When you think of 2 Bus processing, particularly for Hip Hop, you might naturally think of dynamics processing first but as Rich Keller shows in this free video extract from PureMix, sometimes the impact you’re looking for might be better served by judicious use of saturation.
This excerpt which comes from two videos, “Rich Keller - Mixing Hip Hop Vocals,” and “Rich Keller Deconstructing Nipsey Hustle, ‘Grindin’ All My Life’.” Rich treats the master bus with harmonic saturation, a type of processing he’ll sometimes use instead of compression.
Brightening The Mix Using Saturn
In the first example Rich is using the Shadow Hills mastering compressor plugin but feels he needs more energy in the mix. To achieve this he uses the supremely flexible Saturn from FabFilter, this multiband saturation plugin can create up to 6 independent bands of saturation but in this case Rich uses a 4 band setting and brings up the level of the upper and upper mid bands to create the required brightness and energy.
In the video Rich explains that he isn’t adding any drive in the upper band and while he often does increase the drive on the hi mid band, in this case he doesn’t. So if he’s boosting the level of these bands but not dialling in any drive, isn’t he just using Saturn as an EQ? No. While we have Saturn 2 as opposed to this older version Rich is using, even with the drive at the minimum setting Saturn does introduce harmonic distortion. If you see the screenshot of a 1KHz tone at -6dB running into the same Gentle Saturation setting as Rich is using, you can see odd order harmonics, quite a lot of 3rd harmonic and a hint of 5th. Just because a control is all the way down, it doesn’t mean it isn’t doing anything at all.
In the second example Rich uses a plugin which doesn’t get much attention. UAD Precision Maximizer is a plugin which increases apparent loudness without appreciably reducing the dynamic range. Unlike the wealth of visual feedback available in Saturn, the Precision Maximiser is a strictly ears-only device but its single knob for saturation shape contours the harmonic content and apparent dynamic range.
Using this single knob approach Rich quickly identifies the setting he finds most helpful and can moce on with the mix. See these techniques in use in the free video extract below.
How Do I Watch Rich Keller Mixing Hip Hop
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