If you’re unsure whether you need to compress your mix, you’re probably thinking about things the wrong way. Join Gregory Scott, Kush Audio’s resident plugin and hardware designer, as he screws your head on straight and helps you to understand why you might — and might NOT — want to slap a compressor on your mix buss.
House of Kush is the best on the internet for explaining lots of details and nuances about compressors and compression for you music production projects.
What is Mix Buss Compression?
Mix buss compression is the practice of using a compressor to control the overall dynamic range of a mix by balancing the loud and soft sections of each track. A compressor reduces the difference between levels on a signal, but it can also be used to add warmth and excitement to a track that’s lacking it.
Will cover a number of topics you need to know about mix buss compression including what it does, when you should use it, how much gain reduction should be employed for different outcomes, and practical examples as well.
Why use mix buss compression?
One of the hardest things to do in mixing is achieving a good balance between your various tracks – particularly when it comes to loudness and dynamic range. Some tracks will sound too soft, others may be very boomy. There is a lot of human psychology involved in making sure the mix as a whole sounds good, and mix buss compression can help with that.
First thing you should know about mix buss compression is that it controls the overall dynamic range by reducing the difference between soft and loud sections of your mix. There are many different ways to set this up and it really depends on your personal workflow.
Advantages of Mix Buss Compression
Mix Buss Compression can add excitement to your mix
There are several ways to use compression on a track, but generally speaking it is used to adjust the overall dynamic range of a mix so that it is at a more consistent level. Use it to achieve that, or you could use it for other purposes.
Mix Buss Compression can help the vocals
This is perhaps the most common reason for using this technique. Sometimes your voice will sound thin and dull despite having good dynamic range from track to track. Mix buss compression helps fix that by reducing these inconsistencies, changing them from weak spots into coherent parts of a song.