Stems & The Quad Bus Compressor

[BLZProductions]

An engineer raised a point recently that has me thinking, now there may be an engineering solution, but I've been coming at it from a tech viewpoint.

Issue is this...
When you do a mix, you run everything through the Quad Bus comp, and you get everything just right and print the mix..
Now in these modern times you need to print stems as well, through the quad comp.... so you print these.
Now... when you put your stems back together... you don't get your mix back... why?... because the other stems weren't effecting the side chain!

So how do people do this? Is there an engineering approach?

I've been thinking about using the back bus, but removing the back bus contribution to the side chain input, so that only the front bus drives the side chain to all 4 buses.
That way you run your full mix to the front bus, also route the desired stem to the back bus as well, and voila you should get the correct compression profile on your stem.

This would work yes?

B

[amillar]

I'll admit I had to look up "print stems" and was very relieved to find the first line said "For any of you new to this newfangled studio lingo..."  Made me feel slightly less old... (60th birthday next week...) https://hobo-tech.com/technologies/livetips/print-stems/#:~:text=For%20any%20of%20you%20new,%2C%20Guitars%2C%20etc.).

That sounds a neat solution, and provided of course your level for the stem mix and main mix are exactly the same I think should work?

Cheers,

Andy

[BLZProductions]

Hi Andy

Yes I guess making sure the levels are EXACTLY the same is the trick, so some kind of switching to link the desired channels to both the front and back bus (bypassing the F/B pan)

In fact looking at the circuit diagram, it could be done by using the stereo cue option link, and re-purposing the F/B Pan switch to switch that feed to the rear bus 15K resistors (after disconnecting the rear bus panning). Would that work?

[amillar]

When I stop for lunch in half an hour or so I'll dig the manuals out and have a look!

Out of interest, where are you? (Always interesting to know which time zones people are in.)

[BLZProductions]

We're down in the SE of England (Eastbourne).

I was London based until 3 years back.
Was tech for Matrix, Nomis/Trident II, and The Townhouse during my time there, as well as freelancing for Olympic, RAK, and Funky Junk over the years.
Seen a lot of SSLs in my time from B series up to Duality via the J and K, but know (and love) the E/G series (4K,6K,8K) best. ;-)

[amillar]

Ah, the land of elderly aunts! Not just the stereotype, my parents came from Eastbourne so I genuinely associate it with going there to visit elderly aunts (all long gone now).

Hopefully the J&K series sounded better than the 4000s, but yes...although Chris J, Dave M and myself did the best we could with the concept of the 9000s there was something about the atmosphere when Colin and friends were designing the 4000 structure that did a fantastic job.

Sadly despite designing the 9000 channel strip I've never actually seen a complete desk - I left while it was at prototype stage. I must actually get off my backside sometime and go and find one...

Cheers,

Andy

[BLZProductions]

God's waiting room 

[amillar]

I've been thinking about using the back bus, but removing the back bus contribution to the side chain input, so that only the front bus drives the side chain to all 4 buses.
That way you run your full mix to the front bus, also route the desired stem to the back bus as well, and voila you should get the correct compression profile on your stem.

(Apologies, I think there's probably some egg sucking lessons in this lot!)

Ok, so first thing I would suggest is a simple mod to try the idea out. On the two "back" '26 cards fit a temporary wire link to 0V from the junction of R11 and TR4 / R30. This will remove the back bus side chain. Then you can patch the front pre vca inserts into the back and check that the front and rear mixes both sound the same. 

For a permanent mod if you have a spare 651 switch available then you can connect the front '26 card pins 17 to the existing comp in/out switch and the rear pins 17 to a new switch (am I imagining it or has someone described this in a previous thread?)

In fact looking at the circuit diagram, it could be done by using the stereo cue option link, and re-purposing the F/B Pan switch to switch that feed to the rear bus 15K resistors (after disconnecting the rear bus panning). Would that work?

Neat idea! I'd completely forgotten about the stereo cue option link. But it's a fair amount of butchery on the F/B switch. It's simpler to just short out the F/B pan pot - just short out (link across) both R11 and R12. You will get the slight difference between the front and back pot pans but (provided they're set up right, presets set to give the same output on each at centre pan) I'd have thought it would be pretty negligible?

Cheers,

Andy

[amillar]

For a permanent mod if you have a spare 651 switch available then you can connect the front '26 card pins 17 to the existing comp in/out switch and the rear pins 17 to a new switch (am I imagining it or has someone described this in a previous thread?)

Found it, I wrote it so that doesn't help us at all  http://forum.sslmixed.com/index.php/topic,1400.0.html

[BLZProductions]

Hi Andy

Thanks for the guidance.
I'll give the Comp thing a try out when I get a chance, and if that works do some experimental mods to create a "Stem Bus".

Will report back with pics etc. when it's working. :-)


B

[radardoug2]

If you want the mix as created, you should just do a remix as you did the original mix. Putting the stems through the comp will totally alter the dynamics of the stems. The stems normally should be treated as stems. Not put through the comp. Then put back togther and compressed ONCE!

[BLZProductions]

I'm just going on what the studio requires.

I get your point, as if you alter the balance it will alter how the stems would interact in the compressor.
And the whole point of stems is to make quick adjustments without having to do a recall (which everyone knows, NEVER sounds exactly the same as the original).

I'll feed this back to the studio, as it a very valid point.

B