Hey fellow nerds,

I've never dabbled into multi-band compression that much, and am curious as to what it could add to my productions. In what instances do you tend to use it over simple dynamic processing like compression and limiting? Furthermore, are there any complex funky uses you have for it? Anything outside the box?

Cheers fam!

Multi-band compression tends to be more for mastering I do believe.

Multi-band compressors are HIGHLY looked down upon everywhere outside electronic music. One of the main reasons is that, between every single band, there is a section that is not affected, and, as you can imagine, can mess with tones for real instruments as they have stricter guidelines (industry standards) for mixing than compared to electronic music. Having that said, it won't really affect the tones of a set of sawtooth chords, as you can imagine.

But overall, yes, they are mainly used for digital mastering. I personally don't use multiband compressors anymore to master because I don't particularly like the way they sound. I tend to finely tune every little cycle of my mix and keep the mastering extremely simple--a pre-EQ, maybe a harmonic exciter, a simple vintage compressor and limiter, and done. Multiband compressors can also make your mix much louder than a normal compressor, which is another factor of why it's so popular in the electronic music world.

Multi bands can sometimes be used as like a mulitband distortion. Or helping with like vocals that have some weird transients. Thats what I have used it for, sometimes mastering some times not.

I use it on nearly everything to various degrees. Pro MB is a great multiband compression plugin because you can get more particular with the bands you want to compress. The only thing I don't use multiband compression on is the master, but nearly every group will have a pro MB on it, sometimes just controlling one very narrow band and only very slightly.

Would love to hear what specific instances you use this for. Is it for controlling annoying frequencies? (this is something I've been messing with recently)

I don't know you guys, but I have huge delay problems on FL Studio 12 using Fabfilter Pro MB or Waves Multiband Compressor for sound design purposes. I really need to know if there is an elegant solution to this, because automatic delay compensation doesn't solve it, correcting the delay manually does it but doing it is frustrating and stem rendering, while being the best solution I found, still seems unelegant. Also, do all of you use MBCs only while mastering or for sound shaping too?

Quote from: Zenkrey on January 07, 2016, 07:42:13 pm

I don't know you guys, but I have huge delay problems on FL Studio 12 using Fabfilter Pro MB or Waves Multiband Compressor for sound design purposes. I really need to know if there is an elegant solution to this, because automatic delay compensation doesn't solve it, correcting the delay manually does it but doing it is frustrating and stem rendering, while being the best solution I found still seems, unelegant. Also, do all of you use MBCs only while mastering or for sound shaping too?

I usually turn Lookahead off as FL (lets face it) just sucks at compensating it. I havent noticed any real quality drops.

Thanks man! When using it I was searching for Linear Phase on/off but I've never seen that lookahead button. I'm gonna try it and see if it solves it.
Edit: it definitely solves the delay problem.

Have any of you guys ever considered dynamic EQs in place of multi-band compression? I'm only just starting to scratch the surface of these types of EQs, and so far they've given me so much more control than a standard multi-band plugin.

You set up and use them much like your standard compressor, but use the EQ bands to zero in on where you want to tighten up/reduce the sound, then compress via EQ band rather than an entire multi-band area, such as midrange.

There's a free one over at Tokyo Dawn called Nova (http://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/), if you're curious. I'm in no way affiliated with them; they just do amazing stuff!