How To GLUE Your Sounds Together (4 Ways)

'Glue' is a buzzword in music production and mixing. Here's an explanation, plus some methods you can try – including glue compression, saturation, reverb.

[MrMJE]

I need to take a sound design class, all these tutorials go right over my head

[irawardofficial]

Watching this video just slapped me out of my music post-production/mixing coma LOL.
When I started decades ago working with digital audio, we always used a mixer but eventually we all started to mix inbox.
Well, turns out that we can use our DAW's in the same way we use a mixer by using the AUX as busses like on a mixer.
You can then compress/limit tracks in stereo AUX's and have them play through the stereo out :).
Hope this helps someone !!

[prozystudios]

my fav trick is to send everything to a reverb and then compress the reverb. then, sidechain it to the kick

edit fwiw: don’t send literally everything +0db to the send. only send select sounds at varying levels

[JanMichalSzulew]

Love your shorts, but I often wish they were at least 2-3 minutes long

[ryan_]

When grouping/bussing tracks together (eg: basses, drums, FX, synths, etc) I may put several saturators on the track all with super low amounts. (Of course you have to be careful about plugins with phase issues like OTT if you don't want to negate all the effort you did getting everything in phase)

[LWmusik]

A favourite "glue" trick I have is ambience reverb, preferrably so short that you basically can't hear it. And then you send almost every track to it, which gives them all something in common

[LucidLightsss]

Combinations of these are really fun to. Reverb>Saturation can have some really neat results

[ALEKSANDRILINYKH]

Thank you for providing examples with Standart Ableton Plugins as well!!

[Mad_Speed]

Something I don’t see talked about a lot is that the inherent saturation of compression is one of the biggest parts of gluing. Saturating multiple sounds together caused intermodulation; this creates harmonics that are homogenous to all sounds in the bus/group - literally connecting all of the sounds together on a psychoacoustic level like glue

[정호진-qm]

In fact, when we compress or saturate the sound, the THD(Total Harmonic Distortion) is created. In every sources which THD is made share the same harmony, so they glue together.

[dzaxys]

I'd already been doing this but never knew what they mean by glu till now thanx

[lucassmusicofficial]

Well I’ll also say this, it is all perceived volume/dynamic based. A great way to glue things can come from inverting a signals phase, sending it to another sample and expand the signal against that with an EQ, or you can basically have a signal attenuate on a certain frequency like a bass which is side chained to the kick, so make sure you know your routing, because it’s effectively side chained to both, and then on another part of the frequency use an expander, there’s a bunch of ways to “glue” things, not just group processing, most refer it to this, just ask if compression on a group is the best action for your goal, and trust your ears, and go from there.

[trashultra]

I never even used the term glue, but i always route certain sounds together to a seperate mixer track and apply reverb to that track so they are in the same "room"

[suddhalaksana]

i've been wondering this thing for years, seeking words to define this and finaly i have found it because of your content popped out of nowhere. this is such a big help for me, thank you so much!

[eranmadi]

I'm really loving to send the waves ssl console master buss glue compressor plugin on the master mix buss main output, and it's glue my music multitracks Channels enhancer compression all over the mix together ❤

[Aligator_maid_waifu]

If this man was ever in a room with Au5 the musical world would not survive

[RobertKgma]

Envelope followed stereo noise on drums, followed by saturation. Welds them puppies together

[norwardradtke]

remember everyone, if it aint broke, don't fix it. Don't solve problems that arent there. Every plugin you add adds digital artifacts/phase changes etc etc that denegrate your sound. as well as only processing the frequency range(s) I need on a sound. Like Multi-band compression but using other time based effects instead, if that makes sense.

[SelfPoisonBand]

SSL bus compression on the mix buss and leaving all else to editing before mixing. like time cutting.

[joelou]

super helpful to remember to apply all these. thanks again for all the great tips!