Re: AW: Mastering music

[Per Boysen <perboysen@gmail.com>]

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)
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