INTRODUCTION

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Hi, and welcome to the third and final part of "Buzz doesn't suck, you do." By n
ow I hope you have practiced the tips and techniques I have given you in the fir
st two articles. Either that, or you've thrown your hands up in frustration and
decided to go out and buy a $400 program that does all this stuff for you, with
fancy graphics but minus the powerful flexibility.
Ok, so we've discussed how to use generators and effects to get a better sound,
then combined that with stereo and EQ to get a good sounding mix. But it still d
oesn't compare to that store-bought CD you have. What gives? Oh, I guess it's ju
st cause that store-bought CD was made in a big bad studio with millions of doll
ars worth of mastering equipment. True, but I'm going to call their bluff. The o
nly thing you really need to get a pro-sounding master is experience, a little k
nowledge, and a good set of ears. You can get Buzz to sound just as good as a mi
llion-dollar studio if you're willing to put a little bit of elbow grease into i
t.
But you've already made a great sounding mix using stereo and EQ, right? I mean,
it sounds good, it's just not as LOUD as those store-bought CD's. If you try to
make it louder, it just ends up distorting! Ack! What the hell am I going to do
? Well young Buzzer, it's time to learn the secrets of Compression. Come with me
to the wonderful world of Dynamics...
COMPRESSION
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For some reason, a lot of people have trouble understanding compression. Don't w
orry if you're one of them, once you do understand it, you'll wonder what was so
difficult. It also doesn't matter if you grasp the concept entirely, as long as
you can use it effectively. So, let's begin.
Simply put, compression makes something louder by compressing the sound, hence t
he name. Picture a waveform, the kind you see on an oscillascope, or your favori
te audio editor. If you zoom in enough to see the wave shape itself, you'll see
it looks...well, like a wave. And like a wave, it has peaks and valleys. The hig
her the peak, the louder the wave is at that point.
Now, most compressors have four variables: compression ratio, threshold, attack
time, and release time. I'll save those last two for later. For now, let's just
look at the ratio and the threshold. Go back to the picture of the wave. We're j
ust going to concentrate on the top half, since for all practical purposes, the
wave is symmetrical around the center. The top of the wave has a volume of 0dB.
Don't worry what the dB means right now, if you're really curious, you can find
out easily enough by looking it up! The volume decreases all the way till at the
center you (theoretically) have -infinity dB. However, let's say for this examp
le that everything except the peaks is happening around -18dB. In other words, t
hat's your average volume, even though you have peaks going up to 0dB.
Still with me? Good! Time to put some compression on this puppy. First, we need
to set the threshold. This will be a horizontal line drawn at whatever volume le
vel you want. Let's put ours at -9dB just for fun. Now let's set a compression r
atio. How about...oh, I don't know, 3 to 1 (3:1). Compress! Let's see what happe
ned. The compressor compressed everything above the threshold by the compression
ratio. In our example, everything above -9dB was compressed by a 3 to 1 ratio.
If we do a little math, we see that those peaks that used to go up to 0dB now on
ly go up to -3dB. Any thing that went up to -6dB is now at -8dB. I know it's kin
d of confusing since we're dealing with negative numbers, but hopefully you get
the concept. The result of course is that you can now raise the volume of the en
tire track by 3dB to bring those peaks back up to 0dB. Instead of your average v
olume being -18dB, it is -15dB. Victory!
But...not quite. We still haven't looked at attack and release. The above exampl
e did not take attack and release times into consideration, but real compressors
have to. The attack time is how long before the compressor kicks in, while the
release time is how long the compressor takes before resetting. Don't worry too
much about these, as I'll go into how to use these to your advantage below.
COMPRESSION TIPS
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1) Typically, you would want some mild compression on your entire mix. It helps
things mesh a little better and gives your track more overall volume. The settin
gs always depend on the particular track, but I usually stay at a ratio of 2:1-3
:1. You don't want to go too high, as it will destroy your song's dynamic variat
ion, which is what gives the song "punch". Set the threshold anywhere between -9
dB and -18dB, again, this is something you really have to experiment, as each tr
ack has unique requirements. If this is your final compressor in the signal chai
n, set the attack pretty much as fast as you can. The release should be somewhat
slow-I find 150-200ms ideal. Too slow a release will result in a "pumping" soun
d, which is only good for special effects.
2) Compression is also good on individual tracks. I almost always apply a mild c
ompression with the same settings as above on any thing I record live, like guit
ars, bass, or vocals, even before I bring the sound into Buzz. It evens out the
dynamic levels so that everything is at the same average volume. Again, you don'
t want to use too much as it will ruin the subtle dynamics, but you also don't w
ant your vocals to be too loud at one point and too quiet at another point. Chec
k out sites like Get signed or Harmony Central for tons of tips about using comp
ression on "real" instruments.
3) Compression is excellent on drums. I always put compression on my kick drums
to give them that extra punch. I almost always put it on chopped up breakbeats t
oo to let them cut through the mix. The key to using compression on drums is to
set the threshold a little high, say -6dB or -9dB, the ratio pretty high-I've go
ne as high as 15:1 and even 20:1. The best way to get punch though, is by settin
g the attack time a little slow, around 25-50ms. This allows the initial attack
of the drum to get through uncompressed, giving the sound more "punch" then it h
ad before.
4) I haven't talked much about multi-band compression, since it is not implement
ed very well in Buzz. There is one multi-band compression machine, but it is mon
o and has fixed frequencies, so I've never found a use for it. Basically what mu
lti-band compression does is only compress the sounds within a certain frequency
range. You can fake this in Buzz by connecting a side chain of the sound first
to a parametric EQ to filter out everything but the frequency you want and then
putting in a compressor. What is the purpose of multi-band compression? Just thi
nk of it as an alternative to using EQ in your war on the frequencies. Recording
engineers will typically use a multi-band compressor on vocal tracks to take th
e edge off those harsh s-sounds and take the pop out of those explosive p-sounds
. Go ahead and experiment with multi-band compression when EQ won't work on prob
lem areas.
5) Finally, use that gain slider found on most of the Buzz compressors to bring
the sound up. Remember, you've squashed those peaks by a few dB, so you need to
compensate, which is exactly what the gain slider is for.
LIMITING
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I won't spend that much time on limiting since it is very similar to compression
, though almost equally as important. Basically, a limiter is a compressor with
an infinite ratio, in effect limiting everything to below your threshold. Some c
ompressors even act as limiters if you set the ratio all the way up. This is ver
y useful in Buzz for taming some of those wild signals you get, for adding some
digital distortion, and even for acting as a safety net since Buzz has a tendenc
y to sometimes emit random bursts of noise.
You will also find other flavors of limiting in Buzz. Saturators, smootherdrives
, and some of the tube emulators act like limiters, preventing the sound from go
ing over a certain volume. However, these effects also impart their own unique c
haracteristics to the sound, usually in the form of what most people call analog
warmth. Very tasty!
DC OFFSET
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You will not run into DC offset problems often, but it is very helpful to be abl
e to spot them and fix them when they do occur. Picture our waveform again. Reme
mber how I said the wave is for the most part symmetrical around the center line
? Well, every once in a while, something will cause the entire waveform to shift
up or down. It is still symmetrical around a line, but that line is offset from
the true center. This will do all kinds of crazy things to muck up your mix, th
e most damaging being that you won't be able to make the signal as loud as you'd
normally be able to. This phenomenon is called DC offset, and it is bad. I don'
t think I've ever come across a situation where it is good. Luckily, Buzz has se
veral DC fixers that you place after whatever generator or effect is causing the
DC offset. The instructions for them are pretty self-explanatory.
So far, the only machine that I've had trouble with DC offset is the Jeskola Rav
erb. It has a wonderfully warm sound that is great for ambient soundscapes. The
only problem is, if you put it to very high settings, you will get the notorious
DC offset. Just slap a DC fixer on after it, and you're all set. Other than the
raverb, you probably won't have a problem with DC, but if you do at least you k
now what to do about it.
THE FINISHING TOUCHES
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Well my fellow Buzzers, we are nearing the finish line. You've got a golden mix
that sounds just as good and just as lound as that crummy MTV Party to go CD you
bought at Tower Records. Where do you go from here? Unfortunately, Buzz doesn't
provide many other mastering tools after this. Fortunately, you probably don't
have to do much more mastering! You may want to run your finished wave through o
ne of those expensive mastering plug-in programs to add some sparkle, but don't
overdo it. Besides, you've already done a lot of the mastering process in Buzz i
tself, since it's a lot more flexible and easier to change. Oomek made a very ni
ce exciter for Buzz that will add a bit of high-end. I like to put this on the v
ery end of my entire mixing chain, right before the master. Again, keep the effe
ct subtle; a little goes a long way. You also have some VST plug-ins that can ad
d a nice sheen to your mix, but most of the good ones are going to cost you. All
in all, I don't have any complaints with using my wave mix from Buzz as my fina
l mix.
I guess that's it then! The only other thing I want to add is that if you're bur
ning your songs onto an audio CD, take the time to load the final mix into your
favorite wave editor and normalize the entire thing to -.01dB. It shouldn't caus
e any noticable difference in the volume, but this way, none of your audio will
reach the 0dB point. Some CD players interpret this as an error. It will probabl
y still play on most home CD players, but if you're sending your CD in to a CD m
anufacturer to get duplicates made, the machine might reject your CD.
And with that, I will take my leave. May you have many happy adventures with Buz
z! Remember, it doesn't suck, you do. :)