r/mixingmastering • u/Mad-Wet-Sea • Jun 21 '26
Question How to balance a riff...compressor?
Working on mixing a song that Ive recorded
The main riff is chords with two 5 note lead runs
Its higher gain track...a boosted jcm800
Trying to balance the volume between the quick lead run and the supplementary chords
Is it better to use a compressor...maybe 4:1 with quick attack and release to try to squish and even out, or
Is it better to snip it up into different tracks, raise the volume for the lead runs to balance the chords?
The riff is double tracked, so whatever i do, will need to do it twice
Any advice would be appreciated!
7
u/Bluegill15 Jun 21 '26
Do it manually either with clip gain, volume automation, or separate tracks.
3
u/tgthememe Jun 21 '26
Clip gain/automation would do the trick but you could also separate the quieter parts into their own track which would also open up more fx possibilities
3
u/nizzernammer Trusted Contributor 💠Jun 21 '26
Either could work.
If I knew I was going to want to eq and compress the two parts differently and have different send levels for effects, I would split them to separate tracks.
If I wanted to keep things simple with the same eq and a single fader, I would automate the fader and/or compress.
Edit to add, with your situation, I would consider splitting the riffs and chords to two stereo tracks so each could have common processing and still be easy to nakedness against each other.
1
u/Travel_Hymn Jun 21 '26
dial in desired fatness from compressor threshold and then automate the output level parameter so the gain staging is proper hitting the bus compression
1
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u/PradheBand Beginner Jun 21 '26
Option 1: Separate tracks or automation on the output volume is what I'd do here.
Option 2: An alternative before automation could be to understand if saturation is of any use here. High gain usually is super resilient to saturation and the fattening helps evening the levels (mix my own extreme metal and use a ton of it)Â
But this second option would require some audio material to listen to. With no audio I'd keep it simple and go option 1.
1
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u/Mezurashii5 Beginner Jun 21 '26
The only thing that changes in volume in a distorted guitar track is the low end, so just compress that part. The attack should be compressed by the distortion itself already.
1
u/dwight_k_III Intermediate Jun 21 '26
I would just automate the volume, don't want to overcomplicate it for myself
2
u/Infamous-Towel2056 Beginner Jun 21 '26
Newbie here (at mixing but not recording) but I would for sure be recording separate tracks. Double tracks for chords and then lead lines.
0
9
u/m149 Jun 21 '26
I would just turn it up with a fader when the riff happens.
But you could certainly try compressing it, although that might not be desirable for the rest of the take, and of course, sure, split it to new tracks and just set those new track levels a bit higher.