Member Dana Nielsen
MemberForum Replies Created
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Just listened on the big speakers and heck yeah man – that’s some clear, beefy, floor-tom-y low end! Sounds awesome!
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Hey @bigchrizzle! Such a great question, man. Fabfilter Pro-MB is my favorite and I use it constantly.
To me, what sets Pro-MB apart from the Waves options is the frequency bands are not fixed — each band is completely sweepable throughout the entire frequency range. Also, you aren’t limited to 4 or 6 bands, as is the case with the Waves C4 and C6 respectively.
Basically, with the Pro-MB, I feel like when I open it up it’s a blank canvas and I can add bands wherever I like, whenever I like, and can sweep them around anywhere I want, alter any of the bandwidths/crossovers, independently solo/mute each band, add sidechain input, and it even has a blend/mix knob.
The Waves and McDSP offerings are excellent, competent, efficient, wonderful tools! Tho in my opinion and experience they’re better suited for broader tonal and dynamic shaping, whereas the Pro-MB can ALSO be extremely surgical. Here’s another analogy: Waves and McDSP multi-bands are like a Pultec EQP-1A; whereas Fabfilter Pro-MB is like a GML 8200 parametric EQ. All are amazing tools with unique superpowers!
Hope these rambling thoughts are helpful! haha
Which is your favorite multiband compressor among the options you already own?
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This is so cool, Paul! I gotta give this a listen later in the studio w the SUB!
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¡Ay carumba! ¡Dios mio! What a burning band!! Sheesh… and that trumpet player. Sounds like Maynard Ferguson. Amazing, punchy sounds and clarity, man. 🙌 Love that descending B-section in the guitar solo. Hard to believe this level of playing and production is from a LIVE performance – dang!!
Thanks so much for sharing these gems from your impeccable archive (complete with PT AI augmentation)! Great tones, señor!
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That’s sounding really nice, @pat! Great work!
Will this be for a solo piano recording, or a framework for additional overdubs like bass, vocals, drums, etc.? If it’s solo piano, I might try adding a bit more of the Right channel — via fader or mono gain plugin — so the image of the whole piano feels more centered. I often tweak the L/R balance on a piano during recording or mixing to even things out, depending on which “range” of the instrument being played, especially for solo piano or piano-dominant records, so that the listener doesn’t feel lopsided.
Only other thing I notice is it’s a bit quiet as a master – easy fix with some more fader gain and/or lookahead limiter on your master fader, like the Fabfilter Pro-L2 or Waves L2 or other similar tools.
Keep up the good work, man!
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Jesse!! Man, this is so gorgeous and creative and fresh and cool! I love it!!
Love the vocal sound and textures – amazing work man! I especially dig the low voice that comes in at times to punctuate certain lines. There’s such a nice rich bottom on those vocal moments that’s really effective (a la the “warm hug” treatment!).
In your upper register voice you kinda sound like Chris Martin – super cool. Like if Coldplay did a collab with Nick Drake. 😲 🔥
And Sara on the bone? Come ON! What an incredible tone and texture for this record, and I really dig how hearing you both on this piece together brings even greater meaning to the lyrics. Also when her low notes came in halfway through – daaaaamn! That was so cool.
LOVE your surprise reharm moments at the end with your great bgv textures!! Way to keep “the party” moving and evolving, continually drawing the listener in, taking us on a journey, never stagnating. As a listener I feel like you’re gently guiding me through the rooms and hallways of your mind, and behind each door there’s a little gift on the floor of a sunlit room, and you’re like, “go on in. open it. that’s for you.” And I’m like, “really?? another gift? for me?” And when I untie the bow and open the little box new colors and sounds emerge, swirling and dancing around my ears.
I promise I’m 100% sober. haha. All I’m saying is, what fun sonic journey and a beautiful song! Bravo!!
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Awe, I’m so glad, man! And I can’t wait to hear the results of your experimentation (i.e. COMPRESSION DOMINATION!!!) 😂
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Daniel!
Such a keen observation, man. I notice the same thing and for YEARS I avoided using the lookahead feature for that very reason. However, that has changed in recent months as I’ve found the lookahead is really quite useful! (Albeit not my go-to initial setting)
My Pro-L2 “user default” setting, called DN START, has pretty much no lookahead enabled; attack around 2:30; release around 9:00. I raise the gain/threshold as high as I can push it until the mix starts to break up, then back it off slightly to a more reasonable setting. I often hold the Shift key while finding this “break up” point so that the output volume remains constant and I can easily keep an ear out for compression artifacts and distortion without being fooled by loudness.
Once I have the gain set I preview all the different modes (transparent, dynamic, punch, etc.). Each of those modes sounds quite unique and I find that for each song I find one that feels like magic and helps the mix in some way.
This would be my baseline ideal setting. If the mix sounds awesome and is loud AF and punchy and awesome then I’m done! But … if it’s not loud enough and starts to distort or crumble when I add more gain, THAT is the point at which I start messing with attack, release, and/or lookahead.
I might turn the attack faster, say 9:00, and see if the crumbling distortion artifacts disappear. If not, I’ll slow the release, say 3:00 or whatever feels appropriate for the tempo of the song so that the gain reduction returns to 0-ish by the next snare or kick.
If those adjustments fix the crumbly artifacts yet I feel I’ve lost too much transient punch and snap, THEN I’ll crank up the lookahead, say btwn 9:00 and 12:00, while increasing the attack time as much as possible — back to 2:30 if possible, or more — to recover those transients. I’ve been happily surprised by the result!
By following this process I get to keep my precious “loud AF” volume, without crumbly compression artifacts, while maintaining most of my glorious snappy transients.
Give it a try and lemme know whatcha think!
🕺🏻⚡️🤘
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Amazing! Yes! I love that trick. I was just doing that earlier this week on a DI elec bass part. Sometimes I don’t do the octave (if it sounds noticeable or unnatural) and I’ll just filter the signal like you said and maybe compress the hell out of it for steady, sustained low-end, and then blend that in to taste. Sometimes I’ll even automate that parallel “sub bass” return so that it’s more prominent in choruses, or I’ll turn it down when the bass plays high riffs when it sounds unnatural or too thundery.
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My pleasure, you two! Keep em comin’ and great work!
🎚️⚡️🙌
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Fantastic, @barrose!! Huge congratulations!! 🥳
Thanks so much for sharing the links, and for sharing your musical journey with us all!
I’ve just added these two songs to the Mix Protégé Member Spotlights Spotify playlist 🙂
Hope you and @sexton are doing great!
🎚️🤓⚡️
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Hur30TN833YNBj6auawtf?si=d1439bc182b84aed
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Right on, man, my pleasure!
I definitely do a lot of transient shaping and “management” on my individual tracks and submasters before anything hits the Pro-L2 on my loud print bus. Things like compression, console- and/or tape-saturation, and occasionally distortion or clipper plugins help me contain and shape extreme transients at various places along the signal path before the master limiter does its thang.
It’s possible that accounts for the difference in our fav Pro-L2 settings.
Also … this thread has a Pro-L2 video I made which shows my typical workflow, and also includes some good discussion on the topic! Enjoy!
https://mixprotege.com/forums/discussion/limiter-mastering-question-please-advise/
mixprotege.com
Limiter/Mastering Question - Please advise
Dearest Mix Geniuses!I have a question that I’m hoping you all can help me understand more clearly.It is my understanding that it is generally good…
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You bet, Joe! And yeah, you’ll dig that Streamliner plugin – it’s super revealing when you toggle through the different algos, even simply as a tool to compare the sound of different music services for someone deciding which one(s) to subscribe to!
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DUUUUUDE! This is genius! Thanks for this great tool tip!! 🙌
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yeah usual go-to is the Trim plugin, tho I also use this free plugin called Flipper, which is simple and effective (and shows me without having to open the plugin whether the phase has been flipped or is normal (bypassed)
refusesoftware.com
reFuse Software: Tools for music and audio creation, including the Lowender and Bucketverb plugins.