Master Compression

.. its few producers that i know of that use this technique .. its a certain way they compress on their master

i think Araab uses it in all of his beats ...

but im not sure how to in the MPC Ren .. they have diff compressors ..

ps.. im new to Akai . .


i started with FL studio .. to NI maschine ..and now i have the MPC Ren

but if anyone knows .. i need that technique if u could share

Can you post an example of what your trying to achieve?

So I checked out the Araab music one, doesn't sound like much if any master compression on that one. It sounds like each sample or track is heavily compressed, the drums don't duck the main sample at all, there's seems to be no dynamic volume changes in what I hear.

As a start off point, try putting saturation and compression on each track or sample. Set your ratio at like 10:1, attack at 0, release at 0, and play with the threshold below -10db. Should flatten and distort your sounds like that, play with the ratio and threshold to fine tune. Mabye more on the drums than the sample. It's kind of hard to give across the board compressor settings because each compressor reacts differently and the specific settings with react differently at different input levels.

I always recommend SSL master compression emulation, or for colored compression like what you posted try maybe an 1176 emulation?

But to be honest this is just a generalized starting point, not a 1:1 of what your after. When coloring I think it's better to rely on multiple devices doing a little rather than 1 device doing all the coloring. And of course there is EQ going on, nothing crazy but removing conflicting frequencies, like taking the bass out of your chops to not interfere with those fatty mcphat drums.

thanks

No problem, I only listened to the Arrab one and on my iPhone at that. So someone else might have more/better insights as well.

One major thing when compressing the **** out of shit is that each compressor will introduce distortion differently and at different levels. Most Included DAW compressors sound really digital when you start really flattening things. So that's why I recommend high quality emulations of analog compression.

i just lisltened to part of the first track too, but really what it sounds like to me is there is just a limiter on the bus, actually producing with this isnt gonna help you much.

i would even go so far as to say the first track might not even be properly "mastered" because its so heavily limited. things like this are a nightmare for mastering engineers because pretty much all the dynamic range is gone.
if i were to take a guess, it seems to me that he might've just put a L2 ultramaximizer (or any peak limiter, youtube it) on the LR bus and set the peak levels to -0.3 so it doesnt ever distort or digitally clip. they probably just used a smash everything preset and called it a day.

imo, this isnt really good practice to finalize your beats like this because if someone wanted to rap on your track, you should leave a litttl "wiggle room" for them.

furthermore, if you gave a track this smashed to a mastering engineer, he wouldnt be able to do anything with it because there isnt enough dynamic range to do anything with it.
if you look at the waveforms of a a heavily limited track, they will actually have all the peaks of the waveforms flattened, so they will appear squared off at the top.
if you zoom out far in an audio editor, the track will look like a big rectangle.
an easy way to visualise this would be to picture a sine wave, now if you put a peak limiter on it it would appear as a square wave instead. your also losing all that sonic information that isnt there anymore, so keep that in mind.

in the end, what a peak limiter does is works as a psudeo mastering plugin. thats what peole use it for alot of times. if you ever have a mixtape track that you probably wont get mastered properly, it might be an good idea to bring the volume up with a peak limiter. i would shy away from this if its for a track for an album or something like that, and i would never start of the track by slapping this on the LR bus because of how drastically it can change the sonic character of the track.

hope this helps.

thanks this was helpful

no problem man.

Some hot advice here ReeseG14 - especially damien907s comments regarding dynamic range. Today everyone wants their tracks LOUD and they risk compromising quality and life from the tracks. I agree, if you can control the dynamics in the mix, then have your final bounce (before mastering) peaking at around -7/-8dB then when you master you have space to play. Due to good control in the mix, things have better RMS power, so this can make your track feel heavy and sound loud without loosing dynamic range, and that is what can make a track really special (dynamic range).

If you can post some of your tracks up once you have experimented i would love to hear them!

m56p87 wrote:I always recommend SSL master compression emulation.

Get the Waves SSL plugin's.

http://www.proaudiostar.com/waves-ssl-4 ... nAodw14AUw

OR:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search. ... nAod5Q4Adg


You can get it 'free' if you know what I mean.

not necesarrily compression as always there are many ways to get a certain type of sound


to me it just sounds like he mixed his kick and snare out front as in pushed them to the front of his mix in stead of tucking them in behind the main sample


it could be cos ur new and u just found out about compression and u think its some advanced secret weapon that everyone needs to get shit sounding fat


but dat aint the case

u can get fat sounds without ever touching a compressor

just think about how ur mixing ur sounds during pre-production wich sounds are the loudest and how the loudness of different sounds relative to each other and relative to the balance of the mix.

often when mixing at loud levels u loose this objective over all view so a good way to check is turn the master volume down and see which sounds are the loudest at low level.

Like already stated. The loudness war, please do not get involved. It's bad practise. Really, it is.

I see compression questions a lot. What I've noticed is most people face the same issue over and over, including myself before I had a better understanding of it. The best thing you can do for yourself is forget about akai, logic, pro tools, machine etc etc and learn the tool (compression and how it works) as opposed to focusing on the tool and the tool box it resides in (ie. the daw, groove box etc). There are tons of Compressors but if you learn the principle and get into what these things do ...ratio, attack, release, input, output so on and so on. Then it will not matter what tool box you find yourself digging into. The tool and it's use remain the same even with varied methodologies.

No better teacher than lots of research and just plain old rolling up your sleeves and twisting knobs (adjusting parameters) until you hear what you want/dont want.

damien907 wrote:things like this are a nightmare for mastering engineers because pretty much all the dynamic range is gone.
if i were to take a guess, it seems to me that he might've just put a L2 ultramaximizer (or any peak limiter, youtube it) on the LR bus and set the peak levels to -0.3 so it doesnt ever distort or digitally clip. they probably just used a smash everything preset and called it a day.

imo, this isnt really good practice to finalize your beats like this because if someone wanted to rap on your track, you should leave a litttl "wiggle room" for them.

furthermore, if you gave a track this smashed to a mastering engineer, he wouldnt be able to do anything with it because there isnt enough dynamic range to do anything with it.
if you look at the waveforms of a a heavily limited track, they will actually have all the peaks of the waveforms flattened, so they will appear squared off at the top.
if you zoom out far in an audio editor, the track will look like a big rectangle.
an easy way to visualise this would be to picture a sine wave, now if you put a peak limiter on it it would appear as a square wave instead. your also losing all that sonic information that isnt there anymore, so keep that in mind.

in the end, what a peak limiter does is works as a psudeo mastering plugin. thats what peole use it for alot of times. if you ever have a mixtape track that you probably wont get mastered properly, it might be an good idea to bring the volume up with a peak limiter. i would shy away from this if its for a track for an album or something like that, and i would never start of the track by slapping this on the LR bus because of how drastically it can change the sonic character of the track.

hope this helps.

bingo....