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In this tutorial video Ableton Certified Trainer, Ian Gallagher, shows us some fresh new features in the FabFilter Pro-C2 compressor plugin. Useful compression styles and incredible audio quality help your workflow to go faster and your music to sound its best.

Pro-C is is an industry-leading compressor, used in mixing and mastering by engineers around the world. It was already incredible in version 1, so tune in to find out how they made it even more crazy. You’ll learn about:

Using Pro-C2 to Compress Vocals

Pro-C2 has a few new compression styles. Vocals need more compression than almost anything else because of how dynamic they are and how important it is to hear each word clearly. Usually we do this with two or three compressors in a chain to get enough control over the dynamic range.

The new vocal mode takes the guesswork out of the equation, by automatically setting ratio and knee. Hear Ian put it through its paces to lock a lead vocal in place using just a single instance of Pro-C2.

Compressing Vocals Tutorial with FabFilter Pro-C2

Using Pro-C2 to Compress a Drum Bus

Next up, you’ll see Pro-C2 go to town on a drum bus. Another one of the new modes in Pro-C2 is bus mode, perfect for this situation.

Mix Parameter

A widely-used technique on a drum group is called “New York compression”, which involves over-compressing the drums, then mixing back in the dry signal. This is done because you get the best of both worlds. You get the loudness and fatness of the heavily compressed signal, plus the punch and lively dynamics of the dry signal.

With the mix parameter, you can dial in the amount of parallel compression you’d like without running the compressor in a send and return routing.

Master Bus Compression

Master bus compression is a key part of the mastering stage, or even in mixing if you want to hear your song with some gain reduction applied. The mastering compression style is designed just for that.

Sidechain EQ

Ian shows some advanced uses of Pro-C2 by also using the internal sidechain filter feature. This allows you to EQ the signal that the compressor is listening and reacting to. In this case, Ian highpasses out the kick and sub-bass so they stay clean and don’t trigger the compressor unnecessarily. This way the mids and highs of the master are compressed more transparently and evenly, avoiding the pumping that low end signals can introduce.

Get FabFilter Pro-C2: https://warpacademy.com/shop/fabfilter-pro-c2-compression-plugin/
Get the FabFilter Total Bundle: https://warpacademy.com/shop/fabfilter-total-bundle/
Shop All Plugins: https://warpacademy.com/product-category/shop-plugins/
Join the Warp Academy Newsletter: https://warpacademy.com/newsletter/

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