stereo key input for AAX?

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Yep. But what does it have to do with stereo compressor? If the left and right are treated differently, isn't it multi-mono by definition?

Not necessarily; what about stereo compressors that can unlink the two channels? You wouldn't call them multi-mono.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Not necessarily; what about stereo compressors that can unlink the two channels? You wouldn't call them multi-mono.

They are most definetely multi-mono, unless that compressor only has one set of knobs (as in meant to only be used as stereo but then again what would be the point in unlinking?)

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by JFreak

They are most definetely multi-mono, unless that compressor only has one set of knobs (as in meant to only be used as stereo but then again what would be the point in unlinking?)

I've seen them with one set of knobs as well as two sets. Supposedly the reason for unlinking the channels is to not hit both channels as hard with compression.

[Pique Arestiuvee]

Thanks for the replies! I am interested in being able to work on a session and have a mixbus with a stereo compressor on it and be able to print properly compressed stems from that session.

The only way to do this would be to solo each stem and run it through the mix bus, but have all the stems (the muted ones and the solo'd one) set up with a pre fader stereo send sent to the sidechain of the mixbus compressor.

In Pro Tools, becasue it only has a mono sidechain, the best way to acheive properly compressed stems with a compressor on the mixbus is to have the sidechain running at all times when working on the session before printing stems, and even if you are doing that you are limited in how you set up the compressor because of everything discussed in the thread so far. Many third party plugins actually have a lot of flexibility in terms of interpreting an incoming stereo signal, both internal and sidechained.

Now let's say you were trying to work around those limitations in some way and you decide you are going to work in a session without the sidechain running all the time and only switch to the sidechain for stem printing. Theoretically, I guess you could do a lot of testing for each individual third party compressor and try and figure out how to exactly match the stereo internal input with a mono sidechain input (like summing the pre fader stem sends to mono and adjusting the volume before sending to the sidechain input), but I would think this would not work for all compressors and for the ones it did it would be tricky to get it exactly right.

I've actually gone in and read some manuals of certain third party compressors and they don't provide much information in terms of exactly how they take an internal or sidechained stereo input signal and interpret it and then delve it out to the compressor to apply to the stereo output signal, so it would be hard to make sure you are setting up a sidechain input properly. If Pro Tools had a stereo key input, that kind of information wouldn't matter anyways, as you could just switch from an internal stereo input to an external stereo input and the signal would be interpreted the same without any tweaking needed. Or to be totally safe, you could just run a sidechained mixbus compressor the entire session with a send on all the stem channels, and if you had a stereo key input there would be no limitation on how you set up that mixbus compressor.

[Pique Arestiuvee]

Again I am aware that this is a pretty specific need and that not too many people have any reason to care about it. The reason I made this post a couple days ago was I was hoping there was either setting I was missing in Pro Tools or a suitable workaround, but I have been researching this pretty intensely since then and I am pretty sure there is no workaround within Pro Tools alone.

The only workaround I can find so far is to export your pre mixbus stems to another daw, replicate the mixbus in the other DAW, and create the post mixbus stems in there.

Thanks!

[JFreak]

Maybe I'm getting old but I still don't get it

[Carl Kolchak]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Maybe I'm getting old but I still don't get it

So, I think what the OP is trying to do is to have say ; a Drum Stem, a Bass Stem, a Guitar Stem, a Keys Stem, and Vocals Stem etc that are all POST Mixbus.

That is, he wants to be able to recombine all the Stems, and have them null against the full mix through the Mixbus.


To be honest, I can't think of a good reason to want to do this - I've only ever encountered Stems that are Pre Mixbus.

Whether it's for a game, such as Guitar Hero etc, for remix purposes, or for Mastering ; having the Stems POST Mixbus is a disadvantage, as the compression interaction falls down if any element is changed.

I'd suggest the OP looks at how Film & TV mixers deliver DM&E mixes (without ducking) for international re-versioning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Pique Arestiuvee]

Originally Posted by Carl Kolchak

To be honest, I can't think of a good reason to want to do this - I've only ever encountered Stems that are Pre Mixbus.

Whether it's for a game, such as Guitar Hero etc, for remix purposes, or for Mastering ; having the Stems POST Mixbus is a disadvantage, as the compression interaction falls down if any element is changed.

I'd suggest the OP looks at how Film & TV mixers deliver DM&E mixes (without ducking) for international re-versioning.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi Carl -

Hmm, I never thought of it that way! Honestly I am kind of new to the stem world, a lot of times I just send my mix as a stereo file and its good to go, but every once in a while I am asked for stems.

I usually try to work in a way to avoid using compression on the mix bus like the way you described in case I am asked for stems. If I feel I could use some compression on something then I would just make sure to do it on a stem by stem basis. But then just recently I got the idea that I could use compression on the mixbus as log as I sidechained the full mix to the compressor.

I must admit I feel pretty dumb for not realizing on my own what you explained in the quote above regarding the compression not being accurately represented if one of the stems is changed or deleted after I send them off. I am kind of interested to see how bad the ramifications might be, excited to do some testing on it.

But in the end I think it's pretty clear I should just stick to the way I have been doing it and forget about this wild goose chase I have been on haha, pretty big waste of time but on the plus side I learned a lot about compressors!

And thanks for the suggestion about researching DM&E mixes, I think I've got a lot of reading to do.

Thanks again for all the replies everyone!