Used appropriately, mix-bus compression can be another tool for adjusting the overall balance of your mix, giving you 'glue' to help meld sounds together and make the overall mix balance sound more cohesive. Experienced mastering engineers know that compression and limiting after the mix is complete can result in negative mix balance issues, so they do so with the utmost care. Applying compression after the mix is complete thus risks changing the balance you have carefully set up, so unless you mixed into a compressor from the start, compressing the mix is best left to the mastering engineer. The point is that the same set of fader settings will actually produce a different mix balance depending on whether you apply compression, and how much. The whole idea behind this technique is that you are mixing through the compressor from the beginning of the mix process you are carving your mix, dynamically speaking, through the compressor, and monitoring the compressor's output. For our purposes, using 'mix-bus compression' means mixing into, or through, a stereo compressor that is inserted onto the main mix bus before the signal passes to the master recorder and monitor speakers. To set the record straight, there is a huge sonic difference between mixing into a stereo compressor from the outset versus slapping a stereo compressor on the mix bus just before you print a mix. The main question to be answered is: Is mix compression right for your mixing style? In this article, we're going to explain what consequences compressing the mix bus will have for your music, what its sonic advantages may be, and how best to set up a compressor in this context. There are also many misconceptions about how and why mix-bus compression is used, and if used incorrectly, it can diminish a lot of hard work. After all, some great mixers swear by using mix-bus compression, while others prefer to keep the mix bus pure. Mix-bus compression can be a confusing topic for inexperienced mixers and engineers. We lead you through the minefield that is mix compression. Compressing the stereo bus can give your music coherence, smoothness and, above all, punch - but there are plenty of pitfalls for the unwary.
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