The Bus Compression Framework

The Bus Compression Framework
The set and forget way to get an instantly

professional sounding mix
Nathan Nyquist
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The Bus Compression Framework:
The set and forget way to get an instantly professional sounding mix
Copyright © 2018 Nathan Nyquist. All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 9781981060757

Table of Contents
A Mastering Engineer’s Secret Weapon
What is Bus Compression?
Mixing in the Pocket
Paradigm #1: Blend vs. Contrast
Paradigm #2: Front to Back Mixing
The Main Tools of Pocket Compression
What is Dynamic Similarity and Why is it Important?
Slingshotting the Back Zone
Why Do We Call It Pocket Compression?
Using Limiters on the Front/Back Pockets
The Importance of Limiting Your Drums
Bus Compressing Your Master
Mixing Into Saturation
Mixing Into Bus Compression
Bus Compression on Reverb
Reaching Compression Nirvana

A Mastering Engineer’s Secret Weapon
A big reason musicians fork over tons of money to mastering engineers has to do
with the fact that when a mix is finished it still doesn’t sound professional.
Mastering engineers are generally hush-hush about what they do to give a mix
that pro sound. But what if I could show you exactly how to get that vibrant,
lush, 3-dimensional, radio-ready sound before doing any mastering?
What if there was a stupidly simple way to literally glue instruments together
and make your mixes sound amazing even before you’ve done any real mixing?
You would literally be able to select instruments and drop them into a session
and they would immediately sound like they belong.
This sounds almost too good to be true and it wasn’t until recently that I believed
that as well.
In the beginning I showed one of my advanced producer buddies how to do this
type of bus compression and when he sent me before and after recordings the
improvement was night and day.
Unfortunately I still didn’t believe anyone could learn this technique because he
was pretty experienced and so his mixing was already on point.
There’s a weird belief that’s perpetuated by mixers/producers/engineers upon
one another that to get to the highest skill levels there are no shortcuts, only pain
and once you have accepted the pain, become fueled by it, molded by it, that you
can finally become the psychologically-tilted, grammy award winning mixer you
were meant to be.
But it wasn’t until I showed this technique to an intermediate student that I
realized “Holy S#it, this actually works for other people.”
This student was going through the adolescent mixing phase of overly clean
mixes. And so as it goes with overly clean mixes, his mixes were so clean, they
were sterile. Part of music is chaos and if you suck out all of the chaos its spirit
dies.
Nonetheless, sterile mixes are actually a really good sign because it means
you’ve achieved a high level understanding of subtractive EQ. But as many
experienced mixers know, it’s mastering the additive part of mixing that is a bit
more difficult.
Anyway so I had shown my student the exact bus compression setup that I use.
A couple days later he sent me an email with his before and after. The difference
between them was so heavenly that I was convinced he had gone through and
remixed at the individual track level. He said “No, not really all I did was
subtract a little more from a pad because it actually created more space.”
I was dumfounded, I said “Wait you subtracted even more?!”
Now this was a mix which previously was sterile and too clean. If the
prescription wasn’t more cowbell then it was certainly going to be more additive
EQ.
Yet here he was routing everything through my 5-Bus setup and getting these
divine results and STILL feeling the need to subtract more. That was pretty
much the moment I realized I had a pretty cool shortcut to share with you.
As you’ll be learning I setup 5 bus compression groups in advance so I’m always
mixing into bus compression. That means the moment an instrument is added to
my session it’s routed to its corresponding group which automatically gives it
that professional sheen, effortlessly placing it with the mix.
Now I’ve literally been using this exact bus compression setup for the past few
years and never felt the need to touch it because it works. It’s responsible for
70% of the distinctly professional sheen we keep paying mastering engineers for.
Obviously you’ll still want to have your individual track mixing down—that’s
just a given.
As you’ll discover later on this “professional sheen” is really just the natural
saturation characteristics that bus compressors add to sounds running through
them. That being said there’s a particular set of ways that each of the 5 bus
compression groups must be configured otherwise this professional sheen will
fall apart and actually make your mixes sound worse.
The technique of Bus compression I’m going to be giving you is generally
presented as an advanced technique. But in this book I’m going to show you that
alongside The 3-Space Reverb Framework it’s the most simple and formulaic
technique there is. Not everything in mixing can be a shortcut, but according to
my students this book and The 3-Space Reverb Framework are literally
copy/paste shortcuts to instantly awesome mixes.
What I’m going to be presenting you is referred to as “mixing into bus
compression.” It’s a two-step, set and forget technique that will literally give
your mixes that professional sound even before you’ve started mixing.
If you’re a producer, as you put together a track this will make your sample and
instrument choices automatically fit together and so there will be less on the fly
mixing for you to do. As a result, not only will mixes come together more easily
but they will feel more organic as the process unfolds.
Bus compression isn’t nearly as complicated as individual track compression.
Bus compression is only meant to do two things:
1. Glue instruments together.
2. Allow us to manipulate the overall transient and volume characteristics of
entire groups. By precisely manipulating these dynamic characteristics we
can literally push instrument groups apart creating more depth.
Now in order for this guide to fully benefit you, you’ll want at least a basic
understanding of EQ and Compression. I say this because you’ll want some
understanding of the power of the “less is more mixing philosophy” and
subtractive EQ in order for this book to maximally benefit you.
That being said if you’re just starting out this book will still help because even
though you might still be learning EQ and Compression you really want to use
them in the context of mixing with bus compression because it will save you a
lot of the stress along the way.
If you would like to establish a simple and effective understanding of EQ and
Compression, then check out The EQ and Compression Formula. It’s a straight
to the point reference manual on how to use EQ and Compression as well as how
to go about using them together.
Now with that I want for you to remember that repetition is the mother of
learning and so throughout this book certain concepts will be repeated in a
variety of ways so that you can learn what you need. So let’s start by explaining
what bus compression is.

What is Bus Compression?
Before we get ahead of ourselves I need to give you a quick definition. I want
you to know that buses are the same exact thing as groups. Just in case you
weren’t already aware of this because I’m going to be using those two words
interchangeably throughout this book. So:
Buses = Groups
Now you’ve probably already heard the phrase “mixing in the pocket.” And
even though this book is about bus compression, to me bus compression really
means pocket compression. Here’s why.
Bus compression is an accurate term, but it tells you practically nothing useful
about what is actually going on with the technique or the result that it gives you.
Because of this I’m going to redefine bus compression as pocket compression. A
compression pocket is just a group of instruments that are all being affected by
the same compressor.
The reason I call it pocket compression is because it creates something like an
elastic balloon around all instruments in a given group. This elastic balloon has
the effect of squeezing all the instruments in that group together. By squeezing
the instruments together it gives our ears the impression that they are all gelling
or gluing together.
The act of squeezing the instruments together is what forces them into a pocket
because anytime an instrument tries to escape its pocket it will be squeezed back
into place by our pocket compressor.
Later on I’ll go much deeper into how these instruments are being squeezed
together and what’s actually preventing them from leaving their pocket.
For now, just remember that squeezing and forcing instruments into a pocket is
what we are after with bus compression.

Mixing in the Pocket
“Mixing in the pocket” is the ability to create zones, or distinct spaces in your
mix. The most common way that we create pockets in our mixes is with EQ.
I’m sure you’re at least somewhat aware of the frequency yin-yang EQ
technique. It’s the simplest illustration of how to create a frequency pocket.
Now just to clarify, I’ve presented the idea of pocket mixing in two forms, they
are:
1. Frequency Pocket = EQing
2. Compression Pocket = Bus Compression
These are both pockets, but they are achieved in slightly different ways.
The only thing I want you to remember is that a compression pocket is designed
to intensify and solidify the frequency pockets you’ve already carved with EQ.
For this to work you need to be somewhat proficient with EQ.
Alright so let's explore the frequency yin-yang technique a little deeper now. The
frequency yin-yang is when you have two competing instruments, say a vocalist
and a violin playing at the same time. We want these two instruments to play
together, but it’s well known that a vocalist and a violin naturally cover the same
frequencies and so they will compete with each other.
In order to create space for the vocalist’s voice to come through we would
employ the frequency yin-yang.
Since the most important frequency range for intelligibility of the human voice is
2khz - 3khz, we would use an EQ to create a dip (subtract volume) in this
frequency range of the violins. For the vocalist we would do the opposite by
boosting that same frequency so they become ever more present.
So the frequency cut/boost is mirrored between both sources. In essence we are
carving out a pocket when we subtract from the violins with EQ, and we are
further exaggerating the existence of that pocket when we boost the vocalist’s
voice.
The frequency yin-yang is a great technique, and it’s an excellent example to
help us understand how to create a pocket. However, I will say that in most
scenarios like this I’m generally subtracting from the violins and that’s usually
enough because vocal mics tend to be a little hyped in the 2-3k range anyway.
If you didn’t do this yin-yang technique then the two instruments would compete
for dominance and clarity. This competition would cause the sounds of both
instruments to blend together, creating a mush of competing frequencies.
Now before we get into the actual pocket compression technique, we need to run
you through some of the basic paradigms that will help you become crystal clear
on what we’re after.
I’ve ordered the following paradigms so they build off each other in the most
natural way possible. For this reason we’re going to begin by talking about the
blend vs. contrast paradigm.

Paradigm #1: Blend vs. Contrast
Blend and Contrast are the two fundamental forces of mixing. I want you to
begin to approach your mixes in terms of whether you are trying to achieve a
blend of instruments or a contrast between instruments.
As it turns out, the actual end result of the frequency yin-yang technique from
earlier is a minimization of undesirable blending. That means a decrease in the
amount of competition happening between instruments, thus creating more
separation.
As instruments compete less and less for a space you get increasing levels of
contrast.
In our frequency yin-yang example contrast is the resulting difference of
intensity between instruments in a given frequency range.
In a given frequency range, the greater the difference of intensity between two
instruments the more contrast you’ll have.
An example of this ‘difference of intensity’ would be the difference in color
contrast between white/black and grey/black. Everyone knows that white
contrasts more with black than does the color grey.
If audio mixers were painters they would be choosing which shade of color they
wanted, but as mixers we are choosing how intense or not intense we want
things to be.
Intensity means loudness.
If we make the mistake of allowing everything to be intense in the same place at
the same time, then we get an overwhelmingly mushy blend of competing
instruments.
So what we learn to do with EQ is to subtract intensity in a given frequency
range. This creates more separation which means we are creating more contrast.
Removing unwanted instrument blending is like looking up at the moon during
the daytime when it’s least visible, and since you’re the god of music you can
snap your fingers and turn the day into night. At night the moon literally pokes
out in the sky because it no longer needs to compete with the intensity of the
sun.

This brings us to our first point:
In music contrast intensifies as blending decreases.
As you reduce the amount of blend happening in a frequency range you get
more contrast in its place. These are the two fundamental forces of mixing. This
is your yin and yang, and it’s much more important that you master these first.
So why am I going so deep into the meaning of blend and contrast? That’s
because in particular contrast is the secret to a massive, 3-dimensional mix.
Contrast is also easy for us to perceive which means it's easier to achieve.
In the context of music, contrast is also the most artificial result because it
requires deliberate choices in timbre selection and mix decisions in order to be
achieved.
By default a mix will automatically blend together as you add more instruments
to it.
A mix that is entirely blended together will be no better than taking a steak
dinner with potatoes and string beans, blending it together and still hoping to get
the same satisfaction as you drink it down.
The bus compression formula I’m going to give you will show you how to create
5 distinct types of compression pockets. These 5 types of compression pockets
will allow you to create more precise levels of blend and contrast in your mixes.
By knowing exactly how to configure compression for each of these pockets
you’ll not only create more depth in your mixes, but you’ll also be gluing
instruments together in a way that gives your mix the ultimate professional
sound.
My students have said this bus compression formula coupled with the The 3-
Space Reverb Framework completely transforms their mixes in ways they
thought would take years to learn. They're right, it took me about 5 years to
figure this out. And then like a jerk I kept it a secret because of all the frustration
that preceded it.
I’ve had many “creative” types tell me not to give my techniques away. They all
suffer from the same lame, limiting beliefs because growing is about sharing. If
I’m not sharing then I’m not growing, I’m sheltering.
Anyway I’m literally going to be giving you the cheat code to a pro mix. I’m
going to give you the exact numerical parameters to setup bus compression so
you'll never have to think about it again. You’ll simply experience the benefits
and from there wherever you go is up to you.

Paradigm #2: Front to Back Mixing
Since we’ll be placing instruments in Front and Back Pockets of our mix it’s
time I tell you about the Front to Back mixing paradigm.
The front to back mixing paradigm is about knowing whether you want
instruments placed up front or in the back of your mix.
I should say that the Front to Back mixing paradigm is the EXACT same thing
as Contrast and Blend, in that order.
So the Front of your Mix is the result of Contrast, and the back of your mix is
the result of Blending. This means you have:
Front = Contrast
Back = Blend
Now I don’t mention the middle region at first because the middle region of
your mix is always configured relative to the front and back regions. Without a
strong Front to Back foundation, it’ll be a cold day in hell before you figure out
the settings of your middle space.
That being said, in the 3-Space Reverb Framework I mention how the middle
space reverb literally has numerical values that are somewhere in between your
Front and Back space reverbs. You’ll notice this is equally true when we start
configuring bus compression settings for instruments that aren't positioned in the
front or back spaces of our mix.
A part of me still can’t believe this works, but it does and it makes sense because
these processors rely on math. In the same way 1 inch is shorter than 10 inches
and 5 inches is somewhere in the middle, it’s the same way we’ll be configuring
pocket compression to achieve divine levels of Front and Back Separation.
Now I should say that Blend and Contrast is more of an artsy, going after a feel
way of describing a mix. Your experience of these two things will be pretty open
to interpretation. But as you become a more skilled artist it will probably
resonate more than front to back mixing which is just a more concrete way of
understanding blend and contrast.

The reason I’ve equated Front/Back to Contrast/Blend is because our ears use
contrast to figure out important things like distance and location of sound
sources.
It could be that it’s the difference between the sound of your breathing and the
sound of cars in the distance that lets you know you’re here and they’re over
there.
But audio engineers would also say it’s the fact that things far away have more
high frequency drop off than things which are close and audio wizards agree
with this.
It’s the contrast in high frequency content between things which are close and
things that are far that allows us to perceive distance.
This is what contrast gives us, the ability to perceive range and depth.
However, if everything is contrasting in your music, then a mix will sound all
over the place. So there is a balance.
I find that I prefer something like a 70% blend to 30% contrast. That means 70%
of the instruments are blending with each other creating a solid wall for our
lead/contrasting instruments to bounce off of. The effect of the instruments
bouncing off this wall and into your ears creates massive perceived depth.
This is because the nature of something contrasting against a backdrop of
blended instruments is that it literally pops out of you.

The Main Tools of Pocket Compression
In pocket compression we will be relying on just 1 class of compressor generally
known as bus compressors.
It’s important to understand that some compressors are better suited for the task
of pocket compression than others. In particular SSL style compressors, Opto
Compressors, and Vari-Mu Compressors.
The reason these compressors do a better job is because they’re specifically
designed to act on entire groups of instruments.
The average workhorse compressor has much faster attack and release behavior
than your bus compressor. This allows them to be very flexible and powerful at
the individual track mixing level, but they aren’t so good for handling the
chaotic dynamics of many different instruments coming together at the same
time.
Conversely the behavior of a designated bus compressor such as an SSL
compressor is specifically designed to act transparently on many instruments at
the same time. As such it actually enhances the way instruments come together
instead of creating the weird dynamic, pumping artifacts that a regular
compressor would.
My favorite style bus compressor to use is an SSL Compressor by a well-known
company, I believe it trounces other well known companies SSL compressors.
You’ll find the details for it at the end of this book in my personal plugin list.
Why have I included my personal plugin list? Because, like many budding
producers/engineers I went through the phase of having 10 different
compressors, 10 different EQs—just way too many options. It was way too
difficult to know when to use what and my mixes ended up sounding like shit
because of this. Once I realized this I set out to cull my overwhelmingly large
plugin list.
Now I’ve got just a few compressors, a couple EQ’s and if I have a multiple
plugins for the same job I’ve categorized them for very specific uses. There is no
overlap for jobs and I’ve become insanely efficient and quick with my mixing.
I feel this is valuable because again this took me years and a lot of money to
figure out. Because of this I’ve included a list of only the plugins I’ve been

consistently using for 3 or more years.
Now you could experiment with anything for the job of bus compression but just
be aware that there’s a reason SSL compressors are the most popular compressor
when it comes to the job of bus compression.
We will be using compression in a group or bus format. This is the extent of the
meaning of the term ‘bus compression,’ which as I’ve already mentioned, I find
to be a useless term.
Now I want to tell you about the two main purposes of pocket compression:
The 1st purpose of pocket compression is to create what I call Dynamic
Similarity between all instruments in a group.
You’ve already heard of dynamic similarity before, just under a different term.
It’s most frequently referred to as “the glue,” which is one of the very desirable
effects of bus compression.
I choose to call it dynamic similarity because it’s the actual effect that’s
happening as a result of bus compression. I'll be explaining dynamic similarity
much deeper later on.
The 2nd purpose of pocket compression is to manipulate the volume
characteristics of each group in such a way that different groups will push each
other apart. This creates contrast, which means more depth and more space in
your mix.
At the most essential level if you have just the front and back compression
pockets figured out, then your mixes will become heavenly.

What is Dynamic Similarity and Why is it Important?
As you’ll remember, dynamic similarity is referred to as “the glue” that brings
instruments together into a more cohesive and natural relationship. But why is
cohesion important to begin with?
Cohesion is important because in our perceptions everything is connected by
similarity. If you’re in a room, every sound you hear plays against that room’s
reverberant qualities.
When you’re out walking around during the day you’ll see everything bathed by
the same source of sunlight.
The glue effect we’re talking about is just like if you’ve ever cooked a dish with
many herbs and seasonings, but couldn't taste them in the final product.
You’ll need something to not only bring out all the flavors, but to also bring
them together cohesively. You may have guessed that I’m talking about salt
here. It does all those things: it brings out flavors and glues them together.
Pocket Compression glues instruments together in the same way that adding salt
brings a dish together. It gives everything that same wonderful, salty character,
while also amplifying the intensity of the flavors that are already there.
Now while we’ll be using pocket compression to bring instruments together, I
will also be showing you how it can be used to push different groups apart.
For the longest time I wondered why instruments in a group became glued
together after bus compression. The glue effect is not just the subtle saturation
that gets imparted on instruments which gives them tonal similarity. It’s also the
fact that bus compression affects the dynamics of all instruments in that group in
about the same way.
This is why I say it gives dynamic similarity to all instruments in a group.
Now, dynamics is a bit of tricky word because its gets used in a lot of different
ways by people who assume they’re talking about the same thing. So let me give
you my definition because I want you to know what I mean when I say dynamic
similarity.
In The EQ and Compression Formula, I redefined a compressor as just an
automatic volume fader.

Just like your finger on a fader, all a compressor does is turn down the volume
when a sound gets too loud. It will then turn the volume back up when the sound
gets quiet again.
This means a compressor is capable of increasing/decreasing volume without the
need for your finger on a fader which is why we call it an automatic volume
fader.
If we take one of these automatic volume faders, and apply it to a grouping of
instruments, then we can start to understand what is actually happening when
that group of instruments gets forced into a pocket with compression.
Every instrument or simultaneous playing of instruments which is loud enough
to trigger compression will cause our automatic volume fader to move up/down
as compression occurs.
The rate, speed and times at which our automatic volume fader is told to move is
determined by the particular Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release settings we’ve
selected. These settings are literally responsible for the particular behavior of
your automatic volume fader.
Because our Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release settings are fixed it means
that the behavior of our automatic volume fader will follow a distinct and
repeated style of movement with relation to the instruments triggering it.
The repetitive and distinct way our automatic volume fader moves creates a
layer of similarity in the way that the volume of all instruments in that group
behave together whenever the compressor is triggered. Let me give you an
analogy.
If you make a wave at one end of a pool it will gradually make its way to the
other end and in the process the whole surface of the pool will rise and subside
in response to that initial wave. But as you know, it’s that first wave that made
the rest.
In the same way, any instrument that triggers your compressor will create a wave
of volume changes in all other instruments of that group.
The volume changes that an SSL compressor creates are extremely desirable to
the ear. The volume changes any bus compressor creates are very much
perceived as a distinctly characteristic breathing effect. The breathing effect is
the result of our compressor increasing/decreasing the volume of instruments

feeding into and triggering the compressor itself.
If you think about it. It's a weird, circular feedback loop. The instruments trigger
the breathing, and the breathing effect is determined by a combination of how
and when the instruments trigger compression as well as the settings you’ve
configured.
Add to that the fact that all bus compressors impart the same tonal signature
(saturation) across instruments running through them and you have double-
prescription strength glue at your fingertips.
This coupled with my master reverb technique in the 3-Space Reverb
Framework will completely transform your mixes. If there was ever the sense
that something was missing from your mixes, this will obliterate that.
Like any technique I explain, you really need to hear it to connect the dots. Right
now we're just laying the groundwork. So don't worry if this seems a little
esoteric. Once you hear the dramatic effect of this, you'll get it.

I’m now going to show you how to create Front to Back depth using Bus
compression. Before we get into it I need to explain to you what my actual bus
setup looks like in a session.
As you'll remember I mentioned 5 types of buses/groups that I use. They are as
follows:
1. Leads/Vox – Front Pocket (Glue + Depth)
2. Pads/Keys – Back Pocket (Glue + Depth)
3. Drum Bus - Drum Pocket (Glue + Relative Positioning)
4. Bass Bus – Bass Pocket (Glue + Relative Positioning)
5. Aux Bus – Auxiliary Pocket (Glue + Relative Positioning)
You’ll notice I’ve emboldened some terms above, lets explain what I mean by
those.
As you’re aware bus compression not only glues instruments together, but it can
also be used to push instruments apart which creates depth.
The truth about creating depth with bus compression is that 80% of it is achieved
as a result of two groups:
1. Lead/Vox group - Populates the front pocket of your mix.
2. Pads/Keys group - Populates the back pocket of your mix.
The pads/keys group is also referred to as support instruments as they are meant
to play a supporting role rather than a lead role.
You’ll notice for the lead and pad groups I’ve put in parenthesis (Glue +
Depth). That’s because these groups both achieve the effect of gluing
instruments together as well as creating more front to back depth in your mix.
Up until this point in the book I’ve been explaining everything about bus
compression within the context of the first two groups: leads and pads/keys aka
Front and Back Pockets respectively.
The remaining groups achieve slightly different results and we’ll explain that
beginning with the drum bus.
The drum bus achieves glue by bringing all your drum samples together into a
more cohesive relationship. When I say glue it’s the same exact phenomenon
happening no matter which bus it takes place on. Glue is a natural byproduct of
simply having a bus compressor on a group because of the very transparent and
light saturation that bus compressors create.
As you achieve gain reduction on a group you start to achieve a more intense
gluing that is the result of increasing the dynamic similarity of instruments in
that group.
You’ll notice for the drum group that I also mentioned that it has relative
positioning. This is a new term. Relative positioning just means that you’ll be
using this bus compressor to place your drums in a specific position with relation
to the front/back pockets.
Your front/back pockets are the most important and they will typically have the
most dramatically different compressor settings. Every other bus compression
group is configured relative to these 2 groups.
Keep in mind that the settings you select for a relative positioning group will
generally sit somewhere between the numerical settings we’ve selected for our
lead/support groups.
Now with your drums you really can have whatever bus compression settings
you want and I will be the first to admit that I primarily use the drum bus for
gluing my drums together as this is very pleasing to the ear. As you’ll discover,
the settings I use for the drum bus barely affect the shape and sound of your
drums. This is because I primarily rely on the drum bus for its gluing effect as
opposed to the more substantial positioning effect of our front/back pockets.
For the bass bus I pretty much use it to glue my basses together as well as with
the rest of the mix. I don't believe that compression on the bass bus can
effectively be used to position them in a way that doesn't destroy the shape of the
basses.
Something about how frequency heavy bass is makes it difficult to influence
positionally with my approach. If you want to position your basses relative to
anything then you must rely on individual track based mixing. This group is only
going to glue your basses with the rest of your mix.
That being said if you need to gently push your basses further back in your mix.
You will be able to do that with faster attacks and low amounts of gain
reduction.
The Aux Bus, is really just my FX bus. I send all my FX and textures here. If it

isn't bass, leads, support or drums I simply send it here. The primary purpose or
the aux bus is to glue instruments with the rest of the mix.
The Aux bus can also be used for relative positioning which means you’ll be
setting attack and release settings that allow you to push these sounds further
back in the mix if you desire. Notice I didn’t say push forward. This is for two
reasons.
I don’t actually use bus compression to push things forward, even with the front
pocket. The only way something can get pushed forward by bus compression is
if something else gets pushed back by bus compression as this creates contrast.
The way we push instruments back with bus compression is with faster attacks
and slower releases. As gain reduction increases the group gradually becomes
restricted and so is pushed toward the back of your mix.
The truth is, my bus compression technique is actually subtractive by nature. It
assumes that you have somewhat lively front elements so that as you use faster
attacks and slower releases to push support/aux groups further back in the mix it
will creates more contrast.
I don’t really think you can bring something forward with bus compression so
much as you push things back relative to what you’ve already engineered to play
more forward.
70% of what makes my bus compression technique work is actually the fact that
bus compressors in general add extremely transparent and pleasing levels of
saturation to all instruments going into them.
Saturation just means that a layer of harmonics is being added to all the
instruments in about the same way. This transparent coat of harmonics unifies
our mix by telling our ears that every instrument has the same tonal signature.
The harmonics are generally so subtle that it’s sometimes hard to tell they're
even being added. But because every instrument is getting the same subtle
harmonic treatment, it eventually adds up to create a beautifully unifying sonic
sheen across your mix.
I know this can be a bit overwhelming to take in. Don’t worry. When I show you
the exact ways to configure these groups, I’ll explain what’s happening and
you’ll be able to go right into a session and hear the results yourself.
The students I’ve shown this are generally a little overwhelmed by the theory of
it, but I feel I should share the theory because it took me 4ish years to figure this
out.
This bus compression system coupled with the 3-Space Reverb Framework are
the two most formulaic techniques I use and they will literally elevate your
mixes when copy and pasted into your projects.
I’ve heard student’s mixes after they applied both systems and it’s insane. At
first I really didn’t know if my techniques could be duplicated, but once I heard
the results my students were getting I almost teared with joy. I know the
signature of my sound, it talks to me and when I heard it talking back from
somebody else’s track I finally knew it was possible to really teach this stuff.
OK so we're about to jump into the techniques for each bus compression group.
The first step is knowing what you want in the front of your mix and what you
want in the back. These are our front and back pockets.
Now obviously you can label these buses/groups whatever you want and I would
strongly suggest that you do.
So we’ll be starting with the Back Pocket because it’s the easiest and actually the
most important compression pocket to get first.
Creating a Back Pocket
Pads, keys, aka support instruments
1. Send all the instruments you want positioned in the Back Space of your
mix to this bus/group.
2. Put your desired compressor on the group. (SSL Compressor emulations
are an excellent choice).
3. Set Attack .1 - 3ms.
4. Set Release .3 - .6sec.
5. Set Ratio: 2:1.
6. Bring the Threshold down until you have 1 - 2db of gain reduction.
7. Adjust the makeup gain if you feel it’s necessary to restore any lost
volume (I often don’t feel the need to if all I’m getting is .5 to 1db of gain
reduction).
The desired effect we’re after is a gentle subduing of the dynamics of all
instruments in this group. If anything should try to get a little too loud or excited
in this group we would want our compressor to gently press it back into place.
The back pocket is actually the most important pocket to create in your mix,
because without it your mix will lack a strong foundation from which your
contrast (leads) pocket can stand out.
As you bring the gain reduction down you should notice how the instruments in
this group gently fall toward the back of your mix. This is because the faster
attack and slower release settings make this a more restrictive compression
pocket. Comparatively, the front pocket will have less restrictive attack and
release settings which creates more depth and contrast.
It’s the differences we’re creating with compression between your front pocket
and your back pocket that achieves a massively 3-dimensional mix.
Once you really understand this the setup becomes even more straight forward.
Creating a Front Pocket
Leads, vox, anything that’s the main focus of your track
1. Send all the instruments you want positioned in the Front Space of your
mix to this bus/group.
3. Set Attack 10 - 30ms.
5. Set Ratio: 2:1.
6. Set your Threshold until you have just .5 – 1db of gain reduction.
reduction).
The desired effect we’re after is a very gentle, rhythmic pumping effect on the
instruments in the Front Pocket as the Compressor is actuated. The settings I’ve
given you will allow you to achieve very subtle pumping in such a way that the
liveliness of the front pocket is maximized, while also giving it a gentle glue
effect.
We use a relatively slow attack (compared to the back pocket) to allow the
dynamics of the front instruments to really explore the space.
We use a fast release so that when compression does occur the gain reduction
isn’t held down forever. A faster release maximizes the energetic freedom of
your front space and this is one of the key dynamic properties of the front space
of your mix.
A ratio of 2:1 is incredibly transparent on SSL compressors. I find myself
virtually always using 2:1 and sometimes 1.5:1 if I want an even more
transparent effect.
Remember that the purpose of a Front Pocket is to bring instruments in the
Front of your mix into a Contrasting relationship with instruments in the Back
Pocket of your mix.
To create a Front pocket the idea is to setup compression so that the
dynamics/transients and liveliness of the Front pocket are allowed to breath and
really explore the space of this less restrictive and more open compression
pocket. This is why compared to the back pocket the attack is slower and the
release is faster.
The instruments I place most often in the Front pocket are lead instruments.
Things like lead guitars, lead synths and vocals. Whatever I want positioned in
the front of my mix I deliberately give a little more room to wiggle around by
placing it here.
Remember, the more open your attack the more lively that pocket will be. The
more closed your attack the more the pocket becomes constrictive and tightens
its grip around the instruments inside of it.
The idea with compressing the back pocket is to make the energy of the back
pocket a little more tame compared to the energy of the front pocket.
When compressing the Back pocket of your mix it’s simple to remember that in
practice, it’s generally the opposite of the attack and release settings you used for
the Front pocket. So you have:
Front Pocket = Slower Attack and Faster Release
Back Pocket = Faster Attack and Slower Release
I want you to be aware that with our back pocket we’re typically aiming for a
little more gain reduction than the front pocket of our mix. This is one of the key
contrasting features of the Back pocket of our mix.
It has slightly more gain reduction which essentially holds it more in place. This
restricted quality creates a point of contrast for the more dynamic and less

restricted front pocket.
It’s this point of contrast that actually creates more perceived depth in your mix
despite the fact that you’re killing a smidgeon of dynamics for it.
Ok so now let’s show you the Drum pocket.
Creating a Drum Pocket
If it’s a drum or any kind of percussion then it goes here
Now beyond the Front/Back Pockets, this is the next most important pocket to
configure. Your drums are meant to sit anywhere you want them in the mix,
that’s something you must decide during the individual track mixing stage.
The primary goal of the drum pocket is to homogenize and glue all your drums
so they sound like they belong together.
The cool thing about achieving the type of bus compression in going to show
you for drums is that the kick and snare will be the primary cause of the
compressors breathing behavior. This means the rhythm of your kick and snare
will create a rhythmic compression effect across your drums that further
homogenizes the sound of your drum kit.
At the same time it will create a very gentle pocket around your drums which
prevents them from aggressively darting back and forth in your mix. This
actually has the effect of giving a little more breathing room for your leads and
support instruments to dominate. This is extremely transparent, you won’t notice
any sacrifices here, only benefits in clarity, punch and cohesion. Here's what you
do:
1. Send all your drums to the drum bus/group.
are always excellent).
5. Set Ratio: 2:1.
reduction).
My preferred gain reduction is honestly .5 – 1.5db. I want this bus group to be

very transparent because I’m relying on it primarily to glue my drums together
and very gently pocket them with relation to the rest of the mix.
It’s very important to understand how attack influences your drums. The more
gain reduction you achieve with a 10ms attack the more you’re going to notice
the transient of your kick disappearing when your kick hits. You might even
notice a little punch disappearing as well.
If you aim for 1db of gain reduction, then a 10ms attack is really the best all
around. I literally can’t remember the last time I didn’t use a 10ms attack and
just aim for .5 to 1db of gain reduction. I’m so absurdly satisfied with this setting
that I haven’t tried anything else in a long time. But I’m a lazy mixer nowadays.
I’m all about not doing things unless they are absolutely necessary. There’s a lot
of unnecessary things we spend time doing while producing/engineering. The
only necessary things are those that take you directly to a finished result.
Now if you aim for 3db of gain reduction because you like the sound of 3db gain
reduction pumping on your drums, then I would suggest a more open attack
otherwise you may notice a significant change to the overall shape of your kick.
With drums you want a fast release because the major goal of this compressor is
to have it rhythmically pumping at the tempo of your track. You want this
happening as transparently as possible and with a long release it won’t be
transparent, the shape of your drums will be affected and you probably won't like
it. This is why the promise land for the release setting has always been .3ms for
me.
As I‘ve said this group is more so about gluing your drums together. That being
said I will use it to gently place my drums in their own pocket so as to allow my
front and back pockets a little extra room to breathe. The settings I’ve given you
coupled with 1db of gain reduction is literally what I do 90% of the time.
If I need drums to fit more dramatically with my mix I'll rely on individual track
mixing/pre-grouping as it's much more versatile.
As an example, often I’ll find that my hi-hats feel inconsistent and darty as a
whole so I actually like to pre-group them and apply a regular compressor to that
group in which I do the same thing as on the drum bus, only I’m using an attack
of 0-5ms, a release of 5 – 10ms and getting anywhere from .5 - 2db of gain
reduction. This allows me precise control of my hi-hat contours in the mix. This
now tamed group then get’s sent to my drum bus.
This is mostly just a workaround for programmed drums. Drummers will
probably hate me for this, but I’m not perfect with my velocities because I’m
more focused on timings. This helps me sort of ‘dirty-hide’ velocity choices that
were close, but not perfect.
Now on to the bass pocket.
Creating a Bass Pocket
If it’s bass send it here
The bass pocket isn’t used for anything other than gluing your bass with the rest
of your mix. A little compression is achieved here .5 – 1db, sometimes even 2db,
but I don’t rely on it to position my bass for increased depth.
I’ve always felt that because of how powerful and important bass is that you
really want to shape and position it at the individual track level to fit with your
mix. That being said when you apply pocket compression to your bass it’s going
to very subtly fit better with your mix. This is because as I’ve already mentioned
it’s gluing it with the rest of your mix.
The settings I’m going to give you are the very transparent settings that I use. So
here they are:
1. Send all your basses to this bass bus/group.
3. Set Attack 10ms.
5. Set Ratio: 2:1.
reduction).
So we’re achieving up to 1db of gain reduction. The reason for this is because
we are aiming for just getting the bass to glue with the rest of the mix. The
settings above are the most all-around transparent compression settings for an
SSL compressor.
Coupled with just 1db of gain reduction you’re not going to notice any negative
effects to your basses. A 10ms attack is really the most all around attack setting
for an SSL compressor. It allows transients to breath abd coupled with a .1 -
.3sec release you get a fast, but transparent compressor action that glues the mix
together.
As I’ve said with bass, I don’t rely on this compressor to position the bass in the
mix. That means we aren’t using a restrictively fast attack. However if you felt
your bass might be exploring the mix space a little too much. Darting back and
forth in terms of mix position, then it might be a good idea to go for slightly
deeper levels of gain reduction (2 – 4db). I would keep the attack the same, but if
you needed to really restrict the movement of your bass then you could also try a
faster attack with this.
One other thing of note is if you use separate sub layers. I’ve always gone
between routing the sub directly to the master and routing it through this bus. I
honestly don't feel it makes a huge difference. But if you're going for more
aggressive levels of gain reduction on the bass bus I think it's best to leave the
sub intact and just send it directly to the master.
Lately I've been routing my subs through this bus. But I wouldn't really notice
any difference if I was sending sub directly to the master.
Sub is the one thing you really aren't required to glue with your mix. It's such a
low frequency thing that the harmonic additions from an SSL don't make a
difference to its position within your mix. Sub placement is purely just a volume
thing.
Ok so now we’re going to talk about the Auxiliary pocket which is really just an
extra pocket group for everything else.
Creating an Aux Pocket

For FX and Textures—anything that doesn’t fit in your other buses/groups
The Aux pocket is again for gluing instruments with the rest of the mix and if
need be relative positioning.
Aux is short for Auxiliary which is really just a fancy word for extra. Extra bus
just doesn't sound as cool as auxiliary bus.
I primarily just send FX and Textures here. Everything else seems to fit very
nicely into my other busses. Textures often find their way into my pads bus as
well.
I want you to be aware of something new I haven't really pointed out before. It
has to do with the way sending an instrument to one bus versus another glues it a
little bit more with the instruments in just that group.
Even though my bus compression setup will glue any instrument with the rest of
the mix, it's even more so gluing a sound to the rest of the instruments in the
group it's being sent to.
This is part of what I mean when I say pocket compression. Instruments within a
group will have more similarity to eachother than instruments in another bus
group—just something to be aware of.
Anyway, generally FX are pretty easy to position in a mix, you really only need
reverb fir thus. However I think it’s important that they gel with the rest of the
mix and that’s why we’ve included an aux bus that mostly just imparts that
familiar saturation across all instruments being sent to it.
Here is how you setup the AUX bus:
1. Send all Auxiliary sounds: FX, Textures, etc. to this group.

2. Put your desired compressor on the group (SSL Compressor emulations
are an excellent choice here).
5. Set Ratio: 2:1.
6. Set your Threshold until you have just 1 – 2db of gain reduction.
reduction).
As I’ve said the goal is to just glue instruments together with saturation here. If
you feel the need to push your fx and textures further back in the mix then use an
even faster attack and try for 2 - 4db of gain reduction.
As I've said when we're pushing instruments further in the back of the mix with
bus compression we’re using more restrictive attacks (fast attack) and deeper
amounts of gain reduction. This serves to catch any sudden volume energy in
that group which restricts it’s movement and thus pushes it further in the back of
your mix.
So really remember that you can't really bring things forward in your mix with
bus compression, but you can push things progressively further back with it. It’s
this ability to decide how much further back you want to push instruments with
bus compression that enables you to control their positioning.
Ok so I’ve finished showing you exactly how I setup up my buses. Just

remember that the most important bus groups to figure out are the front and back
compression pockets. Every other compression pocket should be configured
relative to those two pockets.
It’s really simple because as I’ve already said, the way that I use bus
compression is subtractive in nature. For me bus compression is really only
capable of increasingly restricting instruments with faster attacks and higher
levels of gain reduction.
It’s a very pleasing kind of subtraction because you’re solidifying the
positioning of some instruments like your back pocket while allowing other
instruments to be contrastingly more energetic and free as in your Front pocket.
This creates more depth.
Ok so now that I’ve shown you my complete system for using bus compression,
I want to show you a dramatic demonstration of the ‘pushing back’ effect that
I’ve been talking about. This is easily the quickest way to get a solid feel for
how bus compression works. If you weren’t sure what was going on before, then
this is going to change that for you.

Slingshotting the Back Zone
Slingshotting is a comparative technique. It allows us to learn to perceive subtle
differences by first studying dramatic differences.
We’re going to be doing this with our back pocket. So here’s what you do.
Back Pocket Slingshot
1. Set Attack on the back pocket to 0ms/as fast as you can.
2. Set Release to around 1 second (slow release).
3. Leave Ratio at 2:1.
4. Bring Threshold all the way down until you get 20db of Gain Reduction.
5. Now, gradually reduce Gain Reduction by bringing the Threshold back up.
As you do so notice how it changes your perception of front to back depth.
The purpose of this technique so far is to notice the way in which a very fast
attack coupled with high amounts of gain reduction affects the back pocket.
High amounts of gain reduction make the compression very easy to hear. This is
why we are using high gain reduction--in order to get a definite and clear feel for
what the attack is actually doing to our sound.
With very fast attacks and higher gain reduction you'll notice a very distinct
restrictive quality being imparted to the instruments in this group. In particular
with fast attacks any sudden peaks or Transients will be severely diminished.
Things like the pluckiness of pianos or guitars will be reduced.
The only difference between high amounts of gain reduction and the lower
amounts were aiming for with my bus compression technique is that this
restriction of intensity is occurring on a much more subtle level. It's still there
but now it's so subtle and transparent that it's actually a very desirable effect
because it imparts dynamic cohesion.
Slingshotting only serves to allow you to hear the effect of bus compression in
its dramatic form.
Now we're going to play with our Attack to really demonstrate the differences

between fast and slow attacks with bus compression.
1. Set your Threshold so you get 10db of gain reduction.

2. Now open and close the Attack and notice how it influences the
restrictiveness of the back pocket.
As I've said fast attacks are more restrictive which means anything in a group
with a fast attack will have less room to explore the mix. At low levels of gain
reduction (.5 - 2db) this has the effect of pushing instruments further back in the
mix.
There is a fine line because if you overdo the gain reduction then you'll actually
start losing depth. That's why I rely on. 5 - 2db of gain reduction as the stupid
proof way of professionally achieving bus compression.
Now we're going to explore how different Release durations affect the behavior
of the back pocket.
1. Set the Attack to 0ms/as fast as possible.

2. Set Threshold so you have about 10db of gain reduction.
6. Open and close the Release and notice how it affects the sound of the
group.
I only look at release in one way, and that's as a way of affecting the rhythmic
timing for the compressor breathing. When I say breathing I mean the gain
reduction moving up and down. The movement of our gain reduction up and
down is just like a volume fader moving up and down. If it happens fast enough
then the volume of group will be experienced as “pumping.”
Ideally you want the compressors action to breathe in a way that supports the
pacing and rhythm of your the group as well as your track.
This is much easier to configure with dramatic levels of gain reduction as I've
shown you above.
I honestly wouldn't concern myself with releases beyond the settings I've given
you. I literally use those all the time for each group and they work. With such
low levels of gain reduction it doesn't really matter what release timing you use
as long as you use a timing within/near the ranges I've given you.
Why Do We Call It Pocket Compression?
The reason I call this pocket compression is because the compressor action
creates an artificial pocket around instruments in a group. This artificial pocket
has the characteristic of giving all those instruments similar dynamic behavior.
When I say dynamic similarity I mean that the volume of all the instruments in
that group is changing in relation to our bus compressor being triggered.
Because any instrument or simultaneous playing of instruments within a group
could trigger compressor action, it means that every instrument plays a part in
the group’s dynamic behavior which is the point of bus compression.
When I say “compressor behavior” I mean the increasing/decreasing of gain
reduction. The rate and speed at which gain reduction increases/diminishes is the
result of your attack and release settings.
It should be noted that within a bus compression group there’s typically a few
louder instruments that have a greater impact on the behavior of the compressor.
Other instruments are often too quiet to actually trigger or have a big influence
on the compressors behavior. A good example of this would be in a drum bus.
In a drum bus the compressor movement is typically being driven by your kick
and snare. Hi-hats don’t generally trigger the compressor and this is because
they usually aren’t loud enough to do so.
Now with bus compression you’re actually using a compressor to give
instruments specific time-dependent volume characteristics. That's just a fancy
way of saying you’re making instruments within a group breathe relative to one
another. As I've mentioned with my technique, this breathing/pumping is so
subtle that it actually glues instruments together dynamically.
The dynamic glue we’re talking about is this subtle rhythmic pumping/breathing.
The rate and speed of the subtle pumping/breathing is the result of your attack
and release settings.
The other glue effect we’ve already mentioned is simply the fact that all bus
compressors impart a subtle and transparent form of saturation across all
instruments running through them. This saturation simply adds harmonics to
these instruments in about the same way in about the same place. This subtly
unifies the “tone signature” of all our instruments which gives our mixes a
professional sense of cohesion.
Now with my technique I simply use SSL bus compressors. They're perfect and
there's a reason everyone loves them. This imparts the same saturation across all
instruments no matter what group they're being sent to, thus gluing and unifying
the tone of my entire mix.
Now with pocket compression we are deliberately forcing instruments to behave
the same in relation to the compressor they’re going into.
My favorite way to think about it is imagine you’ve got an elastic balloon around
a group of instruments. The compressor settings determine how much space
there is between the balloon edges and the instruments. This amount of space is
the same thing as your Threshold setting.
At some point your instruments will get so loud that they fill in this extra space
and begin to press against the edges of your balloon. How stretchy or not
stretchy the balloon is is determined by your Ratio.
A 2:1 Ratio is the best stretchiness for this balloon, virtually always.
The rate and speed at which the balloon stretches when instruments get too loud
and press into its edges is determined by your Attack and Release settings.
And so with bus compression you’re limiting the volume freedom of instruments
as if there was an elastic balloon being placed around them preventing them
from moving too far beyond the initial boundaries of the balloon.
It’s this artificial effect of creating an elastic boundary around instruments that is
pocket compression.
This main idea is so simple, and amazingly powerful because it means that faster
attacks (.1 - 3ms) and slower releases (.6 - 1sec) pushes stuff in the back of the
mix, which creates blend and slower attacks (10 - 30ms) and fast releases (.1 -
.3sec) allow grouped instruments to remain more open, dynamic and in front of
the mix which creates contrast.
This is a deceptively simple, but powerful principle in depth based mixing:
Instruments that are up front are allowed to be more dynamic whereas
instruments in the back are less dynamic.
The reason it works is because pocket compression is a psychoacoustic effect,
which means that it works by tricking the ear. In order for tricks like this to work
you need to have significant points of contrast.
Pocket compression is the art of artificially adding contrast to your mix with the
express purpose of not only creating more depth, but also giving the compressed
instruments tonal similarity.
There are two ways we use a compressor to achieve this:
1. If the instruments are up front then it means our compressor will have a
slower attack and faster release settings.
2. If the instruments are in the back of our mix then it means the compressor
will have faster attack and slower release settings.
The exact settings I’ve given you for the 5 bus compression groups we've
mentioned exemplify this phenomenon of restrictive settings for the back and
open settings for the front. It's literally a set and forget way to not only create
more contrast/depth in your mixes but to literally glue instruments together. It's
this powerful combination that gives your mixes an instantaneously clean and
vibrant analog sound.
When I say analog I mean all the benefits of analog which is to say the cohesion,
the glue, the subtle saturation. My bus compression technique completely avoids
the pitfalls of trying to emulate analog in the digital domain.
I find it easy to tell when people fail at emulating analog in digital. Their mixes
are too colored, overly murky and they lack detail because there is too much
saturation. That is simply because if you keep adding harmonics everywhere
eventually they add up and start clogging up your mix. You want to be very
surgical about this and my bus compression technique is literally the surgical
procedure for achieving this.
In the digital domain we must take the strengths of digital, namely its purity and
merge it with the benefits of analog emulation. You must use both to your
advantage or trust me when I say you'll never be satisfied with the results. My
bus compression framework allows me to achieve this balance with such
astounding simplicity that my students are regularly blown away by its
effectiveness. Sterile, clean, lifeless mixes become a thing of the past.

Using Limiters on the Front/Back Pockets
So let’s talk about limiting our front and back pockets. I’ll start by first saying
what the purpose of limiting in this instance is used for.
As you're aware the front pocket has your lead instruments and the settings we
use allow more room for the leads to explore your mix. With a more restricted
back pocket, this creates more contrast which equals more depth.
What can sometimes happen is that you’ll have something that's very transient
rich in the front pocket and it will actually have too much wiggle room.
If you’ve already bus compressed the front of your mix but there’s still a little
too much transient snap and liveliness happening, then you can get more surgical
and aggressive control of these transients by placing a limiter AFTER the
compressor.
The limiter functions as a gatekeeper for any transients in the front of your mix.
Typically this limiter is achieving anywhere from 1 - 5db of gain reduction.
We’re actually using this limiter as a transient controller or what engineers often
call a clipper. Anything that’s too attacky in the front of your mix will be put in
check by your limiter.
This allows your bus compressor to be focused on gently and transparently
massaging things in place, and if a more heavy hand is needed for aggressive
control of transients then you add in a limiter.
Since a limiter is just a specially configured compressor designed to be as fast
acting and transparent as possible, you’ll typically be relying on ultra fast attack
and release settings to catch these peaks.
I should say that it actually makes more sense to place the limiter before the
compressor. The reason for this is because we can control excessive peaks and
that way what feeds the bus compressor is more balanced and controlled. It’s just
a habit of mine and because my techniques are generally subtle and additive it
honestly doesn't make a compelling difference the way I use it.
Though it isn't as common, if you run into the same issue with the
peaks/transients of things in the back of your mix you can do the same thing by
placing a limiter before/after the bus compressor as well.

The Importance of Limiting Your Drums
I wanted to talk about limiting your drums because I believe it's one of the most
essential forms of limiting to know how to do.
Lucky for us it's also the easiest to configure as you’ll want to aim for the most
blazing fast attack of 0 - 1ms and a release of 1 - 5ms.
Drum limiting is really important because it’s one of the main secrets to
achieving a louder and cleaner master.
This is because with drums the kick and snare/clap are often the most transient
rich part of your mix. This means that when you go to limit on your master,
you’ll find that these drums hit your limiter first. And oh my god when the kick
and snare land together it's transient mayhem!
If I were a limiter in therapy all I'd talk about are kicks and snares. Eventually I'd
come to the nightmarish realization that my therapist is just a psychopathic kick
disguised as a therapist. But I would need more evidence.
I'd find the opportunity to sneak into his office one night and search for answers.
I'd eventually find a stack of patents for every transient shaper ever made. A tear
would run down my cheek. I knew I was right. Finally I could prove to my wife
that I wasn’t crazy. But by then it would be too late. I’d feel the cold barrel of a
revolver at my neck, therapy would be over.
So because the kick/snare combo hits the limiter so early it means they will
heavily drive the behavior of your master limiter across the whole mix.
This has the effect of creating messy limiting because in an ideal setting you
want everything in your mix to hit the limiter at about the same time. Obviously
this isn’t always possible, but the idea is that you don’t want your drums hitting
your limiter 10db before any other instrument would hit your limiter.
For me personally I'm OK with the drums hitting from 0 - 4db before anything
else. Anything beyond that 4db is a bit excessive and will require this treatment.
The approach I use for this is straightforward.
What I do is towards the end of my mixdown is I will slap a limiter after the
drum bus compressor and I will set it up to get anywhere from 1 - 6db of
limiting.

Now I’ll be up front about the reality of this. At this stage of the mixing process,
in order to achieve loudness in mastering you ARE making sacrifices with
regard to the fidelity of your drum transients. In particular the Kick and Snare
will be most affected by this, since they will hit the limiter the hardest.
To get this kind of limiting the drums will inevitably change in character. If your
individual track mixing is solid the character change should only be minor.
The tradeoff between clean master limiting and a slight change in drum fidelity
is absolutely worth it. But like I said if you properly mixed at the individual
track level, then the trade-off is virtually unnoticeable, especially to someone
listening to your track for the first time.
This is one of the most powerful pre-mastering stages to go through, and it’s one
of the most important and expert indications of a solid mix.

Bus Compressing Your Master
As you'll remember from earlier there are 5 main buses/groups we use for bus
compression. But the truth is there is actually a 6th group and it's your master
bus compressor.
What this means is that all your 5 original buses/groups are feeding into this
final SSL compressor. It's the same compressor as before. It only serves to add
that final layer of glue and dynamic similarity to the separate groups.
The reason this is useful is because even though the original groups will pretty
much glue your entire mix together, this last compressor acts as a failsafe in case
you did any weird stuff earlier in your mix.
Now the reason for this master bus compressor is because each of the 5 groups is
for different instruments and so they will be breathing/pumping in their own
unique ways. That's because as you learned earlier the instruments in a group are
responsible for triggering the compression of that group.
Different groups have different instruments and different instruments will trigger
their bus compressors in different ways. This final master bus compressor helps
to smooth out those differences in the subtlest and cleanest way possible which
adds a beautiful finishing touch to the mix you worked hard to create.
A lot of people get confused as to what to put on a master, but I’ll give you the
basic chain.
EQ > Bus Compressor> Limiter
If your track isn’t already 90% there with individual track mixing, no master
chain will save you. Mastering isn’t so much about mixing as it is about
normalizing your track so it plays consistently across many different playback
systems.
The bus compressor on your master is not meant to create depth, instead it’s
meant to glue any remaining disparities in your mix together.
In exchange for this Final Gluing Effect you may notice there’s a virtually
undetectable exchange of depth for more cohesion and uniformity.
One of the natural byproducts of mastering and limiting is mainly that the
perceived depth of the mix tends to go down depending on how much of an

expert one is with mastering tools. This is a typical sacrifice made not just for
the loudness wars, but it’s more so that your music can play the same across
many playback devices.
Now by following my bus compression/limiting techniques you will have
created the perfect environment from which to master you track.
Here are the settings I use on my master bus compressor:
1. Attack: 10 - 30ms.
2. Release: .1 - .3sec.
3. Ratio: 2:1.
4. Threshold set until you get just .5 – 1db of gain reduction
The idea with bus compression on the master is to just tickle your mix with the
effect of compression. It should be extremely subtle, and to me it’s like
sprinkling sparkles of heaven on my final mixdown.
My main secret for master bus compression is that I don’t really care much for
anything beyond .5db of gain reduction. That's because I really rely on the 5
original buses for really gelling things together.
I’ve always used an SSL compressor on my Master and it’s the same one that I
use for my 5 original busses. Sometimes I use a different bus compressor for my
drum bus/group and that's the only place I change it up. It's honestly been ages
since I've used anything other than an SSL on my drums, but I know I used to do
it some of the time for added contrast.
I mainly use the compressor on the master for its’ natural tone and saturation
characteristics that it will apply uniformly across the whole entire mix in exactly
the same way. This gives the entire mix a wonderful sense of cohesion.
I generally avoid too much bus compression on the master because I think it can
certainly take away perceived depth when used too heavily.
This is just my 2 cents and you can find out for yourself what you like.

Mixing Into Saturation
Ok so the truth about 50% of how I achieve my mixes is that I mix into
compression or more accurately I mix into saturation.
What this means is that before I even start writing a song I’ve already got a
project template with my 5 buses/groups created with the SSL compressors
already on them. My master already has an SSL compressor on it too.
The compressors are configured with the threshold all the way up so that
virtually no sound could trigger compression unless it's basically clipping my
master.
At the early stages of a project when I’m laying down ideas, I’m routing
instruments through the desired groups and just using these compressors for their
subtle saturation.
I don't even need to be vigilant about the routing because my master already has
an SSL Bus Compressor too. This means no matter how I handle my routing
everything is generally being saturated and glued together from the get go. This
makes my mixes sound more organic and they automatically gel together from
the start.
It's this automatic gelling effect that applies the same tonal signature to all
instruments and sounds within our mix. It also makes the mixing process feel
more natural as everything will already have the same unique feel.
That being said, I have discovered the benefit of using dedicated saturation on
just one bus. Most often I use dedicated saturation units on the drum bus and
then sometimes on the lead bus and this creates very pleasing results.
Using a dedicated saturation tool is another level of control in mixing. The one
thing that’s really interesting about it, is that it allows you to create more
aggressive tone similarity across all instruments going into a saturation bus.
I've always placed my saturator before the Bus compressor and I'm most often
doing this on my drum bus. So the order would be:
Saturator > Bus Compressor
Unfortunately it’s easy to overdo saturation and a lot of people just learning
about it do.

The secret to using saturation in this way is to use it as a contrast tool. Just
sprinkle it on 1, maybe 2 buses. When you try this, simply notice how it brings
that group out in the mix.
It’s an exceptional contrasting tool because if you have instruments in the back
of your mix which are pristine and meant to blend, then by saturating the front
pocket of your mix you’ll create more intense contrast.
What this means is if you saturate the front pocket or drum bus of your mix, then
it amplifies the character of separateness for that particular group from the rest
of your mix. In effect it creates more contrast and therefore separation.
When you try this, I guarantee you’ll fall in love with it.

Mixing Into Bus Compression
Some people like mixing into bus compression. What this means is that before
the mix has even begun the compressor thresholds are set so that if any signal
should hit -7db or louder it will begin to trigger compression.
This allows your mix environment to feel a even more organic while also
causing it to even more than before, automatically mix itself.
This is because the louder/hotter you feed a sound into a bus group, the more
compression you'll start getting.
The way you would configure a session like this is you would get an instrument
like a kick or anything and then route it through the bus compressor and
configure the threshold so that when the kick is -7db below clipping it will have
just begun triggering your compressors gain reduction.
Do this for all 5 groups, keeping the attack, release and ratio settings the same as
I've told you before. The only difference is now you've preset the Thresholds so
they trigger compression once you feed a signal at - 7db or louder.
Do not set the master bus compressor to trigger like this. Leave its threshold all
the way up so no compression triggers until you configure it later on somewhere
near your final mixdown.
In a cool way this way of mixing forces you to be very aware of how you’re
managing your headroom because if you set your initial instrument volumes too
high you’ll trigger heavy compression right off the bat. The more the signal
approached 0db the more compression you’ll get. This will cause your fader
adjustments to feel alive because not only will you be increasing or decreasing
the volume of a sound but you'll also be increasingly shaping the sound with
compression the louder you feed it to a group.
If you want to avoid any compression just mix with everything at - 10db, turn up
your monitor volume instead and you literally have something akin to an analog
console.
Now personally I used to do this, but it's since fallen out of favor with me. I
prefer just having no compression triggering as I mix. Then when I'm closer to
the middle/end of my mixdown I'll configure the thresholds of each group to
begin triggering compression. That's how I do it.

I felt the need to tell you because it as something I had a lot of fun
experimenting with and some people swear by it.

Bus Compression on Reverb
Now a lot of people wonder whether you should send reverb to the bus and
compress it with everything else or not and I’ve done a lot of experimenting with
this and my findings are very interesting.
Reverb is usually a dangerous thing to compress. That’s because compressing a
reverb has the effect of killing some of the natural audio cues in reverb which
are designed to signal to our ears the characteristics of the space that the reverb
is designed to simulate.
So generally I do not send reverb to any of the busses we’ve been talking about.
Instead reverb sends go straight to the master, where it is in fact OK to lightly
bus compress on the master to glue everything together.
This doesn’t mean that you aren’t allowed to send certain reverbs to any of your
buses/groups, because remember if 3 of your reverbs go straight to the master
and 1 of them goes to any of your 5 buses/groups then again you’re creating
more contrast between spaces in your mix.
I will add that I’ve made a habit of sending my drum reverb to the drum bus
where it’s lightly bus compressed right along with the drums. I don’t know why,
but I just like the sound of this.
My feeling is that within this front to back mixing paradigm it creates another
subtle layer of contrast because the drum reverb is the only one being bus
compressed. Meanwhile all the other reverbs including those being used for the
Front/Back spaces are being routed straight to the master and this gives them
extra space to breath.
So it ends up being that our wildcard drum reverb is more compressed and this
has the effect of not only creating a little more room for the front and back
spaces, but also creating a more solid point for them to contrast with.

Reaching Compression Nirvana
Bus compression can be a weird technique to learn, but I hope you’ve
experienced some of what I mean when I say how powerful it is.
As you use the strategies I’ve given you, your mixes will instantly come
together. There’s no need to make it confusing. The simple settings for the 5
buses/groups + the master are the settings I use.
I always look for easy ways of doing things because there’s already enough
confusing stuff happening in the production/engineering process.
Anything that creates ease and simplicity is a welcome addition.
I’ve spent enough time fooling around with bus compression to tell you that it
will add a dramatic finishing touch so long as you nail your mix at the individual
track level.
That means it’s important to know when to use EQ and Compression at the
individual track level.
In my book The EQ and Compression Formula, I mentioned that I don’t use
compression at the individual track level as much as some people think and that
when I do I use it for specific reasons.
I use individual track compression for transient control and volume leveling
(keeping the volume consistent). When mixers say know why you are using
compression this is what they mean.
I use limiting at the bus level to control the peaks that would otherwise dominate
the actuation of my master limiter.
However that being said, the very first thing I aim to do is use limiting at the
individual track level to prevent my bus limiters from taking on unnecessary
work.
Everything begins at the individual track based level. This is where you have the
most flexibility and power to tweak and shape instruments. If your individual
tracks aren’t at least 80% in order as you approach the final mixdown, then it can
make those final steps a lot more challenging than they’re supposed to be.
Having said that I want to leave you with this—you’ve learned something very
powerful here and no matter your skill level, by using The Bus Compression
Framework, your mixing will come together much more organically. Things will
just sort of fit together from the get go and it will make your experience of
mixing a lot more fun. Because of this you’ll have a blast discovering just what’s
possible as you continue producing/engineering.
Additional Resources
SEE FOLLOWING PAGES
FOR FREE PREVIEWS OF EACH BOOK
Books by the Author:
The EQ and Compression Formula: Learn the step by step way to use EQ and
Compression together
https://amzn.to/2FbCubN
The 3-Space Reverb Framework: Learn the step by step system for using
reverb in your mixes
https://amzn.to/2JlN4zy
Mastering Multi-Band Compression: 17 step by step multiband compression

techniques for getting flawless mixes
https://amzn.to/2k9fMci
Nathan’s Top 20 Plugins

Includes 3 of my most Massive Engineering Secrets that I won’t
REVEAL anywhere else!
[Click Here or See End of Book for the Top 20 Plugins]
Free Music Production/Audio Engineering Resources

http://www.mybeatlab.com/tutorials
Book Previews
The EQ and Compression Formula: Learn the step by step way to
use EQ and Compression Together
Learn More
The Rule of 300

One of the most frustrating issues many producers encounter is a muddy or
undefined low end in their mixes. Producers run into this problem because the
instruments occupying the 20hz to 400hz frequency range of their mix are
having a conflict catastrophe.
The reality is 20hz – 400hz is the most difficult frequency range for us to master
because our hearing isn’t as adapted to noticing details in it.
In order to avoid this temporary, but inherent weakness in our low end hearing
there is one simple rule we can follow—The Rule of 300.
The rule of 300 states that if it isn’t bass, kick or snare, then you must high
pass those instruments at 300hz or higher.
The higher you can get away with the better for your mix.
This rule eliminates the main causes of a muddy mix because as you now know
we run into this problem when our 20hz to 400hz range is swamped by too many
competing instruments.
When professional mixers talk about balance they mean it as if there’s a balance
scale in front of you and so imagine on the one end there is something heavy,
and the other has something light. And like a balance scale you must be very
selective about which instrument(s) are frequency ‘heavy’ and which ones
are frequency ‘light.’
Balance just means that it sounds pleasing to you, but when mixers talk about
balance they mean that you’re decisive about which instruments get to be
frequency dense and which one’s get to be frequency light in a given frequency
zone.
By following this rule your mixes will immediately start occupying the top 5%
of mixes out there.
CLICK HERE TO EXPLORE

The EQ and Compression Formula
Or visit:
https://amzn.to/2FbCubN

The 3-Space Reverb Framework: Learn the step by step system for
using reverb in your mixes
Learn More
The Mastering Reverb

Adding the same reverb to everything in your mix is the ultimate glue technique.
If you aren’t already then once you start doing this your mixes will hit a new
level that you simply couldn’t imagine.
Pros will occasionally mention they do this, but they often don’t talk about how
substantially it brings everything together in your mix. Put simply, it’s better
than bus compression at gluing things together, and bus compression is literally
referred to as ‘the glue.’
The trick with using reverb on your master is to create what I call a premaster
reverb track and to then route every instrument/fx/send (everything) through this
track. The premaster reverb track is then routed directly to your master. You will
then create a separate Master Reverb Send where your master reverb goes. This
master reverb send is routed directly to your master.
You will then use the premaster reverb track to send a small portion of the its
volume to your master reverb send. The Master Reverb should be using a small
room preset with .3 - .7sec of decay. You’ll want to low-cut frequencies
(<200hz) on your master reverb because you just won’t need those, otherwise
they will swamp your mix.
From the premaster track you can control how much all the instruments in your
track are feeding this final reverb. The idea is to feed the master verb somewhat
lightly so that it’s almost imperceptible, but you can get fairly aggressive with
this and that is very enjoyable to do as well.
This final reverb is meant to emulate the room your track is playing in. Like if
you were playing your track through speakers in a club, this is what the master
reverb is emulating, albeit with a much shorter decay. I don’t know why, but it
really makes a song come together in the most simply, impressive way.
This master reverb treatment happens pre-master, hence the pre-master reverb
track we used. This does mean that I like running the Master Reverb +
everything else in my session through my entire master treatment chain. There’s
nothing wrong with this for me because I don’t rely too much on extreme forms
of mastering for my projects.
That being said, one of the symptoms of heavy loudness maximization on your
master is that the stereo width/ intelligibility of your track tends to go down.
This can be remedied by configuring a master reverb on your project right before
your final limiter.
This is just me getting into mix-engineer porn at this point, but the idea would be
doing your entire master chain, except for your final limiter on a ‘pre-master
treatment track.’ You then send a little bit of your ‘premaster treatment track’
signal to your master reverb send, and then mix these all together at your Master
right before the limiter.
This allows our master reverb to be unaffected by your mastering chain. What’s
really cool is that the heavy-handed effects of your pre-master treatment will
influence the sounds going into your master reverb and all this is happening
without the master chain negatively impacting your master reverb’s stereo
information and acoustics.
This is powerful because reverb information suffers the most from heavy
compression and limiting. It’s also an advanced technique that underlines the
best mastering technique, namely that all really good mastering is a means of
hiding the side-effects of mastering.
It works to hide mastering because while everything was heavily processed in

your pre-mastering chain you’re restoring some naturalness to it by running it
through a reverb after the fact. And that reverb is only running into a limiter
before your track is mixed down. It’s this sequence that acts to hide mastering
artifacts like multiband compression/limiter pumping.

The 3-Space Reverb Framework
Or visit:
https://amzn.to/2JlN4zy

Mastering Multi-Band Compression: 17 step by step multiband
compression techniques for getting flawless mixes
Learn More
Blend/Contrast Theory and Multiband Compression

If you’ve read any of my other books then you know that the foundation of my
mixing philosophy is blend and contrast. I want for 70% of my instruments to
blend together into the background of my mix, and the other 30% to contrast and
push forward into the front of my mix.
By following this rule I’m able to create massive depth with less effort and less
stress.
I can assure you, within a few sessions of applying this paradigm it will
transform the way you approach mixing. You’ll be more exacting with your
decisions and you won’t find yourself getting stuck debating whether something
is right or wrong.
All you need to do is decide if an instrument is blending or contrasting.
At every level of my mixing, this is my primary goal. Why do I use The 3-Space
Reverb Framework when mixing? Because it’s sonically designed to create more
blend and contrast.
Why do I rely on 4-Zone Mix theory in The EQ and Compression Formula?
Because in each of the 4 frequency zones I always make sure there’s 1
instrument that’s louder (contrasting) and the rest are just supporting
(blending).
How specifically am I using Bus Compression in The Bus Compression
Framework? I’m using it to create improved blending via the ‘glue’ effect of
compression. But I’m also applying deliberately, different compression settings
to blending and contrasting instrument groups.
The different settings pushes blending and contrasting groups apart which
creates more depth. As such a contrasting instrument group will always have
more open compression settings compared to a blending instrument group which
has slightly more restricted compression settings.
It’s the additive effect of these precise and repeatable techniques which creates
increasing levels of blend/contrast. With increasing levels of blend/contrast we
can make massive depth and crystal clarity a virtually effortless byproduct of a
formulaic mixing methodology.
This is what I aim for when I teach this stuff.
Can you make someone a great mixer right away? No, but you can teach them
the exact sequences and patterns that great mixers use.
Unfortunately many great artists and mixers aren’t exactly aware of how they do
what they do and I think that's bullshit because it holds the rest of us back. It
makes those of us just starting think the learning curve is steep.
It isn't as steep as we think. It's the initial time investment that's steep. But that's
the price for anything worth having.
So everything I talk about is a formula. It's a methodology that you can copy and
paste into your process to get an instant skip over the confusion.
We really need to experience results that we can appreciate in order to connect
the deeper dots—the ones we're really after.
So knowing whether I’m after blend or contrast is my deeper connecting of the
dots. It lets me know exactly what to do so that I don’t get lost trying to figure
out what I’m after. It’s very simple and at the same time, this way of mixing
isn’t so rigid or encumbering that it drops me from a creative state.
Blend/contrast is a universal of art. Our perceptions are built around it. Hot-cold,
black-white, happy-sad, quiet-loud, distant-close; everything.
So when we’re mixing it's all about intensifying blend/contrast and the way we
do this with multiband compression has to do with the 2 main results Multiband
Compression can achieve. They are as follows:
1. Transient Control
1. Transient Enhancement
2. Transient Reduction
2. Volume Leveling
These 2 results also happen to be the exact same ways we use a regular
compressor.
The only difference is that now we can do it on a specific frequency range which
is what gives us the ability to use a multiband compressor to flexibly shape the
frequency content of a sound.
Again, you can only shape a given frequency range if it has differences in
volume to work with. If it’s always sustaining at the same general volume, then
multiband compression has virtually no positive benefit worth confusing
ourselves with.
Transient Control for Blend/Contrast
Transient in the context of a multiband compressor means shaping the peak
volume of a frequency range. Now the sentence I just said is true, but it can be
super vague, so don’t worry because the first 2 multiband compression
techniques I’m going to give you will show you exactly how to achieve transient
control.
For the most part it is going to be the results that connect the dots. The 17
techniques I’m going to be showing you a little later will give you the exact
results you need to figure things out.
Examples are almost always clearer than the technical explanations. Technical
explanations are just meant to prime your mind so that you’re a little more
subconsciously prepared to connect the dots when you get a demonstration later
on.
So as a quick review here’s exactly what I mean about transient control as it
relates to blend vs. contrast:
1. Transient Enhancement will always = More Contrast
2. Transient Reduction will always = More Blend
Volume Leveling for Blend/Contrast

Volume leveling in the context of a multiband compressor means reducing the
difference between loud and quiet portions of a given frequency range.
In our earlier example with the piano hammer playing louder and then quieter,
we can set compression to reduce the volume of just the loud part so it gets
closer in volume to the quiet part. Then simply applying makeup gain brings the
overall level of volume back up, hence volume leveling.
Whenever a given frequency range gets too loud it begins to contrast and move
toward the front of our mix. When it gets too quiet it can overly blend and

eventually disappear into the background of our mix.
So we volume level frequency ranges because sometimes they’re too loud and
sometimes they’re too quiet and leveling out the volume level makes that
frequency range sit more stably in your mix.
Generally in mixes you want the majority of instruments to remain fairly
dynamically stable because this gives you control over their mix placement.
But mixing is an art, and sometimes having 1 or 2 instruments be able to
dynamically warp in and out of your mix because of their dramatic changes in
volume can create more contrast and depth.
As you’ll learn in the techniques I’m going to show you, much of the time we
simply reduce the volume of loud parts without applying makeup gain. This is
something that’s counterintuitive because makeup gain is sort of presented as the
final step of using any compressor and so some people assume it’s meant to be
used all the time—it’s not, I’m going to show and explain why later on.
Volume Leveling is primarily a blend effect, simply because it holds stuff in
place. But you can also hold stuff in place so it’s louder and more present and in
this way it becomes more of a contrast effect.
With volume leveling we are using the multiband compressor to prevent
individual frequency ranges from darting back and forth throughout our mix.
You’ll get a perfect example of volume leveling frequencies that move back and
forth in your mix with technique #3. In that technique I’ll show you the very
visual example of how to control resonantly sweeping frequencies in your mix.
In fact, the reason volume leveling is so effective when dealing with sweeping
resonances is because sometimes we like lots of resonance, but it can be
overwhelming in certain frequency ranges and so wont fit perfectly with the mix.
Volume leveling with multiband compression is the ultimate solution to this
problem.
The techniques you’re going to learn are the ones I use. Because it’s me, they are
incredibly formulaic and they work.
I’m giving them to you, partly because I feel obligated since I know I’m not the
only one who was, for the longest time, ruthlessly tortured by multiband
compression at a CIA blacksite called my studio.

I only want for you to find out for yourself just how effective the techniques are
because they’re going to free up a lot of mental energy so you can eventually
focus on more important decisions like blend and contrast.
The more we don’t have to think about how to use something and the more we
can just fiddle with a tool while aiming for something simple like “is it blending
or contrasting?” the more it becomes an enjoyable exploration and the more
creativity blossoms.

Mastering Multi-Band Compression
Or visit:
https://amzn.to/2k9fMci

Nathan’s Top 20 Plugins
As a gift for reading this far I’m going to be revealing 3 of my biggest
engineering secrets and the exact plugins I use to achieve them. This is the
only place you’ll ever find this stuff so give it a read and prepare to upgrade
your mixes!
Aside from Verbsuite Classics I’ve consistently used each processor within this
list for 3 – 8 years. I strongly believe in these tools.
I will only use plugins that sound great and which are efficient and easy to use.
Simplicity and speed is crucial for consistently getting into a creative flow and
so I only use tools which support that.
I already went through the 6 years of trying/owning 500+ plugins and trying out
that many plugins was a big waste of time and only hindered my improvement.
It is my sincere hope that this list will save you the time I lost, because today I
only have 40 or so plugins and these are the Top 20 I couldn't live without.
Digital EQ (Transparent EQ)

FabFilter Pro-Q 2
This is my workhorse EQ. I use it about 90% of the time. The other 10% is
character EQing. It has an excellent graphical interface and is by far the easiest
EQ to use. It’s extremely transparent which means you won’t hear it negatively
affecting the sound. It contains essential mid/side processing as well as linear
phase settings for use in mastering.
Click Here to Check Out FabFilter Pro-Q 2
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2Ip04rh
Analog EQ’s (Character EQ’s)

Virtual Mix Rack 2.0
Contains two Analog EQ’s: FG-N and FG-S as well as an amazing compressor
(FG-401) and 1176 Limiter. I classify these as “Character EQ’s.” I only use
these EQ’s for boosting because of their lush and vibrant boost-dependent
saturation. Whereas a regular digital EQ like FabFilter Pro-Q 2 is going to
transparently shape a sound, these EQ’s will literally breathe life into dull and
lifeless sources. You only need to hear the boosts to become a believer.
Click Here to Check Out Virtual Mix Rack 2.0
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2jMqky7
Bus Compressors
Virtual Bus Compressors
Virtual Bus Compressors contains 3 of the most popular bus compressors
emulations including an SSL Bus compressor (FG-Grey). Using these on a mix
in the multi-layered way I teach in The Bus Compression Framework will kill
any of the blandness inherent in digital recordings. The FG-Grey alone is worth
the price tag, but you get 2 bonus legendary bus compressors. I really couldn’t
live without the FG-Grey because its saturation characteristics are 60 - 70%
responsible for the professional signature of my sound.
Click Here to Check Out Virtual Bus Compressors
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2wvVHGk
Compressors
FabFilter Pro-C 2
This is the Swiss Army knife of compressors. It can do any kind of sound from
smooth and transparent all the way to snappy and aggressive pumping. I use it
for everything, especially if I’m unsure what compressor to use. With its easy to
understand visual display it’s the most noob friendly and educational compressor
there is. If I had started with this compressor I probably would of learned how to
use compression about 50% faster. It has deep sidechaining capabilities as well
as multiple compressor styles making it’s the best all around compressor. If I
could only live with one compressor this would be it.

Click Here to Check Out FabFilter Pro-C 2
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2FZfYnb
FG-401 (Part of Virtual Mix Rack 2.0)

My go to vocal compressor/LA-2A on steroids. It’s capable of being extremely
transparent and gentle on sounds while bathing them in a heavenly layer of
saturation. You have the option of enabling/disabling the saturation stage of this
compressor which is awesome. I use this as a transparent volume leveler/tone
enrichment tool. I don’t use it for enhancing transients or the body of sounds as I
personally feel it’s too gentle for this. I primarily use the FG 401 as more
flexible and configurable LA-2A.
Click Here to Check Out Virtual Mix Rack 2.0
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2jMqky7
De-Essers
FabFilter Pro-DS
For me personally I find this to be the easiest and most versatile De-Esser there
is. I used the Waves De-Esser before this, but this one is significantly better
sounding and more flexible. If you record vocals and you’re sick of sibilance this
is the cure.
Click Here to Check Out FabFilter Pro-DS
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2rv904W
Limiter
FabFilter Pro-L 2
This is my all around workhorse limiter/mastering limiter. It’s very easy to use
and sounds absolutely amazing. I use it for mastering as well as individual track
limiting/clipping. It’s incredibly flexible with multiple limiting algorithms,
oversampling as well as adjustable attack and release settings. I’ve used a lot of
different limiters over many years--this is the one that stayed and for good
reason.
Click Here to Check Out FabFilter Pro-L 2
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2ws1pJn
Multiband Compressors
FabFilter Pro-MB
This is my go to multiband compressor because it’s the easiest to use. It’s
exquisitely transparent and musical sounding. I've used a lot of multiband
compressors over the years—this one is King. With per-band sidechains,
upwards and downwards compression/expansion it's the most flexible, easy to
use multiband dynamic processor there is. As with all FabFilter plugins the
visual interface is a cut above the rest.
Click Here to Check Out FabFilter Pro-MB
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2KK3Xp3
Multiband Distortion
Kombinat TRI
Too many multiband distortion processors are bloated with a confusing amount
of features. I love the ease and simplicity of this one. I pretty much only use the
Saturation, Clipping, Fuzz, and Tube Clip distortion algorithms with Saturation
getting the heaviest use.
Click Here to Check Out Kombinat TRI
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2FZvr6o
FXpansion Maul
This is actually the best and simultaneously most analog sounding multiband
distortion out there. It’s a little deeper than Kombinat TRI, but it’s still the 2nd
simplest multiband distortion out there. As far as I’m concerned FXpansion
nailed the sound of this with their proprietary DCAM-modeled diode, tube and
transistor based circuits along with clippers, overdrives and waveshapers. This
thing is an absolute beast.
Click Here to Check Out FXpansion Maul
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2jMjpoC
Modulation
Soundtoys PhaseMistress
I've tried more phasers than I can count and Phasemistress is the best. It can do
every phasing sound you dream of. You really won't need to tweak it outside of
frequency, depth and rate because of its more than 60+ phaser styles that you can
select on the fly. If you’re a tweaker then it also gives you access to much deeper
controls as well.
Click Here to Check Out PhaseMistress
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2wBlRYn
Valhalla UberMod
This is categorically the best chorusing effect out there. It can do everything
from chorusing to flanging as well as delays. It’s an incredibly flexible and easy
to use tool. Once upon a time I owned an Eventide H3000 and I look at this
plugin as its twin brother.
Click Here to Check Out Valhalla UberMod
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2jMw1vZ
Xfer LFO Tool

Tremolo allows us to rhythmically shape the volume of a sound. Conventionally,

tremolo is used for kick based sidechain compression. But LFO tool allows you
to achieve much more exotic results. It allows for rhythmic control of volume,
panning, and a variety of filters. Once you begin looking at tremolo as way to
create rhythmic texture and movement within your projects it will completely
change how you design and engineer your music.
Click Here to Check Out Xfer LFO TOOL
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2Iso2SE
Saturation
Soundtoys Radiator
I almost retired this plugin until I discovered its power on vocals. It can take a
$100 mic recording and turn it into a $1000 dollar mic recording. I don’t
typically drive it very hard, but adding it to vocals and lightly turning up the hi-
frequency gain instantly makes vocals cut through a mix like a hot knife through
butter.
Click Here to Check Out Soundtoys Radiator
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2G2g3pY
Virtual Console Collection 2.0

This plugin emulates the extremely musical and transparent saturation of analog
consoles. Another secret you'd only find here: 50% of Nathan's super awesome
sound is that he uses VCC feeding into FG-Grey on each of the 5 buses/groups
described in The Bus Compression Framework (I use the same console
emulation for all 5 groups but I don't use VCC on the master) . So
Secret: All 5 buses: VCC > FG-Grey
Click Here to Check Out Virtual Console Collection 2.0
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2G0L5P5

Tape Simulation
Slate Digital Virtual Tape Machines
This is my favorite tape machine for saturating leads and anything that doesn’t
have sub (<100hz) energy in it. It’s one of the best sounding tape emulations
there is—I just wouldn’t let it touch my basses because it pumps up the sub
volume, for me, in an undesirable way. Nonetheless I use this as a warming and
rounding tool for instruments that are too bright or sound to sterile. I literally just
slap it on and sterility and brightness are cured.
Click Here to Check Out Virtual Tape Machines
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2K82kAr
Transient Shaper
Oxford Transmod
This is the transient shaper to rule all transient shapers. It allows you to control
the exact length and intensity of transient information within a signal. Something
a lot of people don’t think to do with these tools is to use them on leads, hi hats
and other instruments where more/less attack is desired. This gives you a level of
control over transient snap that no compressor can approach. Oxford Transmod
is the only transient shaper I know of that can effectively shape transients on
instruments other than drums.
Click Here to Check Out Oxford Transmod
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2wupq2c
Reverbs
Valhalla Room
This is my workhorse reverb. It’s so flexible and easy to use that you can never
go wrong with using it. In my opinion it’s the best reverb for ambient styles as
well as aggressive styles as the decay length can be set as long as you need. I’m
a huge fan of this developer.

Click Here to Check Out Valhalla Room
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2KacFfp
Verbsuite Classics
Here’s another Easter egg for you. In The 3-Space Reverb Framework I talk
about how to use a Master reverb to glue your mix together. I also mentioned
that your master reverb should be different from your other reverbs. This is my
master reverb. It’s perfect for anything with a shorter decay (<2sec). I don’t feel
it’s strong for long-decay reverb like Valhalla Room. But the clarity, depth and
space this reverb creates is 2nd to none which is why it’s my Master reverb.
Click Here to Check Out Verbsuite Classics
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2wauPLU
Softube TSAR-1 Reverb

In my opinion this is the best reverb for drums. Its somewhat grainy texture
makes it excellent for organic sources like Drums, Vocals and Keys. In The 3-
Space Reverb Framework I talk about increasing depth by blending and
contrasting different types of reverb units. As an example, whereas Valhalla
Room is smooth and excels at blending, TSAR-1’s grainy character is great for
creating contrast and pushing instruments toward the front of your mix. I would
avoid drenching an entire mix with TSAR-1 because it will devour your mixing
real-estate fast. Just use it on 1, maybe two instruments or just drums and that
should be it.
Click Here to Check Out Softube TSAR-1 Reverb
or
Visit: http://bit.ly/2I65U1i


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The set and forget way to get an instantly

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Creating an Aux Pocket

Here is how you setup the AUX bus:

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Ok so I’ve finished showing you exactly how I setup up my buses. Just

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1. Set your Threshold so you get 10db of gain reduction.

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Mastering Multi-Band Compression: 17 step by step multiband compression

Nathan’s Top 20 Plugins

Free Music Production/Audio Engineering Resources

The Rule of 300

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The Mastering Reverb

It works to hide mastering because while everything was heavily processed in

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Blend/Contrast Theory and Multiband Compression

Volume Leveling for Blend/Contrast

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Digital EQ (Transparent EQ)

Analog EQ’s (Character EQ’s)

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FG-401 (Part of Virtual Mix Rack 2.0)

Xfer LFO Tool

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Virtual Console Collection 2.0

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