C4 though a bus ?

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Hey Andy and everybody,

I was asking myself a question the other day, and I'd like to have your views and opinions on this. As most of you already know, Andy advices to use a multiband compressor for the guitar tracks (C4 obviously), but as he has 4 guitar tracks most of the time, when not even more, should every track have to come though a C4 plugin ? This must be quite heavy on the CPU and I was wondering if it is possible to only add C4 to an audio bus where all the rhythm guitars are going thou. So, what do you think ?

Thanks

Brett

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Erm in cubase, I *think* you can automate all tracks thru an effect send. I might be wrong tho.

 

[Impy]

You can go through a bus but you'd be limited to one single compressor preset that way, all the guitars go through the same one, but if you have 4 tracks of the same basic sound then i guess it would be ok. The compressor might respond differently this way but it would sure be nicer on the CPU

 

[2012]

As most of you already know, Andy advices to use a multiband compressor for the guitar tracks (C4 obviously), but as he has 4 guitar tracks most of the time, when not even more, should every track have to come though a C4 plugin ?

bump from 2004...

 

[VH100R]

I do them in a group channel. C4 on the group

 

[botus99]

I do them in a group channel. C4 on the group

+1 :Smug:

 

[Benny H]

erm.. so this conversation has been ignited in another thread also, I'm just gonna quote what I said there so I'm wherever the action ends up.

About the 'multipal C4s or not' thing..

I don't know the answer but what is the question really? I think it's partly a matter of whether you want 1 guitar triggering another or several others. The compressor is gonna start acting as soon as the threshold is reached obviously.. so it's like the first guitar over the line sets it off, then the last guitar out of the zone governs when it starts to lets go. If the guitars are playing the exact same thing at a medium to fast tempo, to my mind it shouldn't matter... maybe it even helps to glue them together a bit. But then if it's slower and maybe looser material and you want maximum thickness, then you probably want each guitar to have as much body as possible and to only squish him when it's absolutely necessary.... You don't want one being thinned out before it's time.

I'll stop here cause I can't really profess to know exactly what I'm talking about, and one important factor I'm unsure of is - is C4 treating each channel (L/R) completely separately on it's own terms... or is left effected when right goes over threshold and visa versa?

 

[everybody's x]

The C4 setting is just to filter the woofy shit (cab resonance, palm-mute surges)in the low end (same idea as using the tubescreamer) if you need to
Putting it across the guitar buss should be fine. I think it's funny that everybody gets all worked up over this C4 setting when , if I recall correctly, Andy was employing it to address a specific problem that he was dealing with. I don't think he ever implied that it was the de-facto standard for recording guitars, but it has taken on a life of it's own. It's awesome that we get tips on recording from guys like Andy, but you do need to understand WHY he's using a certain technique, you may not NEED the C4 and, in fact, it may be thinning out guitars that don't need it.

 

[kev]

C4 Through a bus

Well the terrorsits managed to make it work on 14th July the other year in London, so it's definitely possible Not something to consider doing regularly though imo ( )

 

[everybody's x]

lol, yeah it works, but you better have some constables handy to extinguish you

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I like using multiple multibands on the insert of each.

I have tried both and like multiple (copied settings)

 

[Aaron Smith]

I've tried it both ways as well, and I found that I liked it better using a separate instance on each track. And yes, this is fairly CPU heavy, so I will dial it in the way I like it, save the setting, then process it to each track on a different playlist so I can adjust the settings again if I feel it's necessary.

 

[MetalWorks]

Back to the original question....

I would think that Andy probably uses the TDM version of Waves anyway so for him or anyone else using C4 on a TDM HD Accel system it probably wasn't given much thought as to put it on every guitar track or not.

Guessing its done individual.

For smaller power systems, you pretty much do what your machine handles.

I think Everybody's X probably made a good point.

I think alot of people are hoping that by using anything Andy does on everything they do that they will be a step closer to a better sound. I understand that if its designed to take unwanted properties away from the guitar and someone else didnt need it or worse was already lacking, the preset could possibly hurt the guitar sound a bit instead of helping.

But it did sound like he said he used it on every guitar track as I believe he also stated once he used Metric Halo Channel Strip on every Drum Track.

Dont quote me.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

And yes, this is fairly CPU heavy

Yeah very heavy, I freez tracks

 

[MetalWorks]

Yeah very heavy, I freez tracks

I used to freeze Projects. :zombie:

Couldn't open the entire session anymore.

There was probably some way to go in and erase all the stored effects in Nuendo or something but I just had to start over.

From that point I started doing Drums in one session.

Then import a stereo drum track into the main session where I would add the other instruments etc.

That at least free'd up alot of room considering I had Drumagog, Reverb, Compression, Multiband Compression, EQ and sometimes Gating on every drum track.

Won't be having that problem with PT HD.:Smokin: