Hey every one I’m new to the forum so Hi I have a question that has been driving me nuts for a few years it doesn’t always happen, but when I compress things I seem to bring up some sort of noise floor doesn’t matter if it’s recorded or virtual instruments and I hear the hiss u less there is so much going on that it drowns it out. I believe I linked it to how I’m compressing things or over compressing. Could this be the case or could it be something else? I don’t hear hiss till I export onything on mix buss is Ozone 8 and ist comp plugs on individual busses for the tracks e.g. Bass bus, Piano Bus ect. I’d appreciate any ideas thanks. Ps. Using studio one 4.0.1 the pianos are Keyscape Bass is Some Kontakt library Bass guitar and FX are UH-E Diva.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1R9x81UJEOPBDMEjLbI3iu871FJWc35Lg
There is a link to the song I’m in the middle of producing it and haven’t really mixed in awhile I feel like o forgot how to mix I didn’t put tons of effort into mixing it yet just wanted to show my friend some progress on her song. Hope the upload is forum complaint thanks again.

 

It actually sounds like you're using individual compressors on everything ... is that necessary? Try mixing your song without any compressors at all first. If, at the end of regular mixing, your bass sounds buried or your kick and snare are too far in the background no matter how high the fader is, then try adding a compressor or two. Then, once you've got how many compressors are actually needed down, check to make sure none of them are analog-modeled compressors, like Waves' LA-2A or Hybrid series or T-RackS, stuff like that. Usually, those analog-modeled plugs add an option to generate 50 or 60Hz hums or "machine noise" so that they sound more "authentic". Obviously, if that's the case, turn it off. Third, as @No Avenger pointed out, what a compressor actually does is, it compresses the peaks down, so that the highest part of an audio track is closer to the lowest part, actually making it quieter and less-dynamic. You then have to turn up or set the makeup gain, so that the overall volume of said track matches what it was before you added the compressor. This means that the lowest part of the track is now significantly louder that it used to be ... and the lowest part usually includes noise. It could have already been there on a sample, generated by a synth VI, added from a live recording or even be generated by your computer or audio interface during mixing down to two tracks. If you haven't killed it by using No Avenger's solution, and you haven't killed it by taking off a few compressors, or using a lower compression ratio (both of which are going to cause your mixes problems other than noise, anyway), your best recourse is most likely either sticking noise gates on every track or bus, or using something like iZotope RX or Waves' noise reduction tools to filter out the noise on your two-track mix.

 

Tips: turn off all analogue emulations etc & dither. Those add noise.

 

@Iggy no I didn’t comrpress every track individually only the busses more for level control and to even things out since the samples are way to dynamic by default I don’t like using anything if I don’t feel I have to. Thanks a lot @No Avenger I was thinking exactly that is what was happening I think a problem is too I added eq before compression and the eq brought the shit out I’m still noobish when it comes to mixing since there is so much info online and a lot of it is garbage so kinda learning as I go. I’ve mixed some pretty good sounding stuff before too but every once in awhile I’ll get an issue like this and it is the only issue I get multiple times with no explanation and @junh1024 I’m assuming ozone 8 has the dither on so I’ll turn that off back off the compression and maybe use limiting Instead and see what I get thanks a lot guys that really helps I guess I could use iggys example and try and not compress the keys at all and see what I get I try and make sure all analogue emulation is off on all plugins before doing this I used presonus fat channel as well that has emulations but you can’t turn off analogue emulation so I’ll ditch those and try others see what I get.

 

@Iggy I’ll definitly try izotope Rx if these things don’t solve it yeah I’m trying to keep the highest peaks down and glue everything but I rent to bring noise up a lot of times I’ve had it on tracks too where you don’t hear it till the very end of the track when things are fading out I get noise like that and it drives me nuts. So clearly I’m doing something wrong just not exactly sure what and to what extend but if I get shit to sound good maybe Rx would be the solution if I still have hiss

 

If they're all samples, can't you just iron a lot of that out in MIDI? I don't know what DAW you're using, but the one I normally use, DP, actually has MIDI plugins that act like audio plugs: there's a MIDI compressor and limiter that will allow you to decrease playing dynamics before actually recording any audio. Failing that, you could always try editing the playing dynamics by hand (i.e., manually drawing or typing in higher velocities for passages that need it) -- this would eliminate the need for things like a "piano bus" that you mentioned earlier. I do everything in the box and use busses for sampled guitars, basses and drums, but it has a lot more to do with getting that "compressed guitar" sound and not because of mixing issues. If there's already compression on the master fader, you're compressing everything twice, and depending on how much compression you used on the individual tracks you compressed, it can easily end up being too much.

If you're using Ozone 8, you may also want to check that it isn't the culprit for the noise. I haven't messed around with v8 yet, but I know it has a lot of "vintage" and tape emulations, and that might include added "machine noise" and "tape hiss", which might be why you don't notice it until after mixing down. Also, instead of RX, you may even want to consider just doing a fade out at the end of your track, either inside your DAW or after the fact in a two-track editor. I've used tape emulations on a lot my more recent mixes -- just enough to give it a "genuine" tape sound, and I put a little fade out on the end of the track when I go in to edit it after mixing down. If you listen to a lot of commercial tracks that were recorded or mixed to tape, this is pretty much standard practice.

 

I appreciate the reply I can of course redo it I’ve just already transformed the midi to audio and hear the hiss In between ozone 8 very well could be the issue when I get home I’ll check all those things I only hear the hiss on the mixed down version and the DAW I’m using is studio one 4 i think maybe their Fat Chanel that i used on the busses could be the issue since fat channel emulates vintage EQs and comps but has no analogue emulation switch so it could be adding noise just like the Chanel strip thing in studio one that allows you to cross feed audio from one track into all the others to emulate how a console works supposedly if you use it wrong you can get real nasty results. But yes I have done the fade out thing before at the end of tracks to cut the hiss out. I appreciate the reply’s I’ll try everything suggested to find what the issue is. I also believe dither is on by default in ozone 8 studio one 4 has a dither in the menu I turned off aswell already.

 

I hope you track it down, whatever it is!

 

It just sounds overcompressed. That piano has no life left and the attacky (and kinda panned) chords are like dead stabs with the attack time turned up.

Try use velocity/dynamics more and skip heavy compression (or even skip compression at all) to see if it helps. Also try not to quantize everything so heavily.

Your noise could be caused by
1) bad gainstaging
2) "analog" parameter enabledin emulation/modeling plugins
3) dithering
4) high S/N ratio on HW and other outboard gear
5) etc

 

Last edited: Aug 23, 2018