Adjuster (ATA). I was flipping through the latest issue of Tape Op when I came across ATA in the gear reviews section. If you spend a significant amount of time working in Pro Tools LE (like me), I’m sure you’ve grown frustrated many times when dealing with plug-in latency. The lack of automatic delay compensation in Pro Tools LE can create so much extra work and stress.

While ATA isn’t perfect, it’s definitely worth it in my opinion. Using ATA in your sessions will further complicate the signal flow, unfortunately. But that’s still not even close how complicated things can get when having keep track of manual delay compensation times, or how many samples you nudged specific regions. Save if anything changes.

No more manual plug-in latency compensation. And it’s only $49.

Take a look at the website, which has some tutorials. http://www.mellowmuse.com/ATA.html

Compression is a great tool. And I love the way it sounds when applied as an effect of sorts.

But I think everyone can agree that compressors have been used pretty generously in record making over the last fifteen years. If the amount of people who hit Producer Notes because they put some term relating to dynamic compression into Google is any indication, I’d say compression is the number one thing people are interested in regarding recording and mixing music (Buss Compression is one of the most viewed posts on this blog). And I’m not even going to start up on the loudness war.

But why not trade out the compressor for automation? Most DAWs and consoles have fantastic automation capabilities these days. Why not simply turn up the track when it needs to get louder, and turn it down when it needs to get quieter?

I understand that there are particular contexts in which automation can’t do the job (which is really a very specific amount of contexts), but for everything else, why not automate it?

From my experience I find this approach lends to a much more musical, open, natural, and, (not so) ironically, bigger sounding recording/mix overall.

Any thoughts?

Can people identify your work by listening to the records you produce, record, or mix? With every project you are a part of, you should be working with this in mind. Work to establish your identity so that when people think of a certain style of music, or a certain kind of instrument, you’re the person whose name comes up in the conversation.

You should become so familiar with a certain style of music, or a particular kind of instrument, that you understand the most accurate approach to best capture and represent that music or instrument within a recording. At that point, not only will you become known for your ability to produce, capture, and mix these recordings, but your name will become synonymous with that musical style or instrument. The production will superimpose perfectly over top of the artist’s music and sound, and in turn appear completely invisible in the recording. Moreover, once you understand the rules of capturing these recordings better than anyone else, you will also know how to creatively break the rules, making for a much more interesting and rich recording.

Think about how Chris Lord-Alge is known for his ability to mix power-pop and mainstream rock, Brian Eno as the guy who produces ambient music, Joe Barresi and his ability to record rock guitars, or Stephen Street for his work in the British alternative music scene.

Just like these guys, work to become the go-to person for a certain style of music, or for recording a particular instrument.

Until now, I have focused all my posts on topics such as motivation, organization, inspiration, marketing, networking, etc. An important requisite to becoming a successful producer/engineer, is to have a knowledge of and become good at these less obvious business traits. But those skills don’t do much for you if they are not built on top of the more overt traits required, such as practical recording and mixing techniques. One of my goals for this blog is to provide useful tips on how to record/mix/produce music in the studio. So this week I am going to move away from talking about the business end of making music, and get into the studio.

Over the course of the week past, the topic of buss compression came up twice in conversation with a friend. In recognition of that, today I am going to illustrate this technique, using an example applied to the drums. Buss compression is a very versatile mixing tool. You can use this technique on pretty much any instrument you mix. It’s applicable to virtually any style of music, wether loud and aggressive, or natural and organic. However, you must use discretion. It’s not always the proper tool for the job.

If you are unfamiliar with exactly what buss compression is, it is a technique that refers to taking a group of instruments, which are all of the same type (i.e. a drum kit, rhythm guitars, background vocals, etc), creating a sub mix of them through an available set of busses, patching the sub mix through a stereo compressor, and blending the compressed signal back into the main mix. This can be done on either an analog mixing desk, or in a DAW. The result is a more defined sound because the audio material is essentially doubled. Since it is an exact copy (except for the compression effect), the phase coherency causes the audio to be reinforced. Buss compression is also a more flexible way to use compression, as the effected audio can be blended with more control. It is most commonly used on drums, but as mentioned before can be used on other groups of instruments.

Setting Up
Setting up buss compression is a fairly easy process. In my example I will illustrate the process first in the analog domain on a mixing desk, then in the digital domain, using Pro Tools. Both applications I will describe using a drum kit as an example.

Electrons and Neutrons
Working on an analog mixing desk is perhaps the most straightforward way to use buss compression. Start by selecting two unused busses, such as busses one and two. Assign all the channels for the drum returns to those busses, and patch the outputs of these two busses to the inputs of a stereo compressor. Some of my favorites for this application are the API 2500, Chandler TG1, Neve 33609, and the SSL G Series stereo compressor. If you don’t have one of these compressors at your disposal, any stereo compressor will do the trick. Bring the outputs of the compressor back into two open channels of the mixing desk, and pan those channels hard left and right. It’s preferable to use two channels adjacent to the drum returns, but if you don’t have any nearby use what you can. If your console allows for it, include these two channels in your automation/solo group for drums so that when you solo all the drum channels the compressor is included. That’s it concerning setup in the analog domain.

1’s and 0’s
In the digital domain, setting up for buss compression is just a little bit more complicated. My example uses Digidesign Pro Tools, but the setup should be similar in most DAW’s. The first step is to create two stereo Aux Inputs directly after all your drum tracks. These are going to serve as the returns of your unprocessed and processed drum sub mixes. You want to set up these Aux Inputs next to all the drum tracks so that you don’t have to constantly scroll (if at all) to adjust the settings. Make sure you pull both faders of the two Aux Inputs all the way down, as your DAW may set them to unity gain (0dB) by default.

After you have your two Aux Inputs set up, name them “Drums Main” and “Drums Comp” or something similar. Personally, I like to name mine “Drums Clean” and “Drums Smash.” Set the outputs of all your drum tracks to busses 1-2 (or whatever is available). Then set the inputs to both Aux Input tracks to busses 1-2. To complete the signal routing you want to set the outputs of the two stereo Aux Inputs to whatever you use as your main outputs, typically this is outputs 1-2. Lastly, you will want to Command-click (Ctrl-click in Windows) on the solo buttons for both Aux Inputs, so that when you solo individual drum tracks, you will not mute their returns (solo safe).

The first stereo Aux Input is the main buss return for the drums sub mix. Think of this fader as a semi-master fader for the drums. But do take note: it is important that you use an Aux Input for this application, and not a Master Fader, as these two types of channels process digital information differently. The second stereo Aux Input serves as the return for the compressor. This is just like patching the output of a compressor to two open channels on an analog mixing desk. On this Aux Input, you will want to instantiate a compressor plug-in as an insert. My personal favorites for this application are the Waves C1, the Chandler TG12413 Limiter, McDSP Compressor Bank, or the Bomb Factory BF76 plug-in’s. No worries if you do not have these plug-in’s available, use what you have. And that’s it for buss compression setup in the digital world.

Smash It Up
Now that we have completed the setup for buss compression in both the analog and digital domains, we will set the initial settings for the compressor, wether analog hardware or a software plug-in. Since we have not started building a drum mix, these settings will serve as a starting place, and will need to be tweaked later. You want to start with a moderate amount of compression, and adjust as appropriate for the type of music you are mixing. If you are using a hardware compressor start with the ratio somewhere in the range of 6:1, and the threshold at 0dB, or somewhere close. You will want to set the attack and release settings of the compressor in a way that accentuates the percussive quality of the drums. For now just set the attack moderately fast, and the release moderately slow. Leave the make-up gain setting at 0dB if your compressor has one. If you are going the digital route, start with a ratio setting around 6:1, threshold around -16dB, and make-up gain around 0dB. Leave the attack and release settings at their default state. When you begin to balance your drums, you will want to keep an eye on the gain reduction meter. Overall, you want this to be somewhere in the range of 6dB to 10dB of compression, depending on how aggressive of a sound you are going for. If you want to get really aggressive, then you will want to shoot for 10dB or more of compression.

The Fun Part
Now it is time to start building a drum mix. Start by pulling all the faders down for the drum tracks. Set the fader for “Drums Main” or “Drums Clean” to unity gain. The “Drums Comp” or “Drums Smash” fader you will want to start out by setting in the range of -18dB to -12dB. You don’t want the compressor return to be too loud at this point, but it is important that the level be loud enough so that you can hear the effect the compressor is having on the drum mix.

Balancing Act
Begin building your drum mix by balancing the tracks as usual. As you balance all the different elements of the drums together, the sum of all the tracks will change the way the compressor reacts with the mix. It takes a bit of time to balance all the different drum elements together along with the two stereo Aux Inputs. At this point you can begin more accurately dialing in the compressor’s settings. Begin by fine tuning the attack and release settings. Set the attack just slow enough so that the transients of the drums become emphasized. The release should be set so that the volume of the audio returns nearly to 100% by the next drum hit. All of this is going to be dependent on the tempo and style of the drum part. The idea is to set the compressor so that it will pump with the beat of the music. Watch the gain reduction meter as you balance things out so you can see how hard you are pushing the compressor. More importantly, however, use and trust your ears when making these adjustments. Continue building a mix, changing the levels of individual tracks/Aux Inputs/compression settings depending on how aggressive or natural of a drum sound you want. For loud, heavy rock music you will probably want more obvious and aggressive compression. You can obtain this by setting the ratio higher and the threshold lower, then balancing level of the return channel louder in relation to the rest of the drum tracks. If you want a more natural and organic sound, you can obtain this by setting the ratio of the compressor lower, the threshold higher, then balancing the level of the return channel quieter in relation to the rest of the drum tracks. It requires a bit of patience, practice and experimentation to get it just right.

Not Too Much Flavor
Buss compression is a mixing tool that puts a lot of options in the hands of the engineer. It’s worth the time investment to become familiar with this technique. But be forewarned, using buss compression just because you can is a mistake. It is important to always make sure you use a production technique that compliments the sonic landscape a piece of music has already created. Fight the urge to overuse a skill just because it’s the newest thing you have learned. As always, moderation is key.

In Use
Try buss compression out in your next mix. Try two different versions of a mix. First try it out on drums, and then experiment with it on another group of instruments. Let me know how it goes. I would love to hear your results, so post comments with links to your mixes. Good luck, and have fun.