Do you use Multiband Compressor on the master bus and why?

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romariozen
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Do you use Multiband Compressor on the master bus and why?

Post by romariozen » Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:23 am

The more I watch videos about MB, the more implementations and ways to use I find and these youtubers don't really tell why they do that just "hmm, now it sounds better" or "now it has a pump", or "it's more clean now", I get confused by that as I'm 100% sure for some reason, that multiband was designed initially for some one prior purpose. What is that exact moment when you realise that you have to put your Multiband Dynamics or whatever MB on a bus, esp. master bus? As I can presume. due to its multiple bands you can have a stronger compression without making the mix overlilpump because of one peaking band or resonance. But having that possibility diesn't mean I have to implement MB as soon as possible.
Thanks!

[jur]
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Re: Do you use Multiband Compressor on the master bus and why?

Post by [jur] » Fri Dec 03, 2021 12:47 pm

romariozen wrote:
Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:23 am
But having that possibility diesn't mean I have to implement MB as soon as possible.
You're right.
Multiband Compression is a very complex tool, and I bet most of these people on YT that you're referring to have no idea what they're doing, they just read somewhere that they "should" do it. That being said, there's no other rule than: if it sounds good then it's good!
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Tarekith
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Re: Do you use Multiband Compressor on the master bus and why?

Post by Tarekith » Fri Dec 03, 2021 3:16 pm

I almost never use it personally. When I do use multiband compression, it usually just to compress a small frequency range while leaving everything else alone in the song, so I’m only using one band to target a small bit of compression. Usually this is just with client work when I can’t go back and fix the issue in the mix down too, so for my own music it’s just not something I need.

Unpopular opinion I know, but I think tools like multiband compression and dynamic EQ are often way over hyped. Good techniques to know, but not something you really need to use all the time. IMVHO.
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