Are you having trouble finding that right amount of compression to make your gel mix without creating a noticeable “pumping” volume effect? Multiband compression may be just what you need.
Multiband compressors allow you to control several different bands, or hz ranges, separately to give you more control over a track’s or mix’s levels. The signal is fed into the compressor, splits into (generally) three ranges, then recombined. These ranges can usually can set manually so you can fine-tune the upper, mid and lower registers. With these additional controls, you can alter the compression of the peaks (or overall dynamic level) as you would with a normal compressor. The advantage with this is the ability to cut high peaks if they’re throwing off your mix, causing pumping, without having to alter the bass or mid ranges.
This practice is especially useful in mastering, as most individual instruments’ ranges are fairly limited in comparison to a full mix. For example, you can increase the mid range compression to lift vocals out of a problem mix without squishing the bass, or increase the thump of your beats without affecting the top end.
As always, remember to place a limiter after your compressor to prevent digital clipping.
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