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Re: AW: Mastering music



On 14 apr 2007, at 11.58, Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill wrote:

> One tricky thing here (which I've also seen on a Frisell album a  
> few years
> back) is to use compression not at the top, but in the middle of  
> the dynamic
> range. That way, you preserve these important peaks and have  
> compression
> working on that part of the material that most needs compression,  
> meaning
> the medium-loudness parts. And also because the compressor has more  
> time to
> react, which is sufficient even with mastering-style attack  
> settings, you
> need nearly no limiting as a last step.


I guess you're talking frequency bands here when saying "in the  
middle of the dynamic range"? Yes, that's a neat trick. Quite often I  
build a dedicated "multi band compressor" by splitting the signal to  
be mastered over three to five separate sub channels. Each sub  
channel is then armored with a low cut and high cut filters to enable  
only a certain frequency spectrum. Depending on the music I isolate  
different frequency spectra on separate channels and can then work  
with compression in according to the music and the instruments that  
play the main role inside each spectrum.

A quick "lazy mans" method would be to slap a multi band compressor  
on the master output, but that doesn't give you the same control and  
usually doesn't sound as good.

Greetings from Sweden

Per Boysen
www.boysen.se (Swedish)
www.looproom.com (international)
http://tinyurl.com/fauvm (podcast)
http://tinyurl.com/2kek7h (CC donationware music releases)