

When gating a kick or snare, try using the filters built into the sidechain section to hone in on the fundamental of the particular instrument you want to trigger the gate. My Top-Tips for Using the FabFilter Pro-G Plugin Filter the Sidechain While with a typical gate you’re somewhat limited in how far you can push the bleed reduction process due to the inevitable attack & release time artifacts, the additions of controls such as “hold,” “lookahead” and an extremely customizable sidechaining section in Pro-G allow for much more transparent, musical gating and expansion results when pushed to the limits. While classic, old-fashioned gating is definitely a pretty straight forward and “obvious” task, Pro-G takes the process to a whole new level, allowing for far superior customization and damage control and thus resulting in a far superior sonic outcome.

Gates are often seen as the “less interesting” mixing tool, often upstaged by EQ and compression.

If you don’t own any great compressor or gate plugins already, Pro-MB has you covered as a great all-in-one, cost-effective solution for all your mixing needs! 3. While Pro-MB is marketed as a “multi-band compressor,” it can just as easily be used as a great full-range compressor or gate if you simply use it with a single, full-spectrum band. The possibilities are endless! Regular Compression Reducing harsh sibilance in a vocal without affecting high end clarity? Done. It’s a multi-band EQ, gate, expander, limiter, compressor, spectrum analyzer, mid-side processor and side-chaining powerhouse all-in-one!ĭynamically boosting kick low end in a stereo drum loop without affecting everything else? Check. FabFilter Pro-MB Multi-Band CompressorĪs I’ve mentioned in several of my articles, videos and courses in the past, Pro-MB may just be the most powerful audio processing plugin of all time. Natural Phaseįor most mixing tasks, the “low-latency” mode in Pro-Q will work just fine, allowing you to make fast, accurate EQ decisions with no discernible delay/lag between the moves you’re making and what you’re hearing, or any unpleasant phase-shift characteristics that sound weird.įor mastering or equalization of multiple sound sources simultaneously via groups/busses, using the “natural phase” or “linear phase” modes can help preserve the phase integrity of your mix.

Being able to adjust the response speed and detail of the spectrum analyzer to best suit your CPU usage needs is a great added bonus! Low-Latency vs. While relying on “mixing with your eyes” is never really a great idea, Pro-Q’s built in spectrum analyzer can really help speed up the task of locating problem frequencies and eliminating them. Being able to adjust mid/side and left/right on a per-band basis within Pro-Q makes these tasks a total breeze! Visual Mixing? If you haven’t yet delved into the world of mid-side, Pro-Q is a great place to start! Sometimes stereo sound sources can benefit from having their low end collapsed to mono or their high end widened. This plugin has a built-in pre/post EQ spectrum analyzer, the highest quality filters, per-band mid-side and L/R processing, EQ matching, per-band dynamic EQ functionality, individual band soloing, automatic gain compensation, sidechain input, a polarity switch and multiple phase and latency modes… Pro-Q 3 has it all! My Top-Tips for Using the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 Plugin Mid-Side Mixing With each new version, Pro-Q has only improved further, culminating in Pro-Q 3: the ultimate equalization toolbox with everything you could ever need to sculpt and shape your audio to perfection. The fact that I’ve been a Pro-Q user since version 1 and am still using the same EQ today says a lot. On that note, let’s take a look at 5 FabFilter plugins which every engineer should own: 1. Today, FabFilter plugins are a staple of top producers in top studios all over the world. It was great plugin after great plugin, all going on to achieve “best in class” and taking the world of mixing by storm. Their following releases all followed suit. Little did they know that it would go on to become one of the most popular plugins of all time. In 2009, FabFilter released their Pro-Q equalizer plugin.
