Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
Comments
Sounds like a weirdly specific case of synesthesia.
Maybe not so specific - she had a lot of oddities…
But is this case I think it was just that it was new to her and sounded unnatural. She was happy with the final mixes.
Great post! I personaly like to avoid as much compression as possible on bus or masters. Proper mb gainstaging and using a soft comp to shape a specific sound does the best job imo. Like not using it at all likely. Endless options, using a -1 to -2db max here and there is fine, all the rest is tempting.
But yeah, there is no set rules, vocals need it for sure, some drum instr sound better when compressed and sometimes dont need compression at all to sound good and dynamic. I quit using compr as a final fix when unsure about the actual sounds and started using it for shaping any sound from the the get go and blend it within the mix. Not easy but everything becomes creative without needing the common compression standards that pushes us to use comps all the time, everywhere and get your music glued and what not, on individual tracks, busses and masters. Some tracks sound better without compr...and some don’t. But for sure overdoing comp will most likely just make everything worse. Subtle adjustments combined with soft saturation sound great before hitting limiters compared to compression used on masters or grouped tracks. Again, all is possible but compression needs to be looked at for shaping sounds, like previously mentioned. No preset or math will do the trick. Ears need training, then only a very few knobs need some tweaking, every sound has a different response. Its frustrating but worth the adventure
I chain compressors if necessary. Eg. the first one for catching peaks and the second for some "glueing". But both do not work hard and with pretty low ratios and low gain reduction. It depends on the situation.
I'd agree that multiple compressors in the same chain can be a valuable approach. Especially where you're using one of your compressors for tonal purposes. You'll often want to experiment with EQ pre and post that tonal compressor and the result of that may benefit from another stage of 'clean' compression. That clean compressor will most often happen post that tonal 'character' compressor, but yet again there are no real rules, use your ears and make an artistic judgement.
Another consideration, if you have a host that allows sophisticated routing, is that you can get creative with parallel routing as well as series. On iOS I've been enjoying experimenting with Drambo for parallel processor chains. It's especially useful for emulating classic hardware multi-fx schematics, and compression can always provide a little more control with these setups.
True and good advice.
Regarding EQ (or other processors) pre/post: while working on the dynamics I switch the order of the processors pretty often to get an idea how stuff might sound. Compressors can have a huge impact on the final sound. Eg. if I have a delay post compression the incoming dry signal will be coloured and tamed before it goes into the delay which then can work with a more evenly distributed signal. But the feedback aka wet sound can still go pretty wild. If I change the order and put the compressor after the delay then I compress the dry and the wet signal together. Depending on the settings of the compressor the whole sound will differ a lot from the original. The feedback sound often sounds way more prominent than before.
1) audio source -> compressor -> delay = compressed dry signal + non compressed wet signal
Or
2) audio source -> delay -> compressor = compressed dry + compressed wet signal
Think about a chorus that makes a mono signal stereo and then goes into a delay with mono feedback. The result is a dry stereo signal but a wet mono feedback one. If we put the chorus after the delay with a mono feedback path no matter what we do the whole sound (dry and wet) will be stereo which will sound completely different.
The same applies to a compressor. The results will sound completely different if we change the order.
And if we put an EQ pre AND post then it behaves similar like tape machines, cassettes or turntables with pre emphasis and de emphasis. Eg. cut some lows with an EQ first, compress the signal and dial in some lows again after the compression. This can become pretty interesting when the non linearities of vintage emulations come into play which often add subtle 2nd order and/or 3rd order harmonics to the processed signal.
Can we call this 'microaggressive compression'?
It also makes me think of loading straw onto a camel's back, wafer-thin after dinner mints and the assassination of Julius Caesar.
"Et tu, MagicDeathEye Stereo?"
On principle (Occam's razor), I don’t like to use 2 or more tools to do one specific thing, but I can see how stacking instances with different attack and release times could soften the blow and smooth out the edges. Keep things from sounding ‘pointy’. But I wonder if the same effect might be achieved with one compressor with a soft knee?
I do use multiple compressors, but for different things. One to shape the kick drum, another to glue/groove the drum bus, another to gently hold the mix together etc. All with a very light touch, more often than not. In general, I want to dial things back until they’re barely noticeable, but so you miss them and want them back when you A/B.
Of course, Rap, EDM and modern pop are big, fat genres that get blasted out of cars on hot, sunny days, so it's not surprising that these producers are doing everything they can to push it just a little bit further. The ultra-maximised sound isn't really my thing but if I was going for that, I'd see how far I could get with a soft-knee compressor, before daisy-chaining multiple instances. A/B and see if many can be replaced with one.
Pro-C2's my favourite, and it has a variable knee control and 8 different compressor models, so there's a lot of versatility there. Of course, it's expensive and iPad only, but it's very good.
Some tutorials for it here:
FabFilter/Dan Worrall - Beginner's Guide to Compression
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Next Level Sound/Daniel Wyatt - Compression with Fabfilter Prо C2 Masterclass
Next Level Sound/Daniel Wyatt - Compression Bootcamp
Pro-C is ace but its not a replacement for a good classic compressor emulation when the objective is tone. Pro-C is the compressor I turn to most often as like all the fabfilter range, the UI provides fantastic visual feedback. However, as flexible as Pro-C is, it's by no means a one stop shop.
I’m going to give a shout out for Mani’s Mix Bus Compressor. It is super clean and for $5, or whatever it is, it is a real gem.
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/mix-bus-compressor/id1467711076
I won’t get into the specifics of the differences between classic compressor designs here as the Sound on Sound article I posted earlier is a far better resource for that, but in summary, the different designs shape audio in different ways, and each has a different flavour of harmonic distortion (and different extremes of harmonic distortion).
The modern take on a classic compressor I turn to most often on the desktop is Empirical Labs Arouser, which is the plugin version of their Distressor hardware. It’s a clever design as Empirical Labs didn’t just provide a like for like emulation, they adapted it to take advantage of the control a digital emulation provides whilst retaining the character the Distressor is known for.
Here's a snippet of something I was working on over the weekend. I've taken a two-bar loop from it and processed the Rhodes piano via a decent clean digital compressor for the first 8 bars, and then switched the remainder via Empirical Labs Arouser (they each have the same ratio, attack & release setting). It's a subtle difference as I've level matched both compressors so you'll need decent monitoring or headphones to hear what's going on. When the compressor switches to the Arouser you should hear the mix open up; the percussion and bass have more space in the mix (the Arouser clears mid-range mud in a manner that's different from EQ alone) and the Rhodes has a little more bite, you hear a little more of the bell-like attack phase.
https://d.pr/a/kqppJ8 (open in new tab)
There's nothing that emulates the Distressor on iOS right now, but @Gravitas has created a patch in Drambo that takes the Distressor as inspiration (he posted it in post 7 of this thread). For the record, I'm also a fan of MagicDeathEye (both), it's definitely one of the better classic style compressors on iOS.
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/classic-compressors
https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/empirical-labs-distressor
@jonmoore
The compressor patch was actually an experiment in
parallel compression and not a direct replacement
for a Distressor as it's a multiband compressor
rather than a single band compressor which,
if I'm not mistaken, the Distressor is.
The patch can sound quite interesting on drums and the Master mix actually.
When the discussion about compressors turned up I was reminded of it.
Hence why I suggested trying it for yourself.
The 'Eq knob' is actually a mix knob between the
compressed signal on all four bands and the original source.
Full to the left is the compressed signal, to the right is untreated.
The Saturation goes before the compressed signal
so that it can 'react' with the compressor because
the dRambo compressor is quite transparent.
The frequency adjusts the four crossovers simultaneously
whilst keeping their ratio.
If one would like to adjust the individual crossovers directly
then one only has to open up the patch and adjust the frequencies
that way....
and agreed, there is nothing on iOS that sounds like the Distressor yet.
Hint....
@Gravitas
Ah, I must admit I havn’t had a chance to check it out yet, and I presumed it was taking inspiration from the Distressor as that’s what we were talking about at the time. I will definitely check it out as it still sounds interesting.
I love using Drambo for it’s fx routing capabilities. You can both emulate and improve on some of those classic 80s/90s multi-fx hardware patches.
No problem.
It's up on patchstorage so it's all cool.
Obviously that's what you would presume.
I would'Ve done also.
One of the first things I explored with dRambo was the routing.
One of my early patches on patchstorage shows this.
It has eight effects in parallel which I had put together
to be used on drums for creating rhythms and
some sort of drone to give chordal harmony.
It works but my designs are much more defined now.
For me the compression learning breakthrough was fabfilter proc2 AUDITION button
That’s how I could hear what exactly was triggering what
As you mentioned it’s an emulation. lots of companies have emulations , you can choose any of choice , In this case it’s an opto emulation inspired by la2a
The closest you can come on IOS is opto mode in ProC2
As shocking as it may sound , Logic’s stock pultec emulation is also superb
All of this is subjective but I'd have to disagree that the best LA2A emulation on iOS is running Pro-C in opto mode. Pro-C is a great transparent compressor and as I've already mentioned it's the compressor I use most often on iOS and desktop, but there are better character compressors on iOS, particularly those in MixBox.
Well, I did not say it’s the best , well thats the closest I am aware of , but thanks for great tip, I’ll check mixbox
Was looking for some IOS comps
One of my fav character comps/limiter is zener by softube and Ubk1 by Kush
Two of my favourites on the desktop too.
I had the original Abbey Road emulation of the RS124 which they put out before they did their deal with Waves, but it was never updated to 64bit and I can't be bothered with wrappers these days, so I ended up buying the Softube Zener, which is Chandler's rework of the RS124. As it happens Waves recently released their version of the RS124 and I'm weighing up whether to pick that up too in one of Waves never-ending 'fire sales'.
As for Kush\Sly Fi, I have a bunch, including the UBK1. My favourite plugin from Gregory's collection is his take on the API 550 A/B, the Axis EQ (Sly Fi), a really sweet-sounding EQ. The way he's implemented the saturation stage is so flexible, as is the UBK mode where you're no longer restricted to the API 550's fixed frequencies (that's the mode I use most often). Much like the hardware, the Q is adaptive and increases the further you move from zero in either direction.
Agreed Kush makes some great plugins , fav being Clariphonic
I have stopped buying from waves , their waves update plan is a bummer to me, I rather pay 100 bucks for one plugin than 30 bucks for multiple plugins seduced by dales and getting bothered all the time every year, and if you do decide to update later, say after 2 years , it’s cheaper to buy again than pay the update price
@hisdudeness
I hear you ref Waves. But I have a ton of Waves plugins that I purchased at a time long before their move to heavy discounting, so the maintenance plan is less evil when viewed through that lens. The weird thing with Waves plugins and the value I get from them is that I've been using many of them for 20+ years so in many cases their value is simply the speed with which I can get the result I was looking for.
If I were starting out buying plugins now, I'm not so sure I'd be putting my money Waves way. Especially with great developers like Kush/Sly Fi offering such killer products. +1 from me ref Clariphonic. High end boosting in-the-box can be a treacherous task, but Clariphonic delivers every time.
Yea I love a good infographic. They don’t always get into deep details, or cover every aspect, but to get a general idea or concept they are great. That site has a lot of them on music making, ie mixing, mastering, etc.. they aren’t all together (in different posts), but a Google image search will grab almost all of them for reference. I save them, and look back if needed.
I totally agree with you regarding old and trusted plugins. I am in the sameboat. A lot of my desktop plugins are maybe old but I know them inside out and I can configure them to my needs pretty fast.
Regarding waves: I have only a handful of them but stuff that no other company offers like Brauer Motion.