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Hey Ragan Ram here with OrpheusAudioAcademy.com helping you make better music and grow your fan base online
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In this video I'm going to be covering my five favorite IK Multimedia plugins
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And this is because IK Multimedia is a really great company. They create a lot of great tools, but I don't see a lot of people talking about them
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So I thought I would create this video. Now real quick before we dive into these plugins
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if you ever find yourself stuck or unsure how to progress with your mix
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then just click in the description of this video below to grab my free rapid mixing checklist
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Not only will this give you a step-by-step system to follow when mixing
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but following this will also prevent you from endlessly mixing so that you can actually finish
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more mixes, finish more songs, and release more music. Again, that's in the description below and
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is completely free. All right, let's dive in. My first favorite IK Multimedia plugin is their
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bus compressor and this is based on the SSL bus compressors that are so famous and so widely used
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even to this day and so this is a great job of really just gluing together your entire mix or
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any submixes you're having if you're you can you know this is great on just individual buses as
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well as your mix bus I'm using it on the mix bus here so this is going to glue everything together
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and kind of just bring everything forward a little bit more as well as what you're going to hear. So
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first we'll just play this without and then I will bring this in. It's going to be subtle
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so if you have headphones or something that's best for for hearing what this is doing
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I might exaggerate some of the controls here as well so you can hear what it's doing
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So I exaggerated the controls a little bit there. I wouldn't be doing that much compression, only like one to two dB, maybe three, depending
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on the song of compression. So this is a little bit exaggerated
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What you're hearing, though, is that it's really bringing the whole mix together
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It kind of brings it forward more. It just seems like it's more in your face rather than being farther away
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And it just adds a really pleasant sound to the whole mix and just makes everything sound better really quickly here I just kind of using this preset with a couple um adjustments so i bring this back to where it was i was not um doing that much compression so uh that is really nice again this looks really well
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on the mix bus or any other buses that you have now the next plugin i really like i have on my
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drum bus here and it is the british channel here this is also based on the ssl only this is based
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on the SSL consoles channel strip, which includes an EQ, a gate or expander, and a compressor
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So this is really great because it's very versatile because it has all these different controls built in
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And also just sounds really great on individual tracks as well as buses
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So what that's doing, you can hear it's really, well, first off, it brightens it up just because
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of the EQ there. We're adding some top end, also cutting out some of the boxiness and muddiness here
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in the low mids and the high mids. And then the gate actually is kind of tightening up the drums
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a bit as well it's kind of just reducing some of that sustain and some of that ring so they just
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they feel tighter and the same thing with the compression so it's just kind of gluing it
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together a little bit better and so it brings them a little bit more forward a little bit more together and just they have a little bit more punch as well so again it's very subtle but it
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definitely adds a nice color to those drums all right next ike multimedia plugin that i really love
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is the quad image tool so this is an imaging tool that can allow you to you know spread out your
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sound, but it allows you to do it by different frequency sections. So this is really nice
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especially if you're not wanting to get things out of phase in the low end. So for example
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this pluck, I'm only increasing the highs here so that just the higher frequencies are going to be
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spread more out, whereas the lower frequencies will still be in the center. So I'm using it on
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this little pluck here Music
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The next plugin I really like is the Dynamu by IK Multimedia
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This is based on the Manly Slam preamp and limiter. This is something when I was actually learning audio engineering at a local commercial studio
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We use the Manly Slam on every single vocal that we recorded and just added a nice warmth and kind of glossiness
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to vocals, but obviously we can use this on other things as well. So
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I'm actually using this on that that pluck I showed you earlier but in this case, I'm using it on
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some synths here and What's great about this is not only can it add some nice warmth and glue through compression
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but if you kind of crank it up, it can actually add saturation as well
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So it makes this great for if you're kind of going for more vintage or retro sound as well
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or just wanting to add some compression to your sound. So let's listen to it here on these synths
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so yeah again this is you can hear that saturation is kind of warming it up
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it's also that compression is kind of bringing them more forward and just making it feel more
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full and glued together so i really like this here and again this can work on just
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about any track you can also use this on your mix bus if you wanted to so this is a really awesome
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plug plug-in if you're wanting to add kind of a glossy warmth to any kind of track last but not
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least is this quad compressor tool by ik multimedia and so this is a multi-band compressor that allows
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you to compress different frequency bands separately and so i'm using it here on this kind of chromatic
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percussion section I have in this song to kind of pull down the harshness and so we hear this sounds like before and after
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so you can hear um this is kind of putting a lid on things it's really tamping down down
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it's harsh frequencies when they when they get to be too much and so this is kind of what this is
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nice versus like just using an eq which is kind of permanent this kind of just um will work more
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um the more harshness we receive here from this section so let's actually listen to this um with
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the full mix so you can kind of hear what it sounds like before and after and without this and it just it gets too harsh and with it in it kind of sits back in the mix a little better
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so i got a little bit exaggerated here just so you can hear a little bit more i probably
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uh wouldn't have this um pulled down quite as much but you can hear what it's doing it is taming
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those harsh frequencies and obviously you can have this work differently you can have it take out
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other frequency ranges as well. So here I'm also kind of using as an AQ to just cut off all the
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frequencies below 150 because there's not really anything we need in those ranges. So this is a
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great plugin if you're looking for a flexible multi-band compressor. By the way, I have links
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to all these in the description below. These are affiliate links. So if you do decide to pick these
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up and use my link, then I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. And I really
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appreciate it as that really helps the channel out a lot. By the way, if you want to check out
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more of my gear and plugin reviews, then I have a playlist on the screen right now that you can
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click to check out those videos. Otherwise, let me know in the comments below what other
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tools or software would you like to see me review in the future. Have an awesome day and keep creating
