Mixing down and compression from mpc

can anybody offer up some help. I am having trouble during mix down. When I compress the mix I end up with sounds getting muddled and lost when I leave it uncompressed it sounds flat with too many volume spikes. Basically i'm just trying to get it to sound like a beefier version of what is coming out of my mpc to begin with. I've seen countless people make really clean and banging beats with the MPC but I have'nt been able to do it yet. Any help is appreciated

kaneaudio wrote:can anybody offer up some help. I am having trouble during mix down. When I compress the mix I end up with sounds getting muddled and lost when I leave it uncompressed it sounds flat with too many volume spikes. Basically i'm just trying to get it to sound like a beefier version of what is coming out of my mpc to begin with. I've seen countless people make really clean and banging beats with the MPC but I have'nt been able to do it yet. Any help is appreciated

Compression on a full mix needs to be applied very, very gently. First off, what's your set up? Are you running stereo outs from the MPC into a stereo compressor, into a computer/dat? Are you running onboard compression? Clearly compression/limiting is good for the volume spikes you indicate, but you need to find a balance between how squashed you want your song to sound vs. those spikes. I'm not sure those people who make really clean/banging beats are using all that much compression in the first place.

As an alternative to using a lot of compression, go back and mix your beats/song differently in the mixer of the MPC. This way you can control the dynamics directly. I'll need to know more about the method you're using (the chain, what you're mixing to, etc.) before I can say anything else.

Ben

thanks for your reply and advice . I am going from my MPC stereo outs to a zoom MRS802CD 8 track. It has buit in effects and mastering tools. That is the compression that I am using. They have different editable presets for it. I was wondering if maybe I should turn off the velocity on my samples to make it more consistent

You will have better luck if you compress each instrument or drum sound separately. If you don't have the 8 output board, just solo each track and record them one at a time. That way each instrument can have its own compression setting, and amount.

When compressing a whole stereo mix, you need really high quality equipment...a mastering engineer will do this best because they have compressors that are frequency specific (they can compress some frequency ranges more than others)...plus the good engineers have expert ears and experience at compressing entire mixes.

I don't know about the Zoom recorder you're using, but often "built in" effects and especially compressors aren't very good. All compressors are NOT created equal. Good compression is very expensive.

If you use a high end compressor like Alan Smart you can Mix everything on the master outs.

I only use the 8 outs when crafting Snares and Kicks. Once this is done I will resample then put it all through the master outs then compress that shi!.

If you use the 8 outs board only do this to treat each sound with eq (Not Compression) then group all the eq'ed drums to the buss compresser then compress (the results are far better then compressing every output.

You will hear the drums sound alot more even and punchy!!!!!!

yeah the only things i compress individually and consistently are my drums and bass. i make hip hop by the way. i will eq the sounds first to get the overall tone right, then compress the kick and snare individually not exceeding 5 dB of gain reduction, then run the whole kit(kik, snare, hats, etc) through a bus with a limiter on it to get the most of the beat and have a nice punchy rythym section. same with bass, eq to get the right boom, then compress to get some solid low end. i may add effects or eq to other aspects but that is all dependent on the particular song and samples used. once i have a mix i am happy with and i am ready to master the two track, i apply a multiband compressor to make the whole thing a little cleaner and get rid of muddy sounds, then run it through a limiter to apply no more than 4 dB of gain reduction. this basic process provides me with some pretty consistent, punchy tracks.
so the lesson here is that little bits of compression and limiting here and there along the way is much better than a lot of compression at the end on the mix. you can click on the link below to chek out some of my tracks and compare them to yours to see whats up. not saying i am the best at this process as i have only been seriously engineering my own stuff for about a year now, but i think i have a pretty decent handle on the scheme of things and you only get better as time progresses. good luck.