►► Snag my 7 step Compression Checklist and learn how to get the most out of your compressors ever time you mix ==> www.Compression7.com

Everyone mixing at home needs to watch this, several times... it's all about subtlety, retaining dynamics, natural sound... slow attack, minimal threshold... excellent job, we need more videos like this out there.

Dude this is the first video of yours I've seen and you are easily one of the best KZfaq instructors on plugins because you don't rush your words. You explain everything concisely without making dumb jokes. You zoom in on the plugin so we can see what you are doing. The zoom in is very clear. At the same time you don't linger on the same point forever making your video a perfect speed to learn with. I'm checking out your videos for the next few hours and keep putting up more good context. Dude from New York City.

those unprocessed tracks sound better than my completed mixes

I own and use the SSL bus compressor quite regularly, Slower attacks & fast release is just one approach. True, It preserves the internal dynamics of the track. But the SSL also can grab transients with faster attacks too for that "glued" pop sound. I use .3 attack all the time and adjust the threshold so it only kisses the transients. Auto release is quite incredible too. As far as mixing into the SSL, yes slow attack fast release. But I seldom do that anymore because the SSL narrows the image so much sometimes that its difficult to differentiate a tonal imbalance in an instrument or an loudness imbalance. Things get squashed together nicely but normally small corrective moves have to be multiplied and exaggerated to hear them. It can get hairy. Bypassing it after mixing into it for a day can be downright scary.

This is one of the simplest, clearest explanations of compression I’ve seen! Thanks man!

I like your videos. I've always been solid at mixing. And for the most part , I do all the same things you do. But your Master Buss EQ , & Compression tricks were really useful. I thank you for that. Subtle , and makes a big difference.

Drummer of 20 years & 10 years of Jazz piano but new to production and new to your channel. Finding some really great tips. Thank you!

Half way in and I've already learned some useful tips for this on my mix and it's sounding much better than when I was messing about blind not knowing anything about it! many thanks!

Another mixing save from Graham! I've been following your stuff for years and have learnt a ton, sir. Thank you!

Man! this is the best and I mean THE BEST explanation of how to use the SSL comp on KZfaq. Period Big ups to you man!

Thanks for the video Graham, i have just tried this on my latest piece that , to be fair, was near completion, but i stripped it back and removed all the effect plugins, in other words, started from scratch using MIX BUSS COMPRESSION and OMG!!!! the result is fantastic, it might be subtle as you call it but it is anything but!!!!! My track has more width, more punch, more air and sounds great. I have added some EQ and Compression in parts to a few of the tracks (NOT ALL!) and the final result is i have managed to remix my track from scratch to completion and mastered in the space of about an hour!!! Personally, i think it is the best mix etc that i have done so far!!!!!! It also has help me sort some "go to" plugins now that i will use from now on!!!!!!!! Graham, THANK YOU!

Also one of my favourites, use it all the time..my defo go to bit of kit. Makes absolute sense to bring it in a the start of the mix. Hate to say it but never thought of that. I tend to use it at the end of the mix with similar settings, subtle like. Yep one of Graham's previous vids. Keep 'em coming Graham. Keep 'em coming..

Even when you set it “wrong” it still sounded amazing and had that classic album flavor. I love this compressor on the mix buss.

I think this is a massive magical change, I've never used a mix buss compressor and today I followed this tutorial for one of my old recordings. Dude the difference is huge!. Up to this point, every time I listened back to my recordings I always felt the need to crank up the volume, it was specially painful when you do the "conversational volume" test. With this little trick here, I can hear all the details of my mix at a low volume. Well, maybe he is right, because I'm also applying other good practices in mixing and recording so they added up, this was maybe that little extra detail my mixes needed. I have so much to learn.

Love the song, makes me wanna drive down the highway somewhere

This is the best instruction I've found on this topic! Brilliant! I've now watched several of your videos and I'm very impressed. Thank you, from your new subscriber!

Man, this has helped me calm my peaks so much. Thanks for the great content!

The very first Best mixing lesson of 2019!! Thanks, Graham

Wow! Excellent! Thanks for such a clear explanation, going straight to the point with examples on which we can really hear the differences and with a process that makes sense and we can use. Thanks! Now I finally understand what people mean by glue compression.

Great explanations again, thanks Graham for explaining everything so nice!

Nice results, very subtle but you definitely feel and get with jive of the instruments. Thanks for the tutorial.

My goal for this year is to challenge myself to make 4 eps. 6 tracks at most and 4 tracks at minimum. I am going to release 1 EP every 3 months. I'm not the best yet at singing/engineering which is one reason I am doing this challenge. Thanks all!

All solid advice here (as usual)!! I'm linking this video as a detailed complement to my super summarized video version on this topic, many people will appreciate it! Thx

I love this plugin, probably one of my best buys! Great video as always Graham.

Two thing I really appreciate are the video editing and the comparative teaching (good and bad practices).

Such a complete and perfect video. Answers also different other questions I had. Thank you!

Hi. As to my knowledge, mixing is the process of establishing musical balance, spectral blance, space. If you mix into master bus compressor you get the unbalanced mix which the compessor "hides" behind it (they call it "glueing"), additionally introducing uncontrolled (triggered by whatever track got louder now) distortions on the sum of tracks, which may not be that obvious with such a subtle compressor as he SSL MBC one, still. Master bus compressor was introduced on mixing consoles to check how it shall sound after being squashed with post-processing on e.g. radio, or to do mastering AFTER the mixing stage is complete. It is not meant for mixing itself.

You could also create a group the tracks and see if you need to add or subtract volume at the track level. The point is you can create several alt and sub mixes so that you can toggle between two instances of the mix.

I am at the point where I was starting to question the effectiveness of adding compression at the end. This video helped me verify my suspicions.

Very useful and now I will use this technique in my mix. Thanks 👍🏻

Good morning dear friend !! Thank you very much I been learning a lote from your channel

90% of all i know about audio engineering is from you. Thanks for another year, bless :)

Great stuff man... Learning all the time... Much appreciated.... Thank you

Excellent well explained tutorial Graham...Cheers

A splendid video, you're a great teacher. Thank you.

wow I've been using mix bus compression for a few years now but I've never thought to put it on early in the mix like you have instructed. I was always taught to avoid putting any processing on your mix bus untill the very end stage of your mix, but what you said makes sense. I might have to try this out.

Waves G Master for the win! It's on every single one of my master buses. Great video, reaffirmed my workflow, thank you!

"No mixing trick should give you massive magical change" - So so true, thanks for the great video!

This video is the best on SSL compressor for glueing tracks nicely. It sounds great when you make small adjustments and not killing the transients.

I've been searching for a video like this for weeks . Great way of breaking it down simply and easily thanks man

great video bro... I've learned so much these past 2 years with you. much more than I learned at full sail. lol

Omg, This really helped out alot! Thank you beautiful man!

Very good video I also believe with many "tools" for mixing even mastering to acually use certain things while doing it

Thank you so much! I learned a lot more about compression and how I was doing it wrong.

Hiphop producer here.. Thank you Graham for another great compression vid, helps a lot.

By subtle, you mean AWESOME, don't you, Graham? C'mon ... you know what I'm talkin' about. Right? So, I grabbed my headphones, and I gotta tell ya, it really rounded out the mix. It's fuller, much more airier, and tonally wider. For this song, in particular, you should want to invoke the emotion of wide open spaces. Now ... I do have a question: could a saturation plugin achieve something similar to this? I've been experimenting with saturation on my drum buss, and it does improve the overall performance. But, I've not yet tried it in a mix-down situation. Thanks again for sharing your thoughtful insight.

I love this plugin. Thanks for the tut.

I'm starting to put mix bus compression and eq on just after doing a basic mono fader up mix, with perhaps some automation and subtractive eq. Then go and eq and compress/saturate and add extra automation to individual channels afterwards. I'm liking the results.

Graham, I would love for you to check out the Joey Sturgis bus glue stuff. They are incredible..

This was very helpful. Thank you.

Great info Mr. G... Much appreciated

so relaxing to the ears

Great Video! notice also a very nice improvement in the vocal sitting better.. Thank u

Brilliant video. Thank you for the insight!

Thanks for the video and pdf, very helpful 👍👍👍

Great tutorial Graham!

Ok so will u do a video on the mix buss plugin chain so like how u stack and where u place comp eq, tape, ect ? In what order

Very insightful video, thank you!!

Interesting. Some people (like the Sage Audio channel) advise to rarely, if ever, have mixbus or master compressor/limiters with release less than 50ms. Reason is that, if there’s sub-information down to roughly 20hz, the quick release will create distortion. I’ve always used the fastest release and slowest attack, but I’m starting to reconsider. Would love your take on this.

Very informative video. Thank you very much! Would you recommend a compressor with colour like Successor to be on 2 bus or always recommend to use cleaner comp like SSL type VCA comp for 2 bus duty? Thanks.

Awesome, nice Top Down mixing strategy!

Great tips. Watching this it made me think one could use the compressor as a measurement tool to see if a loud element needs some adjustment.

Very helpful lecture, thanks

this is crazy good and informative.

Indeed an amazing tip,thanks a lot

real awesome explanation , thanks man

Thanks, this helped a lot!

I find it´s funny how the mix bus glue compression technique is so variable. I´ve seen people saying the "right way" is actually using the minimum attack and the longest release. For me it makes sense to have a slow attack and a fast release to preserve the transients, but I´m starting to feel like the opposite is also valid because it glues it even more. And of course, it always depends on the characteristics of the track.

Awesome video, thanx!

Upon your recommendation I bought the Greg wells mix concentric, how will this work with this SSLMIX BUS Consol or are they to be used one or the other ? used

Great video! Thanks!

Very helpful, thank you.

Hi Mr. Cochrane, thanks so much for this helpful video! I have a case where I'm using this particular compressor in mastering. Now, the gain reduction only happens on the loudest parts of the song. So for make-up gain, should I match at the loudest part of the song, or elsewhere in the mix, to make sure the rest of it isn't too much louder?

Thank you so so so much for this video

Graham, I enjoy your channel a great deal and I think you have a lot of interesting ideas/concepts. My only critique is that quite a few of your videos could be a considerably shorter. I don’t seem to make it all the way through most of your videos. I’ve figured out why and thought I would share: the videos are too long (e.g. the title says something like “My 3 Best Reverb Tricks” and yet the video is 12 minutes long 😬). Anyway, there’s plenty of viewers who would disagree with that (and I’m not saying they’re wrong) but, for someone like me who is usually looking for a specific answer to a question it can be frustrating skipping around looking for it, that’s all. Love your channel and all the work you share with the world. Thank you!

wonderful demonstration

Great Video, very helpful! And man I love this song ...

I put 3 compressors in series and had a peak of -2DB on each. Really added something quite nice. Have you ever done this?. Sounds much better than 1 with -6db

Thank you for teaching me my man, thank you!

The SSL from Waves is what I use as well. It is the best on the master buss!!!!!

Thanks. Should we start doing this before any stereo widening or editing?

beautiful lesson bro,i cant hear that good anymore,

wonderful tutorial thanks

Thank you, very clear

Very cool, great tips

any chance your going to show this soon fully mixed? i interested to hear what you do with the drums and this guys voice?

I like this topic, and that's a clear video. But I wonder why you think using mix buss compression should be introduced immediately. Surely it's essentially correcting your mix moves by bringing everything closer in volume. But if I have it on from the beginning, I'm just going to set my mixes even more disparate in volume to compensate? Without realising?

That's Beautiful 💯 thank you

I love your videos, and apologies if this question has already been asked. Does it matter where in the mix bus the compressor is placed (ie, the first slot or the last slot)? Thanks in advance!

What if I’ve already got a bunch of plugins on my mix already? Should I turn everything off and do this, or just add it at the end?

Great video thanks!!

Thank you very much for this tutorial. I have a question. How could I have so much more glue than this?

A Grammy award winning engineer states you should turn this on inly AFTER you’ve created your mix. I’d trust him.

You said “you’re using the compression to turn down the peaks..” Aren’t you in effect relatively turning up the peaks (?).. because the slow attack is letting the peaks through and then compressing (reducing) the audio after that moment until the next peak hits. This would in effect emphasize the attacks resulting in a punchier sound emphasizing transients.

Hi there! You seem to have a lot more buttons (for example the key input button for sidechain compression) in the g-master buss compressor window than I have. How do I enable that so I can do sidechain compression!? And thanks for a great channel!

Thanks for the video. It does the explaining job quite well, but i still don't hear the difference. I have done the mixing and i don't like the sound. I think that i need to compress the mix but every time i do it i just don't hear any difference when i turn the knobs. I have to develop my ears.

Might be weird, but for the music that I write (emo, pop rock, punk) I generally like to have my buss compressor doing anywhere from 4-8 dB of gain reduction. It definitely depends on the song, but for the more upbeat songs, I feel having 4-8 dB of gain reduction helps to bring more punch. But that's why I love music and audio so much. It's all pretty subjective. I think your buss compression in this sounds great for the song. My opinion is that it's all about serving the song. What will help the song be better to me and/or my clients?

Thanks Graham!

Great and helpful