Human Radio - You And Me And The Radio (M&F)

[Digitaldruglord]

Some expensive stuff you have lol

Question: you said you used the limiter on the drum bus... That means overall you used MORE limiting on the master?

Trying to identify why the drums sound like that. Limiting kills dynamics.. I know so cause when I over do it in mastering my mix sounds squashed.

I believe if you are limiting on top of more limiting you are somehow compresing.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Anytime you're curious what's going on in my mix, ask, and I will tell.. This is all educational for everyone so I'm open: the drums are all mixed and routed to an aux track in a stereo buss, the 1176AE here as a leveler (is used to give the drums a "confined" presence in the mix). The 2nd snare track here is fattened with a short room verb under the main snare and that room verb also going through the buss limiter is giving the sound that sounds like compression.. On the master buss of the mix pass, there is a UA SSL G-buss compressor but on just to glue the song (Ratio: 2, Threahold: 0, Attack: 1) - the 1176AE is not the same limiter as a L1 or L3 or Ozone.. There's certain characteristics to the 1176 and even LA2A/3A (consider "levelers") that can allow you to control the space a group of tracks sit in the mix.

Take a look at this video from CLA and look at the amount of these levelers he has going (there's a few hardware 1176AE in there!) http://youtu.be/0argtn0HNE0

Ever since Bruce Swedien revealed in an interview some years ago that he didn't use any compression on Thriller or even at all really in his mixing career, it was like God speaking to the mixing community.. I've never reached for a "compressor" again and prefer fader rides..