WARNING: If you haven’t seen The Fundamentals of Compressors and aren’t familiar with compressor settings in general, we suggest you watch that one first as this tutorial requires a strong working knowledge of compressors.
Multiband compression is a powerful tool that if used incorrectly can instantly destroy a mix and fool you into thinking your mix sounds radio ready when it actually sounds radio flat.
In this tutorial Fab Dupont dives in deep into dark world of multiband compressors and explains the theory behind these beasts while also showing you how and where to apply these techniques to your own mixes.
Learn from Fab’s 4 unique examples:
Removing the boominess from an upright bass
Fixing a poorly recorded singer
Bringing a crushed to death mix back to life
Turning a great mix into a killer master
Watch and learn all the tips and tricks you need to know to be a master of multiband compression.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
00:00:00 Good morning children!
Today, we're going to talk about
multiband compression.
00:00:05 Yes! It sounds complicated...
00:00:09 It kinda is... -ish!
But... After this, you won't think
it's complicated anymore!
What is a multiband compressor?
Well, it's a bunch of compressors
together in a box
that have the amazing ability
to only compress part of the signal
—say, the lows, the mids,
and the highs. Fair enough!
By the way, if you don't know
what a compressor is at this point,
you're about to get really confused.
I recommend you watch
a compression video first.
00:00:42 But onward! So, a bunch of compressors
in a box that work together
so that you could compress
only part of the signal.
00:00:49 That sounds familiar. That's
a little bit like a de-esser, right?
If you have a de-esser,
you have one compressor
that compresses only part of the signal,
where the S's are.
00:00:58 So, you zone in on the S's,
and then you tell the compressor:
"Just compress the S's."
The way that's achieved
is by having a bunch of filters.
00:01:07 Let me show you an interface
that will make that very clear.
00:01:10 Here's the fantastic Universal Audio
Precision Multiband Compressor.
00:01:15 It does many things, but let's call it
a multiband compressor.
00:01:18 As you can see here,
you have a bunch of different bands,
hence the name Multi-Band...
Multiband, several bands, you know...
00:01:26 And for every band, you have
all the trappings of a compressor.
00:01:30 So instead of compressing
the whole signal,
you just compress part of the signal.
Okay?
Why would anybody want to do that?
It's hard enough to set up
a compressor as it is. I agree!
But sometimes,
a compressor just won't do the trick.
00:01:43 Say for example,
you have an upright bass.
00:01:47 An upright bass is the instrument
that actually works for the devil.
00:01:51 It's not the devil.
Because the devil is Ikea.
00:01:53 But the upright bass works for Ikea
because it is one of the most difficult
instruments to record
and mix properly. Let me show you.
00:02:01 For my upright bass example,
I'm using the Fabfilter Pro-MB.
00:02:06 Right now, there's nothing going on.
There is no bands.
00:02:10 We can listen to our evil bass as it is.
00:02:13 Headphones Recommended
So you hear
the "Doom, doom, doom, doom."
That note has a big resonance, right?
But the other notes are awesome!
That's great. But here...
00:02:39 There's a big peak. And that's a pain.
You can't do anything with that.
00:02:43 If you try to EQ it,
you're gonna make it worse.
00:02:45 If you try to compress it,
it's gonna compress the whole thing.
00:02:48 If you try to remove that peak
with a simple EQ,
like for example, say... this guy!
We could say: "Where is the problem?"
That sounds pretty awful.
So let's remove that.
00:03:16 The problem is there. With my EQ...
00:03:22 Much better! But what happens here?
A lot of the fat of the bottom notes
is gone now,
because I'm statically EQ'ing
this one bump out.
00:03:37 Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could...
Well...
00:03:41 EQ it out, if you will...
just when it's a problem?
You can! With a multiband compressor.
00:03:46 I know, it sounds weird
to EQ with a compressor,
but bear with me.
So I'm keeping this bypassed.
00:03:51 I'm gonna create a band
in the multiband compressor here,
I just have to click on it.
00:03:56 And the beauty of this one
is you can solo it very easily,
and I can hear where the problem is.
00:04:02 Let's go back to where the problem is.
00:04:05 Headphones Recommended
Hear that? Ok.
00:04:11 Every time that note plays,
I can tell the compressor:
"Look.
You're only listening to this note.
00:04:17 Compress that."
So I'm gonna lower the Threshold.
00:04:22 And then I have a Range. I can say:
"You can go this far!
You can compress as much as say,
10dBs on this one frequency range.
00:04:32 Without the compression.
00:04:38 Okay.
Now, in the context of the whole bass.
00:04:51 Hear that? Again, without.
00:05:01 It's a lot more even.
And that's nice.
00:05:04 Now, the thing that's amazing about this
is if you wanted to do that,
you would have to have a little gnome
inside your EQ going...
00:05:12 Every time the thing bothers you,
and not touching it
when it doesn't bother you.
Here, you have the gnome built-in.
00:05:17 And you have control over the Attack
and Release speeds of the gnome,
which is awesome.
So if something really bothers you,
you can make it go away very fast
and stay compressed for a while.
00:05:27 You speed up the Attack,
and you slow down the Release,
and it sounds like this.
00:05:32 Headphones Recommended
Now what's amazing is when you get
to the bottom note, it's fat.
00:05:56 As opposed to being
all thin with the EQ.
00:05:58 It's nice. So when you start
to process this after,
in a traditional manner, you basically
have cleaned up the problem
and you can start working with it
with a real EQ, like this.
00:06:19 Which is a great bass sound.
00:06:20 But if you didn't have the multiband,
it would sound like this.
00:06:30 Not very good.
00:06:31 So that is one use
of the multiband compressor.
00:06:33 Let me show you a couple of details
on this interface
because it's pretty awesome.
00:06:37 This is made by Fabfilter. They have
no relationship with me whatsoever,
I promise!
The way this is achieved is by having
a very steep filter
between this band,
where nothing happens,
this band, where something happens,
and this band, where nothing happens.
00:06:50 If—since it's multiband—
you want to do something else,
say bring out the fingers,
you can add another band right here.
00:06:59 Raise it.
00:07:00 I'll solo it for you.
00:07:03 Headphones Recommended
Right now,
I'm just using this as an EQ, right?
because I'm just raising that frequency band.
00:07:14 It is a very flexible EQ.
00:07:15 But what I can do
is I can actually compress
so that when something sticks out
within that band,
the fact that I've raised it
doesn't become obnoxious.
00:07:28 Which gives a very compact sound,
check it out.
00:07:55 It's a great way to get out of a funk.
00:07:57 You couldn't do this
with a single-band compressor,
and you definitely could not do this
with an EQ, because it would make it
prominently bright,
and prominently thin,
which is annoying,
especially for the devil's worker.
00:08:10 Another great use for multiband
compressors is a badly recorded vocals.
00:08:13 I know it rarely happens
that vocals are badly recorded,
but say it would happen.
00:08:18 Here's a badly recorded very good vocal.
00:08:21 This is the actual live recording
on a trade show floor
of Will Knox singing
one of his badass songs.
00:08:36 Pretty bad, right?
So we hear all the S's,
we hear all that bunched top,
like I'm-singing-very-close-
to-a-dynamic-microphone sound,
and then there's all these...
Check it out!
Hear those T's? Not great!
So I have here... C4
If you're not familiar with the system,
these are your bands,
and these are the controls of the bands.
00:09:04 So I'm gonna solo the bottom band.
00:09:08 Headphones Recommended
Hear those T's?
I can do something about that.
All I do is lower the Threshold,
make sure it's fast enough
to catch those T's.
00:09:28 More.
00:09:34 Ah ah! Bypassed...
00:09:41 It's a little better. Great!
Then... This band.
00:09:47 This is the part
that gave us the muddiness.
00:09:53 But I only want to compress it
when he gets really close to the mic.
00:09:56 So I'm gonna lower the threshold,
and make it a little faster.
00:10:03 Ok, let's see
how it sounds in the context.
00:10:11 Interesting! Without...
00:10:25 We're making progress!
Now I need to open up the top.
00:10:28 If I were to use an EQ,
I would bring the S's up with me.
00:10:33 Using this,
I can listen to what's going on here...
00:10:38 Ok. And I can raise that...
00:10:41 That's the Gain output of my band.
00:10:45 But I can tell it: Look, when the S
come in, when there's too much velocity,
don't raise as much.
00:10:54 Okay? In the context...
00:10:59 And there's more S here...
00:11:01 Headphones Recommended
And I'm gonna lower the boundary
between these two bands
so that I can catch that S more.
00:11:11 Faster,
and lower threshold to do more...
00:11:16 Even more...
00:11:20 Not bad! Let's see in context.
00:11:25 So, if I raise the medium band a little,
I'll get a little more balance,
it won't be as spitty
and I can lower the threshold
on the S band.
00:11:41 Remember this...
00:11:56 Otherwise impossible.
00:11:58 And that's why people are fascinated
with multiband compressors
because they can do things
you can't do without them.
00:12:05 At this point, for this vocal,
I'm now ready to actually do
some natural processing with it.
00:12:18 I should probably be a little heavier
on the S's. Let's check out the S...
00:12:23 So the problem here is my range,
which is here,
which is the amount of compression that
I'm allowing the multiband compressor
to do on that band, is too small.
00:12:33 So I'm gonna give it a bigger range.
00:12:41 It sounds like this.
00:12:47 As a reminder, we started here.
00:12:56 And now we're here.
00:13:03 It doesn't sound too processed,
it doesn't sound EQ'ed,
it doesn't even sound compressed,
really.
00:13:08 It's more a better base,
and that's what I personally tend to use
multiband compressors for...
00:13:15 To repair big problems that I can't get
with static EQs or static compressors,
and that allow me
to have a fresh base on which to start
and create a new sound
without all the problems
of the badly recorded sound.
00:13:29 While we are on the subject
of fixing stuff,
here is an interesting point of view.
00:13:33 I have here a track
by the fantastic band DCO,
Dry Clean Only. Check it out.
00:13:55 These people are so dedicated
that they push the punk attitude
to even having horrible mixes.
00:14:01 That's some serious dedication
to the style!
But we're not gonna let that
get in the way.
00:14:06 We have this amazing tool here
called Alchemist by Flux.
00:14:10 So this is kind of like...
00:14:13 the "everything that does
everything for everything"
of multiband processors.
00:14:18 You can make it brew coffee,
and solve the world peace problem...
00:14:24 It'll make your girlfriend happy for
you to stay up at night playing with it.
00:14:27 That's how good it is. Check it out.
So you have three bands here,
you're familiar with that now.
I'm gonna solo the low band.
00:14:33 Headphones Recommended
The sheer chaos of it all is fascinating.
00:14:41 So... My problem with this right now
is that the bass is everywhere
in the bottom.
00:14:46 Now this guy
lets you turn on the Mid/Side
—which is a width control—
and make it mono.
00:14:58 As opposed to...
00:15:07 So now you can have
a centered bass on your track,
as opposed to that mush
that's everywhere.
00:15:13 Then... We're gonna compress it.
00:15:25 As opposed to...
00:15:31 Hear all that crazy energy
that's all over the place?
That's because
some compressor was freaking out
and turning the bass into mush.
Now with this...
00:15:49 Much more in check! Great.
Let's listen to this in the context.
00:16:22 Focused. Nice!
Middle range... Or Mid-range.
00:16:36 There's a lot of things
that bother me here.
00:16:38 First, I would like to hear
more width and more guitars.
00:16:41 Second, I don't hear the snare drum.
Check it out in the context.
00:16:48 So what I can do is I can use
the built-in Expander from Alchemist
to go and fetch that snare drum.
00:17:08 So, the principle is...
00:17:10 move the threshold up
until the snare drum.
00:17:13 And then, anything that's below
that snare drum in level,
will get quieter.
00:17:17 Everything that's above it
will be untouched.
00:17:19 So that allows me
to make the snare drum appear louder
Without.
00:17:44 Let's see that in the context.
00:17:55 Flat.
00:18:09 Nice. And then,
I can open the Width a little bit.
00:18:20 Ok. In context...
00:18:36 That was too much. I'm gonna lower it.
00:18:38 And the last band is this one.
00:18:45 Since we're raising the level,
we're gonna have to compress those S's.
00:19:06 Okay.
00:19:11 Okay. And here I'm gonna use
to widen the whole mix.
00:19:22 In the context. We're gonna have
to adjust the level, obviously.
00:19:35 I may have been
a smidgeon brutish on this...
00:19:48 As a reminder, we started here.
00:20:25 Yup! Otherwise unthinkable,
which is a very practical thing.
00:20:29 Now, this is all about fixing stuff.
00:20:32 Can it be used to enhance stuff?
Yes it can! Let me show you.
00:20:36 Let's use the McDSP ML400.
00:20:42 There it is!
They call it Multiband Dynamics.
00:20:46 The reason why they call it
Multiband Dynamics
instead of Multiband Compressor
is because—just like the Alchemist—
it doesn't just compress.
00:20:53 It also gates, expands,
and that makes it a Dynamics thing.
00:20:58 However, in this particular case,
we're gonna use it for enhancement.
00:21:02 I'm gonna use a preset.
This one usually works.
00:21:05 So this is my track, flat.
00:21:07 Great song by the way.
00:21:28 So I'm gonna
turn the multiband compressor on...
00:21:31 Sorry—Dynamics on— with this preset.
00:21:35 This is not a one-size-fits-all
kind of environment.
00:21:38 This is probably gonna suck right now,
because this preset
was not designed for this track.
00:21:42 But we're gonna use it to do so.
00:21:50 So it's for mastering, so they made it
insanely loud, which is fair enough.
00:21:53 Let's compensate. Let's give it 4dBs,
and instead of compressing so much,
let's like give it—I don't know... 8.
00:22:01 How's 8?
Flat.
00:22:32 So what's going on? It's nice!
What does it do? Good question.
00:22:37 Because we have our signal separated
in four bands,
this band right here...
00:22:43 Headphones Recommended
This band...
00:22:50 This band...
00:22:55 And this band...
00:23:00 Whoever designed this preset designed it
so that the energy of every band
is well-contained,
and then given some gain.
00:23:08 So what's going on?
Imagine you have a regular compressor,
a single-band compressor.
00:23:13 If your music goes
Clack! Clack! Clack! Clack!
and it's too active
and has little peaks and stuff,
you arrange it so that maybe you catch
that peak and everything,
and it gets tamed,
but the whole thing gets tamed.
00:23:23 Now imagine if you have four bands,
like this.
00:23:26 Say the bass drum is a little too wooly.
00:23:30 The compressor band that is on
just the bass drum range
will catch that
without touching anything else.
00:23:36 So now it's gonna sound more even,
especially since
the band next to it
is gonna do the same thing,
and the band next to it
is gonna do the same thing.
00:23:43 Everything is kind of more even.
00:23:45 So the advantage is you get music
that's more even,
because it's looked at as departments.
00:23:51 "Hi! I'm the department of bass drums,
and I have everything in check!"
"Hi! I'm the department of snare drums,
and I have everything in check!"
Once everything is in check,
and you bring it up,
then you get
this smoother, louder thing.
00:24:04 So that's the benefit.
00:24:06 The problem is that
you get this smoother, louder thing.
00:24:09 That's the problem.
You know what I mean?
Too much of a good thing is actually
too much of a good thing.
00:24:16 So check out what it does
with and without.
00:24:48 Without. On the vocals.
00:25:17 Why does it get so wide?
It gets so wide
because this band right here
is made louder and more present
by being compressed and raised.
00:25:25 All the energy from that band
is actually more apparent.
00:25:27 And that band up there is where
there's a lot of stereo information
because of the hi-hats and the cymbals
and all that stuff.
00:25:33 Check it out.
00:25:35 Headphones Recommended
Notice that this band is being expanded,
meaning, made louder.
00:25:47 The interesting stuff is made louder
and the garbage is kept low.
00:25:51 And that allows you to make it
more interesting, and more stereo.
00:25:55 And it's pretty efficient.
00:25:57 So if I bypass this guy,
it sounds like this.
00:26:21 So you can hear,
I'm gonna play it again.
00:26:23 You can hear that... thing in the middle.
00:26:25 Without the compression,
it sounds pretty garish.
00:26:40 Nice and smooth.
00:26:41 The reason for this is because
everything else is in check.
00:26:44 If you have one band that's not in check,
you've got to be very careful with it.
00:26:48 As a reminder, this is what the mix
was like at the beginning,
without anything.
00:26:58 You know what I mean?
So... Multiband compressors are awesome.
00:27:02 Because—A, they allow you to fix stuff
that you can't really fix without them.
00:27:08 B, they allow you to really pinpoint
on some areas
that you can enhance, or fix,
or whatever,
without having
to go through too much pain.
00:27:19 C, they can really help you do
a quick master like this one,
really quickly,
again without too much pain.
00:27:26 However...
They are very dangerous beasts.
00:27:31 Too much of it
—which is really rapidly done—
can ruin weeks and weeks of work
on the last five minutes of your mix.
00:27:40 Whenever you pull up
a multiband compressor,
make sure you do a lot of A/B'ing,
pre, and post, at the same level,
to make sure you are doing something
that's actually beneficial to the song,
and not just making yourself happy
because it's louder and brighter.
00:27:58 Et voilà!
Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
Thanks! It's amazing that you give some tips for fixing bad recorded things. That's something that a lot of us deal with these days.
rickdrumss
2016 Jul 31
thank you Fab!! best regards from Chile.
composermikeglaser
2016 May 30
I really liked Fab using multi-band compression on a crummy vocal recording, I never really thought to use the tool like that.
Nicola Pulvirenti
2016 Apr 28
Fab your mixing view is always so inspiring and smart, thanks a lot!
bari_floydian
2016 Apr 07
Great tutorial Fab.
Can you please let me know if the Atoms Moved - Lovers Left Behind is available to buy from somewhere?
Really digging the music.
Unfortunately I cannot find any info on the artist and song online..
Thank you and keep on the good work
TheHunter
2016 Apr 04
After watching this video, i went over some tracks I made at home, and applied more multi-band compression at the start of the plugin chains for various individual tracks.
In addition to buss multi-band compression, It really made a difference in how nicely the tracks played with each other, and it seemed a bigger difference vs. just a buss level multi-band compression alone. Do you find that you consistently do a lot of individual track multi-band compression, or do you find it less necessary with higher quality tracking?
Thank you !!
Il Pianista
2016 Apr 02
To continue:
A dynamic eq does what Fab says at 5:05 here.
A compressor can be divided into two main circuits: "Detection" and "Gain reduction". The detection circuit monitors the signal and, as soon as the signal passes the given threshold, it must say it to someone. In this case "someone" is the Gain reduction circuit.
In a Dynamic EQ, "someone" is an eq. So "Detection" tells "EQ" when to be active and when not. Not only that, but in a dyn Eq this can be achieved gradually, which makes Dynamic EQs something on their own.
The use is very similar, though.
Il Pianista
2016 Apr 02
@Gary @benlindell
John Paterno is using the AE400 which is actually a Dynamic EQ, whereas Fab is using an ML4000 in this video, which is a multi-band dynamics: those are different products (inside the McDSP catalogue, I mean).
bclam1
2016 Apr 01
Hello
I only got c4 and pro MB.
Alchemist v3 is too expensive for me. If there is any other plugins can do the similar job of Alchemist v3?
danielteo
2016 Mar 31
Fantastic! thanks Fab!
benlindell
2016 Mar 30
@Gary
The McDSP plugin is a Multiband Dynamic EQ, the primary difference between it and a typical Multi-band compressor is instead of filtering "departments" to be compressed it uses more of a EQ like bell that responds dynamically to the signal. They're similar but slightly different which is Fab wanted to highlight that plugin in particular.
Gary Ambrosino
2016 Mar 30
Very nice video.
My question is -- - in the Paterno video I heard him referring to the McDSP plug-in as a "multi band equalizer". Here we're talking multi band "compressor".
Same thing ? Different ? Maybe I'm just continuing to be a confused guy ?
