A HUGE overlooked feature is the sidechain function. You can route two instruments in the same frequency spectrum to duck, say the mid range of one when a guitar and piano play similar chords. You do it by adjusting the threshold, attack and release of a single band for the frequencies you want to affect. The sidechain button is hidden by default, click the triangle to expand it. You're welcome.
I use a lot of breakbeats in production, and my favourite use of multiband dynamics is using all three bands to do expansion. With a multiband expander you can reduce or outright REMOVE the room sound from crusty old breaks and make them sound like they were closemiced and tight. It's soooo underrated, and arguably the exact opposite of how a lot of people use it.
The pacing of your tutorials are always just perfect. I also love that you clearly go over what you are doing, why you might want to do it and clever ways to use these stock plugins for a wide variety of use cases. You don’t just show us “do this it sounds good”. You lay a foundation of knowledge and give a spark of exploration to transfer what we learn about Ableton’s stock multi band compressor to use on any other plugin or any other sound design challenge we may have. Brilliant work as always. I hope you know how positive your influence is on my workflow as well as countless others. Much love!
Okay, for someone who's made and recorded music for 20+ years, this guy's tutorials are the best I've come across. Once you're beyond the basics, this guy will help your mixing get to the next level, for sure.
Got addicted to Dan Worral recently, including his work for FabFilter. Even if you don't have the same plugins, I find them easy to follow along and apply the concepts in whatever I have available.
I use it on initially dull and bad sounding mp3 samples of old jazz recordings uploaded years ago to the web. Works wonders mixing the dry/wet icm with the ‘time’ knob. Brings it to life and gives it punch.
During 10:35 (Multiband De-esser); that sound is called Silibance Sound. I became an audio engineer in 1993, and this was something I learned in school. I am so out of the loop however when it comes to MIDI these days. These lessons are intriguing and satisfying to watch as well as still understandable. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
have clicked a few of these and clicked away when they were not instructional and actually teaching me not only the workflow, but what is happening. cheers dude thanks for the educational content. loved the example for the piano man. ive been slapping back too many eqs on things!
Was going through @ChuckSutton's demo project for Ableton 12 today and realized he uses multiband dynamics in ways I definitely didn't think about or understand. Started raising all these questions about OTT and here this vid was exactly what I was looking for. Some of the bass processing chains in that project file are great examples of what you're speaking to. Pretty cool So thankful for what you and Chuck both do for Ableton community.
I found that using Multiband Dynamics for drum transients (last example in the vid) was a great way to understand the complexities of this device overall. I recently recorded several isolated drum hits on an acoustic drumkit with a cheap Tascam handheld recorder and then used Multiband Dynamics to bring useable life to the samples. It was a fun way to learn the device by trying to tame some of the "never-ending" tom ringing by squashing the problematic band and then expanding/emphasizing the frequency bands that were lacking for each unique drum recording.
Super cool! Yeah this way of adding presence and saturation to sounds is not too familiar to me, so it's really inspiring to hear this kind of resourcefulness.
ive learned so much! I ve never heard about OTT. Must been living under a rock. haha😅 Going to start using OTT with your tips! Thank you so much for sharing🙌
one of my fav things that I learned from Anthony is just using OTT at like %10 -- just to give something a little bit of juice. But now I've got a bunch of new ways to play with OTT. Thx!
You always find ways to get the most (and best) out of Ableton's built-in instruments and effects. And even better, you make great videos to show us how, too! Thanks for all the excellent work you do!
I use it alot to tame the mid highs on most synths, and to even out a sound with the multiband compression preset i hardly ever use the actual ott preset.
This is GOLD. I’m already understanding multiband compression more by watching this one video than I have by trying to learn about it for like the last year 😅
Thank you so much for this video. I started following after one of your videos on Saturators, a tool I had no idea how to use until this year. Multiband Dynamics has been another one of such tools idea, so this video has been incredibly useful. After learning what it does, I realize that so many problems I've tried to fix through other methods could have been handled with the Multiband.
I never use multiband dynamics for ott compression really but I get a lot of use. If you sample a kick with a hi hat combined with it you can gate the high frequencies and eliminate the tail of the hi hat while keeping the attack in the highs of the kick. You can also do bass sidechaining with the kick but only on the lower frequencies that compete. It's also one of the best guitar noise gates you can use cause you can have it cut out high frequencies without effecting the sustain of middle and low frequencies.
Great info, haven’t used for expansion before but something new to try. Personally use multiband comp for side chain compression to have different ducking per frequency spectrum
great vid. thank you for synthesizing the thousands of redundant videos on TH-cam while adding a bunch of new helpful info. No excessive explaining. just straight demonstrations. Subbed.
have you seen Sixth Sample's free plugin based on OTT called "Cramit"? it lets you change the crossovers, has a continuous pre and post distortion shaper, and you can only use 1 on a single track as the last one undoes the first one (at least as far as I can tell). I like slapping it on my master with bass and mid bypassed, small speed, and breathe back some life into the rides/hats/higher-end of reverb/etc., whilst also taming it, as well as using it on a bassline to force the bass/mid to always be at least somewhat homogenous in volume no matter what octave I go for. it's quick and dirty, but far better than xfer's offering imho. it's pretty close to Ableton's, with some precision removed, but hey I can use it in OBS! (petition for ableton to release VST versions of their stock plugins, similar to how Reaper did it)
I use the multiband Dynamics plugin for something VERY different (I rarely use the OTT preset) I take old 80's tracks that have been very poorly mixed, create three instances of the track and place a MD on each of the 3 channels soloing bass for one, mids for another and highs on the 3rd. By using a combo of the 3, I can improve and enhance the track The fine adjustment of the crossover on all three tracks is actually where the magic happens.
I didn't know that about multiband expansion! Thank you my dude. On the note of features you didn't mention, sometimes using a multiband dynamics as a sidechain tool is more helpful than a regular compressor as it lets you compress part of the sound out of the way rather than the whole signal. Love your content and thank you for all your FX/Instrument racks!
Say you've got a track called 'BASS' that has a bass sample on it that's got a lot of full-spectrum information in it and some somewhat ambiguous pitch content - Neuro bass for example. Group three Multiband Dynamics in parallel - solo the 'High' on the first, the 'Mid' on the second, and the 'Low' on the third. Now you've split the signal into three frequency bands. Mute the chain that has the 'Low' soloed. Create another audio track called 'SUB'. In 'Monitoring' select 'In' and in the 'Input Type' field select the track called 'BASS'. Then in the 'Input Channel' field select the Post FX chain that has 'Low' sitting on it. Now you have a useful sub-bass track that you can process separately from the high and mid frequencies that will automatically reflect whatever changes you make to the original bass sample.
Thank you for showing some love for Multiband Dynamics! It's a much more viable tool than the just the typical 'OTT' use case. It's super versatile. I think the look & layout of it can be somewhat off-putting to some but once you learn what the sliders & other parameters do it becomes like a swiss army knife of sorts in terms of multiband compression, upward expansion, resonance & dynamics control. I really like to use it on the drum buss. Cheers!
damn this what super i after producing so long you end up changing vids at some point bc you already learned something, or in a better way. This overall was just so great. thanks for putting out this content this video was a big game changer for me
Another usage for Multiband Dynamics: You can use 3 instances in a rack, solo one band in each instance and use it to split any signal into 3 frequency bands. Assign a macro to a global crossover for all of them. Now if you want certain vsts on just certain bands it's a drag and drop situation.
New headphones? Gee, they're HUGE :o :D A fun fact - Multiband Compressor device and the OTT preset were created by Claes Johanson while he was working in Ableton and is now a co-founder and lead developer for Bitwig.
Very interesting vid. One thing i'd like to add for anyone who sees this that i thought of when you said about xfer's OTT not having adjustable crossovers is that kilohearts mulitpass has a "N.O.T.T" preset which is basically OTT, but as it's literally an instance of multipass with a compressor loaded on each three bands, you can go in and tweak it, the crossovers, amounts of downwards and upwards compression etc to your heart's content to get the effect you want if standard OTT isn't doing it for you
yo dude just wanted to say thanks for the great information you share with us all your very good at this, its not for everyone youtube has proven that but the producers world is better with you in it doin your dang ol thang! peace out my man!
It’s great to see how beautiful a device like this can do soooooo much. It put a new perspective on it as I really didn’t think about the transient I kinda mess with tone shaping but he made so much easier to understand
Hey man, I've been seeing for years but always thought the plugin was better because it was from the company. I will now use this one especially that cross over. What's funny is I also call it tuning the Ott and that's novel because everyone I know says not to touch stuff and I say. No I absolutely TUNE my OTT so it was really funny to hear.
This is GREAT! Improved my understanding a lot! Also, good acknowledgement of the tails can amplify (a gate could have been recommended). However - there is one aspect left unexplained I think would be highly useful: Eg - 'why' does OTT take a few seconds to get fired up? (eg, if you enhance a sound using upward compression, and rapidly play through it, it sounds DIFFERENT - read: 'better' - the second and ongoing times through it. The first time seems to need to 'wake' OTT up...). This is a problem because a bounced section of a repeating sample will sound DIFFERERNT the first time it hits... I just replicated this with a repeating sample to make sure the issue persists, and it does ... the first time through seems LESS affected by OTT. The wave file is even different. Why does this happen and what implications does this have for a) sound design, and b) trying to 'hear' what OTT is actually doing (the first time through a sound is misleading, because OTT seems to need to 'wake up'!?).
We got an OTT?
Yeah you know me. 🤣🤣
TOP COMMENT.
Another video by Anthony. Another day I actually learn music production. This dude is the gold standard on YT.
agreed
anthony is audio sensei
A HUGE overlooked feature is the sidechain function. You can route two instruments in the same frequency spectrum to duck, say the mid range of one when a guitar and piano play similar chords. You do it by adjusting the threshold, attack and release of a single band for the frequencies you want to affect. The sidechain button is hidden by default, click the triangle to expand it. You're welcome.
I use a lot of breakbeats in production, and my favourite use of multiband dynamics is using all three bands to do expansion. With a multiband expander you can reduce or outright REMOVE the room sound from crusty old breaks and make them sound like they were closemiced and tight. It's soooo underrated, and arguably the exact opposite of how a lot of people use it.
Thanks this is exactly what I'm talking about right here. The effect is incredible and super underutilized
trying this right now cheers
nice
Using multiband dynamics for tackling resonance is actually such a good idea, definitely gonna use that
Yea I never thought. Def using it.
@@englewoodmusic watch for your phase going out 😅
You can just use a dynamic eq too
@@potatosan4250or Soothe 2
@@potatosan4250 does stock ableton have that kind of effect?
that expander transient shaper is new for me. thank you man. nice video as always
The pacing of your tutorials are always just perfect. I also love that you clearly go over what you are doing, why you might want to do it and clever ways to use these stock plugins for a wide variety of use cases. You don’t just show us “do this it sounds good”. You lay a foundation of knowledge and give a spark of exploration to transfer what we learn about Ableton’s stock multi band compressor to use on any other plugin or any other sound design challenge we may have.
Brilliant work as always. I hope you know how positive your influence is on my workflow as well as countless others. Much love!
Okay, for someone who's made and recorded music for 20+ years, this guy's tutorials are the best I've come across. Once you're beyond the basics, this guy will help your mixing get to the next level, for sure.
Got addicted to Dan Worral recently, including his work for FabFilter. Even if you don't have the same plugins, I find them easy to follow along and apply the concepts in whatever I have available.
Definitely the most comprehensive tutorial about Ableton’s OTT I‘ve ever seen! 🚀
You said a lot of things i've been feeling but couldn't articulate. Probably tutorial of the year
I use it on initially dull and bad sounding mp3 samples of old jazz recordings uploaded years ago to the web. Works wonders mixing the dry/wet icm with the ‘time’ knob. Brings it to life and gives it punch.
During 10:35 (Multiband De-esser); that sound is called Silibance Sound.
I became an audio engineer in 1993, and this was something I learned in school. I am so out of the loop however when it comes to MIDI these days. These lessons are intriguing and satisfying to watch as well as still understandable. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Finally a multiband dynamics video where you actually learn how to use the thing!
Great video as always!
Teach me more please!!!
have clicked a few of these and clicked away when they were not instructional and actually teaching me not only the workflow, but what is happening. cheers dude thanks for the educational content. loved the example for the piano man. ive been slapping back too many eqs on things!
Last kick it's actually the kick I always look for. Just so great and fulfilled
Dude I learned more about compression than the whole entire life combined before this video. Nice job
honestly this de esser trick is GENIUS
Blown away! Thank you! A darle 🔥
definitely saving this for future reference
Was going through @ChuckSutton's demo project for Ableton 12 today and realized he uses multiband dynamics in ways I definitely didn't think about or understand. Started raising all these questions about OTT and here this vid was exactly what I was looking for. Some of the bass processing chains in that project file are great examples of what you're speaking to. Pretty cool
So thankful for what you and Chuck both do for Ableton community.
I found that using Multiband Dynamics for drum transients (last example in the vid) was a great way to understand the complexities of this device overall. I recently recorded several isolated drum hits on an acoustic drumkit with a cheap Tascam handheld recorder and then used Multiband Dynamics to bring useable life to the samples. It was a fun way to learn the device by trying to tame some of the "never-ending" tom ringing by squashing the problematic band and then expanding/emphasizing the frequency bands that were lacking for each unique drum recording.
Super cool! Yeah this way of adding presence and saturation to sounds is not too familiar to me, so it's really inspiring to hear this kind of resourcefulness.
Actual new data into my brain I'm so happy I'm gonna cry ❤
ive learned so much! I ve never heard about OTT. Must been living under a rock. haha😅
Going to start using OTT with your tips! Thank you so much for sharing🙌
Fantastic video! This is all really useful insight.
super helpful mate & defo gonna try those crossovers mapped to to the frequency.
cheers
Thank you so much for your tuturials. They are awesome!
one of my fav things that I learned from Anthony is just using OTT at like %10 -- just to give something a little bit of juice. But now I've got a bunch of new ways to play with OTT. Thx!
And yeah, the examples with the kick drums? That's super useful and can make an imperfect sample usable. Neat.
You always find ways to get the most (and best) out of Ableton's built-in instruments and effects. And even better, you make great videos to show us how, too! Thanks for all the excellent work you do!
I use multiband compresor as I use Saturn from Fabfilter
Great content as usual, gracias, saludos desde México.
i love you sir anthony ❤
I use it alot to tame the mid highs on most synths, and to even out a sound with the multiband compression preset i hardly ever use the actual ott preset.
this video is insane quality. really learned a lot from it. big thank you!
This is GOLD. I’m already understanding multiband compression more by watching this one video than I have by trying to learn about it for like the last year 😅
Thank you so much for this video. I started following after one of your videos on Saturators, a tool I had no idea how to use until this year. Multiband Dynamics has been another one of such tools idea, so this video has been incredibly useful. After learning what it does, I realize that so many problems I've tried to fix through other methods could have been handled with the Multiband.
Wow the trick with the piano really explained it! Awesome, thank you!
the thing at 8:00 minutes is absolutely crazy cool, thank you for sharing this valuable info!
Once again, I'm finding your videos to be the most helpful, thorough, and specific to actually expanding my creativity and music production toolbox
I can't wait to try this out on my mic'd acoustic guitar tracks. Great video Anthony!
this is a fantastic video! thanks! very well done.
I’m so grateful for you sharing your hard earned skills with such an elegant and humorous style. Cheers
I’m new to Ableton Live and really enjoyed the great explanation. We made content. Followed!
I just started using Multiband dynamics, so this is perfect timing on the upload, thank you as always 🙏 see you at Secret Dreams ✌️
Most informative OTT vid tut ever
ive never touched the crossover. THANKS!
Great thanks🤩 This Multiband Dynamics device IS actually a multi plugin in many sence. Best tutorial ever for this device. Thank you 😊
Goated production channel. LOVE
Very useful video about OTT. Thanks bruv
I never use multiband dynamics for ott compression really but I get a lot of use. If you sample a kick with a hi hat combined with it you can gate the high frequencies and eliminate the tail of the hi hat while keeping the attack in the highs of the kick. You can also do bass sidechaining with the kick but only on the lower frequencies that compete. It's also one of the best guitar noise gates you can use cause you can have it cut out high frequencies without effecting the sustain of middle and low frequencies.
Great info, haven’t used for expansion before but something new to try.
Personally use multiband comp for side chain compression to have different ducking per frequency spectrum
I use this mainly to tighten my breaks! Happy to learn another technique, and an awesome one too
This changed the game for me. Thank you!
great vid. thank you for synthesizing the thousands of redundant videos on TH-cam while adding a bunch of new helpful info. No excessive explaining. just straight demonstrations. Subbed.
I tend to drop 3 multibands in a rack, and solo each range in each multiband, so that i can drop different effects on each range of frequencies
That's a super cool idea!
Also works great w/envelope follower for driving MaxForLive Vizzie based visuals 😎🖤🍭
Great idea!
I also do this with auto filter in band pass mode. Add lfo to taste if you want to add some filter movement and panning.
have you seen Sixth Sample's free plugin based on OTT called "Cramit"? it lets you change the crossovers, has a continuous pre and post distortion shaper, and you can only use 1 on a single track as the last one undoes the first one (at least as far as I can tell). I like slapping it on my master with bass and mid bypassed, small speed, and breathe back some life into the rides/hats/higher-end of reverb/etc., whilst also taming it, as well as using it on a bassline to force the bass/mid to always be at least somewhat homogenous in volume no matter what octave I go for. it's quick and dirty, but far better than xfer's offering imho. it's pretty close to Ableton's, with some precision removed, but hey I can use it in OBS! (petition for ableton to release VST versions of their stock plugins, similar to how Reaper did it)
Thanks for this video! I have been looking for a good video about multiband compression. Im now gonna use it way more! Thanks
I use the multiband Dynamics plugin for something VERY different (I rarely use the OTT preset) I take old 80's tracks that have been very poorly mixed, create three instances of the track and place a MD on each of the 3 channels soloing bass for one, mids for another and highs on the 3rd. By using a combo of the 3, I can improve and enhance the track The fine adjustment of the crossover on all three tracks is actually where the magic happens.
great video! an excellent summary, thanks for such an informative primer on the multi-band compression plugin!
This is the vid I’ve been waiting for
I sometimes use it as a kind of multiband gate, with the expansion controls. Kinda like a complex sidechain input into a normal gate
My favourite effect in multiband dynamics is the reduce ambience preset
I didn't know that about multiband expansion! Thank you my dude.
On the note of features you didn't mention, sometimes using a multiband dynamics as a sidechain tool is more helpful than a regular compressor as it lets you compress part of the sound out of the way rather than the whole signal.
Love your content and thank you for all your FX/Instrument racks!
I'm just discovering the world of multiband dynamics. You are an excellent guide dear sir!
Great exposition of multiband dynamics, very useful
Thank you very much for the class! Great example
best video i saw so far on ott
Say you've got a track called 'BASS' that has a bass sample on it that's got a lot of full-spectrum information in it and some somewhat ambiguous pitch content - Neuro bass for example. Group three Multiband Dynamics in parallel - solo the 'High' on the first, the 'Mid' on the second, and the 'Low' on the third. Now you've split the signal into three frequency bands. Mute the chain that has the 'Low' soloed. Create another audio track called 'SUB'. In 'Monitoring' select 'In' and in the 'Input Type' field select the track called 'BASS'. Then in the 'Input Channel' field select the Post FX chain that has 'Low' sitting on it. Now you have a useful sub-bass track that you can process separately from the high and mid frequencies that will automatically reflect whatever changes you make to the original bass sample.
Thank you for showing some love for Multiband Dynamics! It's a much more viable tool than the just the typical 'OTT' use case. It's super versatile. I think the look & layout of it can be somewhat off-putting to some but once you learn what the sliders & other parameters do it becomes like a swiss army knife of sorts in terms of multiband compression, upward expansion, resonance & dynamics control. I really like to use it on the drum buss. Cheers!
Loads of new and useful tips. This was awesome thank you !
Omg 😱 learning so much from this video
finally learn it
damn this what super i after producing so long you end up changing vids at some point bc you already learned something, or in a better way. This overall was just so great. thanks for putting out this content this video was a big game changer for me
I use it for vocals to control the mids and lows for the plosives without having to adjust the eq as much
Very interesting and easy to follow! Had no idea i was missing this
Another usage for Multiband Dynamics: You can use 3 instances in a rack, solo one band in each instance and use it to split any signal into 3 frequency bands. Assign a macro to a global crossover for all of them. Now if you want certain vsts on just certain bands it's a drag and drop situation.
I love when people talk about ott while wearing headphones!! How's your tinnitus... hey dad, we're over here! 😂🤣🤣
New headphones? Gee, they're HUGE :o :D
A fun fact - Multiband Compressor device and the OTT preset were created by Claes Johanson while he was working in Ableton and is now a co-founder and lead developer for Bitwig.
"AbletonSs multiband DynamicsS iSs sSo Sssuper uSsefull"😅 Loved that haha.
Very interesting vid. One thing i'd like to add for anyone who sees this that i thought of when you said about xfer's OTT not having adjustable crossovers is that kilohearts mulitpass has a "N.O.T.T" preset which is basically OTT, but as it's literally an instance of multipass with a compressor loaded on each three bands, you can go in and tweak it, the crossovers, amounts of downwards and upwards compression etc to your heart's content to get the effect you want if standard OTT isn't doing it for you
What an amazing video. I've learned something new in every single video you've put out. Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
Thank you man, I literally don't utilize this beast enough.
yo dude just wanted to say thanks for the great information you share with us all your very good at this, its not for everyone youtube has proven that but the producers world is better with you in it doin your dang ol thang! peace out my man!
Great work as always!
Finally, a decent video about ableton's mbd compression. Thanks!
This video is amazing brother thank you
Best of the best, thanks for your work ❤❤
It’s great to see how beautiful a device like this can do soooooo much. It put a new perspective on it as I really didn’t think about the transient I kinda mess with tone shaping but he made so much easier to understand
thank you this helped a lot
Super dope tutorial man thx!
I always knew multi and dynamics had more potential 🥺
this was SO GOOD I love you
Can we get a video of Anthony freaking out while watching Oversampled’s “10k otts”? A few not so subtle jabs in here 😂
super useful and right to the point. Thanks!
14:28 these are my kind of kickdrums #hardcore❤
Hey man, I've been seeing for years but always thought the plugin was better because it was from the company. I will now use this one especially that cross over. What's funny is I also call it tuning the Ott and that's novel because everyone I know says not to touch stuff and I say. No I absolutely TUNE my OTT so it was really funny to hear.
Ungaming the game this guy is…thanks for inspiring 😎🖤🍭🙌
Transient designer??😭😭 thank you sir
Slate has the MO-TT :)
This is GREAT! Improved my understanding a lot! Also, good acknowledgement of the tails can amplify (a gate could have been recommended).
However - there is one aspect left unexplained I think would be highly useful: Eg - 'why' does OTT take a few seconds to get fired up? (eg, if you enhance a sound using upward compression, and rapidly play through it, it sounds DIFFERENT - read: 'better' - the second and ongoing times through it. The first time seems to need to 'wake' OTT up...). This is a problem because a bounced section of a repeating sample will sound DIFFERERNT the first time it hits... I just replicated this with a repeating sample to make sure the issue persists, and it does ... the first time through seems LESS affected by OTT. The wave file is even different. Why does this happen and what implications does this have for a) sound design, and b) trying to 'hear' what OTT is actually doing (the first time through a sound is misleading, because OTT seems to need to 'wake up'!?).