MASSIVE Mastering wrote on Sun, 25 April 2004 21:46 |
I for one am very careful to specify that a bit of compression is fine if the mix needs it - Just not to do it for sheer volume.
Although, I certainly agree that there are a lot of ME's out there that insist of having nothing across the master buss at all.
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I say the same thing, judicious 2 buss compression is ok, nothing wrong with it. I do think that multi-track compression is the way to go though and when you need to make it punchy on the two buss it can almost always be more effective on the multi-tracks. The ME can make the tune punchy, regardless. I don't think that a lot of ME's are saying not to compress the 2 bus, just not to try to set perceived levels. It's no doubt better to set perceived levels, after any eq'ing or multi-band compression is added and most engineers won't know if the ME is going to use these processes or not. It's safer not squashing the two buss on the mix grind and allows the ME to do his job better.
Hypercompression is a correct term, IMHO, as limiting "is" compressing, just with ratio set to 10:1 and above. Limiter's like the squashalizer's which do not allow user ratio changing are indeed limiter's "but" still uses compression to achieve their results. Most variable ratio compressors these days can limit and most have infinity ratio settings (brick wall limiting). Do we really need to call them compressor/limiters? Compression covers both gear terms. We can talk semantics all day long about what to call the problem. We can change the term to hyperlimiting, but it's not going to change the fact that more and more mix engineers are trying to get hotter levels on the two buss. The reason why the ME's are complaining is not because someone uses some judicious compression on the two buss, it's because some are taking too much of the dynamics out to be effectively mastered. I mastered a cd the other day, some tunes had -5dB RMS. This is not cool by any means. Instrumental definition was highly lacking. It's a lot easier running golden gate type eq curves and multi-band to help seat instruments when there is enough dynamic range to work with, plain and simple.