Ableton/Live/UG/29 Audio Effect Reference/26 Multiband Dynamics/04 Multiband Dynamics Tips
- Practical starting points.
- Use only the upper thresholds for ordinary downward compression: set the crossovers for the material, then drag down in the upper blocks or set ratios above 1.
- For harsh, loud highs: enable only the high band, set its crossover near 5 kHz, and add gentle downward compression. Soloing the band helps; fairly fast attack and release usually work best.
- Upward expansion can bring some life back to a mix that was over-compressed and maximized:
- 1. Turn down Input for headroom.
- 2. Set the Above thresholds just under the highest peaks.
- 3. Add a little upward expansion per band — too much makes transients very loud.
- 4. Adjust attack and release per band. Here fast attack strengthens transients and slow attack sounds muffled, the reverse of normal compression.
- A limiter or maximizer afterward may flatten the restored peaks again.