Windows Live Movie Maker 2011: Adjust Audio Levels and Volume - How to Use C1 Compressor to De-Ess Distorted Guitar

Windows Live Movie Maker 2011: Adjust Audio Levels and Volume


Double click on the video track to reveal the video tools - Here, you can adjust
the sound volume of the video clip.
Now do the same for the green music track.
If you have music and video together, you can adjust the audio mix of the two tracks. Works best
if your original video clip has no music and wish to use music as a background sound source.


How to Use C1 Compressor to De-Ess Distorted Guitar


In this video, I’ll be demonstrating how
you can use a de-esser on a heavily distorted
electric guitar.
One of the challenges or difficulties when
mixing a heavily distorted electric guitar,
sometimes it can sound a bit harsh or brittle.
This can be when the player slides his fingers
across the strings, or maybe has some fret
noise that comes into the performance â€" or
even just certain notes or harmonics that
are a little bit unpleasant or a little bit
too resonant.
What you could do, is try and use a conventional
equalizer, find the parts in the performance
that sound bad, maybe find those frequencies
that specifically sound bad, and reduce them
by 3 dB or 6dB.
However, a conventional equalizer is going
to pull those frequencies out across the entire
performance. So if there are parts that don't
sound bad, you're still going to be pulling
out those frequencies across across the entire
thing when you really just want to pull them
out during the parts that sound harsh. This
is where a de-esser comes into play.
Conventionally a de-esser is used for vocals.
When the singer makes “S” sounds, the
idea is that the compressor is going to reduce
the volume of those "Sss" sounds, but let
the rest of the performance go unprocessed.
It's a perfect application in this situation
with heavily distorted electric guitars, because
it basically acts as an adaptive equalizer
that if the performance gets a little too
harsh, then the compressor is going to turn
those harsh parts down. However, when it's
not too harsh, it'll basically maintain the
tone that's still there.
So I’m gonna bring up a compressor that
I like to use in this application which is
the Waves C1. It’s kind of an all-purpose
compressor. I’ll bypass it to begin with
and play you back the guitar so you can see
how it sounds a little bit harsh.
Right now it’s set up in its conventional
compressor mode, so it’s gonna be compressing
all the frequencies across the whole signal
and it’s gonna be listening to â€" the threshold
is gonna be listening to all the frequencies
as well. So, by bringing the threshold down,
turning the ratio up, acting like a normal
compressor.
[music]
But what you can do is use these different
EQ modes: sidechain, where you only â€" you
have the compressor listen to certain frequencies
but still affect all the frequencies in there.
Or this split mode, more importantly is the
one I’m going to use here.
What this does, is just the frequencies that
you select for the compressor, it’s going
to listen to, but then at the same time it’s
only going to process these frequencies that
you select as well. So I’m gonna switch
over here to the bandpass filter, and I’m
gonna use this and only these frequencies
that I’m gonna sweep through and find the
ones that sound harsh, and then the compressor
is only going to be acting on those harsh
frequencies.
Basically when it gets too harsh, it’s gonna
turn those frequencies down. but when it’s
not too harsh, it’s just gonna let them
pass through. So I’m gonna switch over and
monitor the side-chain while I find the ones
I don’t like.
[music]
Use the Q. Now it’s just a matter of playing
around with the ratio. I like to use a fast
attack, fast release so it’s pretty response.
Then play around with the threshold and the
ratio until you find something that’s good.
Again you want it to be a subtle effect. You
don’t want it to be too much. But then you
basically can use it as an equalizer to pull
down certain frequencies that sound bad and
do it to certain amounts until you find basically
a happy medium.
[music]
So this is a little bit too much. And we need
some makeup gain. Here I’m pulling out a
lot of the higher frequencies. This is a little
bit over-dramatic, but I can show you how
the effect works.
And it’s just a matter of picking the right
threshold and ratio to go along with your
guitar performance so that you reduce the
parts that sound harsh. And that’s all there
really is to it.