Waves Linear-Phase MultiBand Software Audio Processor Speaker System User Manual


 
Waves LinMB software guide page 26 of 28
having the classic setup of a high-level compressor. Changing the Master
Release and making the release times significantly faster will still preserve
transients and markedly increase the average level.
Multi Electro Mastering
The other end of the spectrum, insofar as the mastering goes, with much
more aggressive settings throughout than the Opto setting described
previously. With fast attacks and releases, deep Range, steeper slopes, ARC
system, Electro release behavior, and hard knee, this one is starting to be a
little dangerous if you push it (although certainly not over the top). With this
setup and the Multi Opto Mastering preset as bookends, there are
many levels in between to provide varying levels and behaviors. Working with
both of these presets defines a very broad range of high-level compression
settings to create. (We’ll leave that to you!).
Adaptive Multi Electro Mastering
The same as above but with –12dB sensitivity in the Adaptive control. This will
let you see how the adaptive behavior loosens the attenuation for a band
when there is higher energy in the band below. Try toggling between the Multi
Electro and Adaptive Multi Electro to audition the de-masking that the
adaptive control makes. You can try to further raise or lower the adaptive
control and if you raise to 0dB or higher for hyper adaptive behavior you may
want to lower the thresholds for the top 4 bands and see how they become
more dynamic and hyper sensitive.
UNcompressor
Since there has been so much work done in the direction of multiband
compression and limiting, it seemed only fair that a preset that tried to go in
the other direction would be added. Admittedly, there is most likely a bigger
challenge in undoing an over-compressed signal than in the original mistake!
Wideband upward expansion is probably the first method you should try (with
the Waves C1 or Renaissance Compressor), unless you can positively
identify a mix that has already had some multiband or DeEssing (parametric)
type of compression misprocessing. Otherwise, trying to use a multiband
upward expander to fix a mix that had wideband over-compression is not
advisable, as the gain changes applied in the first place would have been
across the entire band. However, as flexible as the Linear Phase Multiband
Parametric is in the other areas discussed in this manual, it certainly is
equally capable of producing amazing UN-compression in the multiband
arena. Keep in mind that the attack times are what create the transients, and
if you’ve already got good transients in the mix but the audio after the
transients is what is over-compressed, make your Uncompressor Attack
time longer, to avoid making even bigger transients. Soloing each band and
adjusting its Attack and Release times so that the transients are natural, the
compression is relieved and the audio sounds more relaxed and open is the
trick.
The preset has not attempted to set attack and release times, as this is so
highly dependant on the source material, we simply set all 4 bands to attack
times which are moderate for the frequency band, and equivalent release
times across all 4 bands.