Using a Multiband Compressor on a Track Containing 2+ Participants

When two or more voices are recorded on the same track and one voice is too prominent in a certain frequency range, a multiband compressor can do a really good job of taming those frequencies while not affecting other frequency ranges.

For example, let’s say one of the voices is, at times, very sharp and piercing in the 3-5 kHz range (the pain zone!). You could set up a compressor frequency band around 3-5 kHz (see included image) and set the threshold so that the piercing frequencies are pushed down in volume and are no longer piercing/annoying.

Same applies for all other frequency ranges — midrange, low-mids and even high frequencies.

One time I used a band from 15-24 kHz (really high!) to bring down the very high end of one participant who had lots more information up in that range. It worked like a charm 😉

Have you ever processed audio this way before?

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