Mini Masterclass: How To Use Compression in Mastering (...and on the mix bus)

Justin Colletti walks us through the major approaches to using compression in mastering, and on the mix bus. Learn how to set attack, release, ratio, multiband compression and more.

Thanks also to the artist Maydenfeld for letting us take a closer listen to their track, "Killer Killer Star"

Hear more at their pages:

#compression #masteringengineer #audioengineer #mastering #mixbus #audiomastering #musicmastering #musicproducer #musicproduction #multibandcompression #proaudio #fabfilter #JustinColletti #SonicScoop

[brookesjaynes]

I looked forward to a demo and it was very rewarding, excellent difference, smoother, on the 2nd example -the multiband

[PhoctorDill]

I really appreciate your approach to these videos. You get to the core of what is trying to be accomplished in a mix and how to accomplish that in a way that is complimentary to the given track. So many mixing and mastering “experts” will just show you the parameters they use in their daw without adequately explaining the function of what they’re doing. Consequently, the viewers can easily get boxed into one specific way of unintuitively mixing everything the same way.

[johnnyvegas]

Big differences and great examples...thank you sir

[spartyjames]

This is great. Pretty excited that I can actually hear the differences between fast and slow attack compression now lol. Excited to jump in and start utilizing multi band compression as well instead of just smashing everything. Thank you Justin!!

[L.Lyubomirov]

You are the best person in Youtube to explain such in a good way...its real pleasure to learn easy, thank you so much !

[teashea]

very good presentation - good content - organized and good production values

[Keroser]

This is really really good. Literally a mini masterclass. Thank you very much sir!!!

[zOZOOO]

Wow thank you, learned a lot from this. Especially how to apply attack / release.

[murraywebster]

I find myself using Sonible smart EQ and Compression for surgical, and Shadow Hills or similar for „colour“, depending on material New Fangled Audio for multiband processing, ozone for resonance control and widening, and lastly Sonible smart limiter, as ever, depending on material mid-side EQ/COMPRESSION/LIMITING, having the Plugin Alliance bundle gives me an amazing amount of choices for compression/master EQ/limiting, basically the the hardest part is to know which tools are the appropriate for the material being mastered, to this end I have made a cascading bus system where each bus has a choice of particular types of tools and then the order of the busses can easily be rearranged, that way each bus can be quickly bypassed and the effectiveness can quickly be checked, to a long time to build this template but now that it’s there it saves so much time…

[spiritsmusicrecords]

Really nice. Good job. Thnx for your Infos.

[Octwavian]

All Sonic Scoop episodes are usually available in podcast form!
Subscribe and listen while shopping for groceries! 🤘

[philippgrunert]

Thank you so much for this video! It resolved a series of misconceptions I had which drove me sorta crazy often times :-)

[Yurkinz]

Thank you very much for a great video! :)

[big-calles]

Un millon de gracias, realmente muy clara la explicación. Gracias

[rome]

The level of specificity in this video was amazing. I don't think I've ever heard this stuff laid out so clearly. Your specific use cases are very helpful because they let me know WHAT to listen for. And then once I hear it, I can make the right decision.

By the way, wasn't there some talk of regular live streams? Is that still happening?

[kelainefes]

To me the subtler compression used in this video was not audible as compression but only as a slight change of feel... Like the percussive elements were still perceived due to the slow attack but attracted my attention a bit less so the rest of the elements and especially the vocals seemed to come a little bit more to the front...
Thanks again for sharing your knowledge!

[sub-jec-tiv]

Dynamic EQ is my top fix-it tool in mastering (FabFilter or Neutron). I also find myself reaching for subtle parallel compression in mastering, especially for tracks where the mix engineer hadn’t done much compression on the mix buss. Where dynamics are concerned i tend to try to avoid completely changing the original audio. I like to have the original dynamics present if at all possible.

[monkmusic]

Thanks for this great and detailed explanation. As always, very passionate, great man. Would it be better with long hair? I dont know man.

[teashea]

How often do you request the client to send you a different mix, if the mix they send you cannot really be mastered correctly eg - overcompressed?

[rafalvarezsevilla]

i also do mastering and i also have a cut in my left eyebrow =D nice Masterclass Justin! i love doing parallel compression in mastering to bring out more detail, most of the time with weiss ds1, works nearly every time ;)