Using compressors on surround music

[Methuselah’s Grandpa]

The “loudness wars” sucked and a lot of great music that I love was caught in the cross-fire. Dynamic range is good, right? If compression takes away dynamic range & I have plenty of breathing room with all these channels, then how necessary is it? How much should I use?

Most of the songs I’ve mixed into surround sound, I’ve done so without using single-band, multi-band, or tube compressors. I am learning more about them and see some advantages as well as disadvantages and I would really be interested in hearing some thoughts on the subject.


I’ve found it kind of tough to find information about using compression on surround mixes, most of the info I’ve seen deals with different types of production, …webcasts/radio, tv/film, & stereo music. With stereo, to me it seems compressors are much more of a necessity; …you’re cramming so much material into just 2 channels.

With surround-sound music, you have much more breathing room; 2 or 3 stereo pairs instead of just one, …so what I’ve typically done is I make my mixes peak on the front pair around -0.3db to -0.5db max, & the surrounds peak around -2.5db to -5.5db. The total RMS though for the fronts are around -18db to -21db and the surrounds around -23db to -26db generally. [I probably should be using LUFS right?]. ….So even though they have high peaks, they’re not as “loud” as many official surround mixes and certainly not as loud as a lot of stereo mixes.

I have been learning more about these compressors and yesterday I applied a single-band, as well a tube compressor on my final 7.1 mix, …after the mixdown.

Without rambling on too much more than I have already , …I liked the result. Normally, I have to turn up my receiver a few db when I listen to my mixes & this sort of solved that. I have examined some official surround mixes and just by looking at their wave-forms, I can usually get a sense of the compression they used, …and it (so far) looks to vary greatly between artists/albums, etc.

I would really appreciate any thoughts, advice, links, or whatever to help me get a better grasp on using compression on surround-sound music mixes.

 

[mandrix]

The “loudness wars” sucked and a lot of great music that I love was caught in the cross-fire. Dynamic range is good, right? If compression takes away dynamic range & I have plenty of breathing room with all these channels, then how necessary is it? How much should I use?

Most of the songs I’ve mixed into surround sound, I’ve done so without using single-band, multi-band, or tube compressors. I am learning more about them and see some advantages as well as disadvantages and I would really be interested in hearing some thoughts on the subject.


I’ve found it kind of tough to find information about using compression on surround mixes, most of the info I’ve seen deals with different types of production, …webcasts/radio, tv/film, & stereo music. With stereo, to me it seems compressors are much more of a necessity; …you’re cramming so much material into just 2 channels.

With surround-sound music, you have much more breathing room; 2 or 3 stereo pairs instead of just one, …so what I’ve typically done is I make my mixes peak on the front pair around -0.3db to -0.5db max, & the surrounds peak around -2.5db to -5.5db. The total RMS though for the fronts are around -18db to -21db and the surrounds around -23db to -26db generally. [I probably should be using LUFS right?]. ….So even though they have high peaks, they’re not as “loud” as many official surround mixes and certainly not as loud as a lot of stereo mixes.

I have been learning more about these compressors and yesterday I applied a single-band, as well a tube compressor on my final 7.1 mix, …after the mixdown.

Without rambling on too much more than I have already , …I liked the result. Normally, I have to turn up my receiver a few db when I listen to my mixes & this sort of solved that. I have examined some official surround mixes and just by looking at their wave-forms, I can usually get a sense of the compression they used, …and it (so far) looks to vary greatly between artists/albums, etc.

I would really appreciate any thoughts, advice, links, or whatever to help me get a better grasp on using compression on surround-sound music mixes.

I like to get the lead out. I mix to around -14 LUFS.

 

[Quadrobineg]

I would really appreciate any thoughts, advice, links, or whatever to help me get a better grasp on using compression on surround-sound music mixes.

there are almost no opportunities to release such formats without the reqruiement to match a certain area of integrated LUFs.

so i would say 1. use compression and limiting wherever you want 2.. except for gaining more gain (which is always a bad idea), but in all cases do 3. never create masters which have a higher integrated LUFs than todays industry and broadcasting standards. everything between -20 and -14 should work everywhere without loss or complaints.

 

[Electric Moo]

sometimes I'll run an instrument thru a compressor during recording, or process individual channels after the fact. All my compressors are dual mono/stereo.

@Methuselah’s Grandpa what tube compressor are you using to treat your whole 7.1 mix?

 

[Methuselah’s Grandpa]

sometimes I'll run an instrument thru a compressor during recording, or process individual channels after the fact. All my compressors are dual mono/stereo.

@Methuselah’s Grandpa what tube compressor are you using to treat your whole 7.1 mix?

I have actually quit using the tube compressor, ….I used one from Audition, …very lightly on some older multitracks; …I read that it was used to give a vintage feel but I really didn’t hear a difference, so I figured I’d leave it out of the chain. Audition’s native effects/compressors/limiters work on 5.1 buses so I had been using it on a “light mastering” setting during the mix-down.

After experimenting with various levels and types of compression over the last several months, …recently I’ve only been using some compression on certain individual stereo tracks using plug-ins within the mix but not on a 5.1 bus or the final surround mix itself, …instead opting for a (slightly quieter) more dynamic mix-down.

Most of my finished mixes now end up around -13 LUFS with an average of DR12.

 

[Electric Moo]

Ok! So it's not a tube compressor, but a software plugin! Lol

That makes more sense: I was wondering, as I don't know of many ( or any? affordable ) multichannel tube compressors.

Other than using them during recording, what I was doing is routing channels out thru the ( hardware ) compressors & then back in again.

And on the multichannel master 4 channel surround mixes I'd route the mix out twice: thru a 2ch stereo compressor, then merge the 2x stereo tracks back together again afterwards.

Software would be much easier. I did end up using software as well: it was a mastering plugin/suite with eq, compressor, limiter. And you could save presets, which is very convenient.

The plugin was stereo though: so I had to do a similar process but it was also much easier ( as there was no hardware routing involved, and didn't need to be done in realtime = way faster ).

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Ok! So it's not a tube compressor, but a software plugin! Lol

That makes more sense: I was wondering, as I don't know of many ( or any? affordable ) multichannel tube compressors.

Other than using them during recording, what I was doing is routing channels out thru the ( hardware ) compressors & then back in again.

And on the multichannel master 4 channel surround mixes I'd route the mix out twice: thru a 2ch stereo compressor, then merge the 2x stereo tracks back together again afterwards.

Software would be much easier. I did end up using software as well: it was a mastering plugin/suite with eq, compressor, limiter. And you could save presets, which is very convenient.

The plugin was stereo though: so I had to do a similar process but it was also much easier ( as there was no hardware routing involved, and didn't need to be done in realtime = way faster ).

Well this has certainly been an interesting thread!
I love vibrant dynamics as much as the rest of us but I admit I've used some light compression on up-mixing projects to great benefit.

In Adobe Audition there are several VST choices for compression. One of these is multi-band compression that splits a 2 ch track into 4 frequency bands. The pre-set that has the most benefit for my purpose is called
Pop Master. Funny name but a good starting point. The trick is to cut any pre-amplification & adjust the parameters in each freq band until, doing A/B, you just hear a subtle effect. I've saved differnt pre-sets for studio & live. And honestly the subjective result is it brings more dynamics to life, A bit more bouncy & lively. And this can be applied separately to front & rear tracks as you go along.

 

[Electric Moo]

Yes the surgical precision you can get with software is a huge boon. I try to get all my sonics resolved during the mix, and then just use moderate compression & eq during the mastering.

I'd rather pay a mastering engineer to do it, but $$

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Well this has certainly been an interesting thread!
I love vibrant dynamics as much as the rest of us but I admit I've used some light compression on up-mixing projects to great benefit.

In Adobe Audition there are several VST choices for compression. One of these is multi-band compression that splits a 2 ch track into 4 frequency bands. The pre-set that has the most benefit for my purpose is called
Pop Master. Funny name but a good starting point. The trick is to cut any pre-amplification & adjust the parameters in each freq band until, doing A/B, you just hear a subtle effect. I've saved differnt pre-sets for studio & live. And honestly the subjective result is it brings more dynamics to life, A bit more bouncy & lively. And this can be applied separately to front & rear tracks as you go along.

View attachment 89232

This is pretty crazy, woke up this morning thinking about starting a new thread about up-mixing and utilizing compression to get more "presence & punch" out of my up-mixes. I just saw this thread and hopefully figured I can get info here instead of starting a whole new thread.

Briefly: I generally like my up-mixes, however they often have a fairly flat sound to them, nothing really pops out at you even at higher volumes. The whole 'Compression' subject seems like a very deep one that mostly pro. sound engineers truly understand.

We've actually got some fairly decent music that have compression already applied in heavy doses that don't seem to damage the music as much as I would have thought, one instantly comes to mind that you're also familiar with SW (Gooove Is King R. C. F. P.)

Take a look at the original wave forms:

Before running something like this through Penteo, I'll drop the amplitude down 3-5 dbs, just so it doesn't blow up during the processing. This album however doesn't need any additional compression and has tons of punch!

Since I don't use Audition and mostly use Audacity or maybe iZotope Ozone 9 for any audio adjustments, I could use some help with these tools to get to that punchier level I'm looking for.

The iZotope Ozone 9 'Enhance Dynamics' looks like maybe a better adjustable tool; I just need to read up on it and experiment with it to get better results.

Also, with using De-mix tools like DeMix Pro, It's probably a better choice to work with specific instruments, rather than trying to compress the whole ball of wax; and then re-mix those adjustments back into the other parts of the song.

 

[kap'n krunch]

I use Logic's "Multipressor" all the time but VERY sparingly which is how they all should be used...

 

[Methuselah’s Grandpa]

Ok! So it's not a tube compressor, but a software plugin!

Yes & it’s literally called “tube compressor” in the program, it’s supposed to simulate tube compression and can be placed directly on an individual track, stereo bus, or 5.1 bus.

@Sonik Wiz I have done the exact same thing with the Pop-Master preset! lol I also found it to be the most useful & I have altered that preset in varying degrees and then saved them as separate presets to use as alternate starting points.

@J. PUPSTER I think you’re on the right track with the “Enhance Dynamics” process.
I have been using iZotope’s various plug-ins on some older multi-tracks/stems; predominantly, the instrument or bus-specific presets before the mixdown, …I’ve noticed that particular plug-in pop-up in the processing chain on certain presets and I liked the results.

 

[mandrix]

I use Audition for final mixing now, probably because I started using so many years ago, and because I really really like how you can "cut and paste" or "copy and paste" between tracks, and how easy it is to import VST's and use them,. I've been using an adjustable look ahead compressor called Sonic Anomoly with a light touch, it's free and works well, and for me this one is more for setting the final LUFS which I like to keep in the -14 area.

I haven't kept up with what the other DAW's will do but with Audition I've not had any problems with up to 8 track audio and it should be able to handle more. I've been taking a break from mixing but hope to jump back in soon and try my hand at 5.0.4/5.1.4 and encode to Atmos and see how it goes. I've done a few 5.1.2 Atmos mixes/encodes just as practice, nothing special or that worthwhile.

I like to "pre mix" in Plogue Bidule, which can handle pretty much anything....I can do mix downs there, open the tracks in Audition then do the rest, use VST's if needed, etc.

 

[austinsignal]

I've tried several compression and limiting plugins for ATMOS mixing. Flux makes one that's useful. I've actually used ozone for a couple projects, but it's very difficult to predict how it's going to act, and it becomes unstable occasionally for seemingly no reason. Lately I've settled on the WAVES Spherix Compressor and Limiter and the Dolby Album Assembler EQ/Limiter. The Spherix plugs are really well designed, the UI is great. You can separate the LCR channels from the surrounds, and the overheads...they can all be grouped and compressed by group, or individually, or all at once. For big, loud rocking program material, it's challenging to maintain the energy of the original mix when you tease out different parts of the mix and put them outside LCR. Spherix makes it easier to recreate that energy in an immersive sound field. Sometimes I'll finish the mix with the Spherix limiter, sometimes not - particularly if there are a number of objects that won't be affected by bed-compression/limiting. If I don't use the Spherix Limiter, I tend to use the Dolby Album Assembler. It has a very innovative soft limiter that utilizes a look-ahead feature along with sidechain processing to provide limiting across the whole project - bed and objects. it's the only product that I know of that can do this. It also allows the original stereo master to play along side the ADM master so you can easily toggle back and forth, to check the eq/compression of the original vs. my ATMOS mix.

 

[Quadrobineg]

so it seems i revived that old post, fine.

The plugin was stereo though: so I had to do a similar process but it was also much easier ( as there was no hardware routing involved, and didn't need to be done in realtime = way faster ).

this is totally legit and it basically means that you can use any plug-in you like for any form of multichannel work, as long as you know what to do and not to do to special channels such as surround or a possibly existing LFE.

my tool of choice is (still) pluggo (yes, that means 32 bit operating systems and plug-in hosts), where you can easily load up 10 plug-ins for 10 channels and then arrange then in a manner so that the GUI of one of them will control all others´ VST (or RTAS) parameters with floating point precision.

it´ll be even easier in hosts like bidule or max (or of course, recent nuendo) but then you still need plug-in which supports an arbitrary number of channels, and those are quite rare and your favorite bus compressor might not be among them.

(btw. umma; are you named after the famous music album or do i know you from the mac scene?)

 

[Electric Moo]

No mac affiliation. Although I did just do a soundtrack for a recent Apple II video game, including a 4.1 surround mix.

Which I used compressors on...

It was very dynamic: lots of quiet moody bits & also loud bits, all in the same piece of music which could be 10+ minutes long.

 

[austinsignal]

so it seems i revived that old post, fine.



this is totally legit and it basically means that you can use any plug-in you like for any form of multichannel work, as long as you know what to do and not to do to special channels such as surround or a possibly existing LFE.

my tool of choice is (still) pluggo (yes, that means 32 bit operating systems and plug-in hosts), where you can easily load up 10 plug-ins for 10 channels and then arrange then in a manner so that the GUI of one of them will control all others´ VST (or RTAS) parameters with floating point precision.

it´ll be even easier in hosts like bidule or max (or of course, recent nuendo) but then you still need plug-in which supports an arbitrary number of channels, and those are quite rare and your favorite bus compressor might not be among them.

(btw. umma; are you named after the famous music album or do i know you from the mac scene?)

 

[austinsignal]

Ah! Will this plugin also affect objects!? I need to check it out if so!

 

[Quadrobineg]

objects? 20 years ago?

nah, i used it with a 10-channel vbap-style channel format and you could possibly also use it for dolby 5.x & co.

it was from times where multichannel did not even exist in normal music programs (except nuendo 1.5 and the more rare and expensive DAWs normal people did not have.)

i am not really up do date with the feature details of all the new plug-in hosting plug-ins, but i am sure that there are tools today which let you do something similar.

 

[austinsignal]

Oh sorry sorry - my misunderstanding…!

 

[Quadrobineg]

would happily share it but it really requires a 32 bit host and only works for channel/matrix formats to link DSP plug-ins.