is putting a compressor on the master a common practice within dance music??
depends really.
Quite a few people chuck one on for the writing process, but most people remove it before it goes to mastering as they will then add anything overall before it goes to press.
I normally chuck a comp or mastering suite on to just glue everything together when i’m writing in ableton, remove it and then render my stems, I then do my mixdown in Reaper or cubase, and add any mastering effects i want there.
[quote]Aapie (07/08/2010)[hr]depends really.
Quite a few people chuck one on for the writing process, but most people remove it before it goes to mastering as they will then add anything overall before it goes to press.
I normally chuck a comp or mastering suite on to just glue everything together when i’m writing in ableton, remove it and then render my stems, I then do my mixdown in Reaper or cubase, and add any mastering effects i want there.[/quote]
Aapie, I tried rendering my stems recently in order to do a mix down… there was so many tracks in my tune I wasnt sure where to start… away, I done it, and it took while, the fx took forever to output…
But when it was all done and dusted it sounded like some of the quality had been lost… is there any reason for this or advice you might like to share here? 
Depends what you’re after really, compression on the master cane be used to glue the sound together or with more aggressive setting can cause the Track to pump.
In Dance music its probably not that uncommon but many producers in other areas really thrown on gain pumping and most say it should never be done.
[quote]gofunk (07/08/2010)[hr][quote]Aapie (07/08/2010)[hr]depends really.
Quite a few people chuck one on for the writing process, but most people remove it before it goes to mastering as they will then add anything overall before it goes to press.
I normally chuck a comp or mastering suite on to just glue everything together when i’m writing in ableton, remove it and then render my stems, I then do my mixdown in Reaper or cubase, and add any mastering effects i want there.[/quote]
Aapie, I tried rendering my stems recently in order to do a mix down… there was so many tracks in my tune I wasnt sure where to start… away, I done it, and it took while, the fx took forever to output…
But when it was all done and dusted it sounded like some of the quality had been lost… is there any reason for this or advice you might like to share here? :)[/quote]
Hey Mate, can’t say I’ve encountered that problem, but I manually render my tracks rather then use the group one- which is how it sounds you did it - just force of habit I guess, from the days of only having acid I suppose but it doesn’t seem to effect the quality.
Are you rendering to mix down in another DAW? if so what are you mixing down in?
[quote]Aapie (07/08/2010)[hr][quote]gofunk (07/08/2010)[hr][quote]Aapie (07/08/2010)[hr]depends really.
Quite a few people chuck one on for the writing process, but most people remove it before it goes to mastering as they will then add anything overall before it goes to press.
I normally chuck a comp or mastering suite on to just glue everything together when i’m writing in ableton, remove it and then render my stems, I then do my mixdown in Reaper or cubase, and add any mastering effects i want there.[/quote]
Aapie, I tried rendering my stems recently in order to do a mix down… there was so many tracks in my tune I wasnt sure where to start… away, I done it, and it took while, the fx took forever to output…
But when it was all done and dusted it sounded like some of the quality had been lost… is there any reason for this or advice you might like to share here? :)[/quote]
Hey Mate, can’t say I’ve encountered that problem, but I manually render my tracks rather then use the group one- which is how it sounds you did it - just force of habit I guess, from the days of only having acid I suppose but it doesn’t seem to effect the quality.
Are you rendering to mix down in another DAW? if so what are you mixing down in?[/quote]
Nah not another daw, just wanted to do it so I could mix down a bit easier in ableton, was get very messy with so many tracks, groups, effects etc. But didnt really work… or give me the result I was looking for.
I kinda lost the mix a bit, kick needed to be higher in the mix, as do the hats etc, but will clip if I raise the vol, nightmare trying to turndown everything and do it all over…
I do have cubase but never really used it. Want are the benefits of mixing down in another daw?
I really should remember to lower the vol of my kick track a lot at the start so it dosent become this much of an issue when I complete the track!
It’s just personal preference really, I just really dislike the mixer in Ableton and the lane automation. don’t know why for some reason something about it annoys me. so I just prefer to mix down in Cubase or Reaper.
Also one of my favourite compressors doesn’t work in Ableton so I like to wallop that on the master channel when i mix down in Reaper.
I presume you’re mixing your stems down into a Wav and not an MP3?
[quote]Aapie (07/08/2010)[hr]It’s just personal preference really, I just really dislike the mixer in Ableton and the lane automation. don’t know why for some reason something about it annoys me. so I just prefer to mix down in Cubase or Reaper.
Also one of my favourite compressors doesn’t work in Ableton so I like to wallop that on the master channel when i mix down in Reaper.
I presume you’re mixing your stems down into a Wav and not an MP3?[/quote]
Got to agree, it is personal preference , you will allways have conflicting viewpoints on almost everything in music production , i work with a limiter a lot of the time on my master channel , and ive had people actually laugh in my face and say
"novice error "
then ive been to pro studios and seen some really talented and popular producers work the exact same way so it really is up to you and how it sounds to you in the end -if it works use it
it can be a tricky one. I always wait until i’m happy with the sound of my tracks and elements together then start down that road as putting one on at the start could change how things sound.
For example if not used correctly a compressor could add the previously mentioned “pump” to the mix once you add in a big bassline and you could be thinking “nah that sounds crap” but it could the compressor that’s making it sound crap not the sound itself and next thing you know you’ve missed on on creating that all important classic tune! D’oh!
I think a good rule of thumb is to make sure you’re happy with your mix before starting to compress master tracks as a bad mix will only sound worse when mastered. Each to there own though, I have witnessed people doing it the other way round.
[quote]graham ginty (09/08/2010)[hr]it can be a tricky one. I always wait until i’m happy with the sound of my tracks and elements together then start down that road as putting one on at the start could change how things sound.
For example if not used correctly a compressor could add the previously mentioned “pump” to the mix once you add in a big bassline and you could be thinking “nah that sounds crap” but it could the compressor that’s making it sound crap not the sound itself and next thing you know you’ve missed on on creating that all important classic tune! D’oh!
I think a good rule of thumb is to make sure you’re happy with your mix before starting to compress master tracks as a bad mix will only sound worse when mastered. Each to there own though, I have witnessed people doing it the other way round.[/quote]
hey Graham so do we still use the Limiter on the masters? or we do that at the end of the mix ?
yeah this is a good point.
I’m going to completely contradict myself here and say looking back at how I do things, i don’t wallop anything on the master until the main elements of the track are in there.
I only put one on if I want to get an idea of what it would sound like after mastering.
Also try this thread as it may have some extra info
http://forums.sonicacademy.com/Topic12133-10-1.aspx?Highlight=Compression+master
I used to just chuck a standard Logic compressor on the master channel, just to pull everything together slightly but then a friend mentioned to me about The Glue…
The Glue – Cytomic
As the name suggests it just kinda glues everything together and makes it sounds more whole rather than a bunch of different sounds. It’s quite hard to define what it actually does but it just sounds better afterwards haha
Light compression just to gel all the channels together is nice. I wouldn’t compress to hard though - although this depends on your style of music - as you can lose dynamics.