audio master output compression

TeeJay schrieb am 31.07.2006 um 04:26 Uhr

I have just finished my latest project, which is a school concert which ran over 2 consecutive nights. The second night is audibly louder overall, and i'd light to balance them a little.

So, does anyone run compression over the master bus? What are some recommended setting for some light levelling across the board? I like the Wave Hammer for individual Clips but would like to hear what some of you use, if anything on the Master.

T

Kommentare

Steve Mann schrieb am 31.07.2006 um 05:24 Uhr

I split every audio source into separate tracks (usually two cameras=four tracks). Each track is assigned a bus. I set the level of the tracks to average between -12 to -6 dBm. Then I use the Sony compressor and set the track to the "Soft" limiter, the bus to a hard limit of -3dBm, and the master to a hard limit of -6dBm.

In the case of a shoot over two days, I would assign the audio from the second day to a new set of tracks and busses. This would give total control over every audio source.

I'm sure there's easier ways, but this has worked for me for the past few years.

Steve M.

farss schrieb am 31.07.2006 um 08:06 Uhr

I use WaveHammer on a bus master. Really depends on what I'm doing, I might have to two busses, one for say music and one for speech, the former no compression, the latter say Master for 16 bit and tweak it a bit to taste.

The important thing to understand is that with an FX on a buss and a track routed to it things work very differently to when you add the same FX in the track header.

With say compression in the track header you're applying compression before any level adjustment, with it on the buss it's post the level adjustment. Really best to study those routing diagrams in the manual. Looking at all the meters in the compressor itself will also give you a better idea of what's happening, basically if the compressor is showing no gain reduction you're not getting any compression!

Also be very careful applying the compressor to the buss and winding the gain up on the track can lead to interstage clipping, your output meters don't show clipping yet you can hear clipping, that's why you also need to monitor what's going on along the chain.

I understand what you're trying to do however there's no easy answer, well not in my limited experience. Even if you get all your peak levels looking pretty even this tells you zip about how loud the content sounds, to tell that you need VU style metering. There are some free plugin VU meters that work in Vegas. The other alternative is SF which not only has VU style metering but can give you RMS values of audio from the Statistics tool. Better still SF can normalise using RMS instead of peak values, this I've found very usefull.

Bob.

TeeJay schrieb am 31.07.2006 um 08:26 Uhr

I'll try importing the rendered audio into SF and compressing then normalize it and see what the results are.

Thanks.

logiquem schrieb am 31.07.2006 um 12:12 Uhr

I would myself put each take on a separate track and listen in parrallel (with solo button) to spot check and compare levels).

Then, before applying any compression, i would match the levels first with tracks levels.