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Originally Posted by RIZ Records  When mixing hip-hop, is it better to mix through a 2 buss compressor or slap it on the 2 buss after your mix is finished to add the glue, and finished "record" sound? Do any of your guys know how current engineers who mix hip-hop for major lables do it?
Im going to pick up a Alan Smart C1 for mixing and for the 2 buss, but if its best to mix through it, then if i wanted to compress just a kick seperately while mixing, would i need two C1's?
Thx in advance. |
Just my 2 cents. I usually slap on 2 buss compression when I get the drums & bass working together. After comp'ing & EQ those tracks, & adding some basic drum room reverb, snare plate (if needed-sometimes "raw" Hip Hop sounds better w/o this), whatever else makes them sound better. This way you don't influence your mix too soon w/ the 2 buss compression sound but also you don't get the startling surprise when slapping it on at the very end & have to maybe change some track levels, etc. I find this is usually a good place to put it on because it's kind of at the middle of the road for the mix. I've mixed a lot of Hip Hop, Rock, Spanish Rock, Blues, & other styles, & this always works for me because I feel that the drums & bass (or in Hip Hop sometimes a low tone or sample of some kind) are the backbone of the song.
As far as what to do to individual tracks, that's fair game. Use whatever enhances them & makes them sound great. Of course compression, EQ, & effects. I agree w/ Starski saying that you can print your compression from the same compressor that you'll end up using on the 2 buss. I do this all the time. You can always tweak it more in the computer w/ plug-ins. So you can do that early on to get some good outboard analog compression flavor on your kick, bass, & whatever other tracks you think might benefit from that. Just save your original tracks you started out w/ in case you don't like what you did & have to redo.
I'd sum it up by saying that you can try putting the 2 buss comp on when the mix is around 1/2 to 3/4 of the way done but just like everyone would agree, this is subjective & I sometimes try it sooner or later & have had great results w/ all of them. I know quite a few other engineers that prefer the method above. Sometimes I'll even wait until I blend the guitars & any keys or samples into the mix & just before adding the vocals I'll put 2 buss comp on & the balances still are good. Again, by no means would I say this is the only way. The comp settings vary for me too. Depends on the song. Sometimes I want more overall punch for the song so I try to set it to get that result but sometimes I might want something different like a setting that barely effects the mix as a whole.
BTW--I have an API 2500 for my 2 buss. I chose this because it has the ability to sound "old" (feedback style comps) or "new" (like SSL or Alan Smart). It's a lot of bang for your buck w/o having to collect multiple compressors. I'm sure the Alan Smart comp is amazing though & I'm sure I'd use it if I owned one. I mostly use the "new" setting on my API anyway! Hope this long rant was useful.