EQ and Compression Techniques For Vocals and Acoustic Guitar
Compression
When I first started reading about compressors I was hopelessly lost. The terminology was technical in an almost mean-spirited way and I couldn’t make heads or tails of what was being written. To keep things simple, I think of compression as a way of evening out the loud and soft parts of any vocal or instrument so that its behavior is a bit more predictable. In other words, compression brings up the really soft spots and tames the really loud spots so that you’re not constantly reaching for the volume fader on your mixing board (or virtual mixing board on your DAW). In its simplest form, a compressor, whether a hardware unit or a plug-in, will squeeze the Read more
Ducking to Get Low
Ever wondered how to get your low-end right in your mixes while keeping it crystal clear and punchy? You should try this:
Duck your bass guitar under the kick drum hit.
This lets the kick drum stand out in the mix and makes it punchier. This technique is great for metal music with a lot of low-end and demand for a non-muddy low and low-mid range sound.
All you need to do is use your Read more
Multiband Compression
Multiband Cutoffs In general, you want to try to split your mix so that each region captures a prominent section of your mix. For example, the strategy behind the default band cutoffs is as follows… Band 1: This band is set from 0 to 120 Hz, to focus on the "meat" of the bass instruments and kick drum. Band 2: Band 2 extends from
how to mix drums
A quick tutorial on how to mix drums using EQ, Compression and Reverb.
Parallel Compression
Parallel Compression
This technique is commonly used on drums or vocal tracks, but it also works very well on other material like guitar and bass guitar, even on brass and strings.
If you haven’t heard of this yet, it involves making a split copy of an original signal, then applying heavy compression before balancing the copy back with the source signal.
The idea behind it is to maintain the dynamics of the original source, which works quite well because all the transient signals are still there. Additionally you get louder “quiet” parts of your signal. The result is a different compression curve, which gives the sound a different character.
There is a great article on http://www.hometracked.com/2007/03/31/parallel-compression-for-fatter-drum-tones/ which goes into a bit more detail.
If you use Pro Tools LE/M-Powered, be aware that this technique creates phasing issues which you need to compensate. You can do this using either the onboard time adjuster or the Mellowmuse ATA plug-in. See the Pro Tools category of this blog for more information about delay compensation in Pro Tools.
