So, eventually we have 4 different vocoders that will receive the same exact signal that comes from the malstrom. From this point on we will add 4 different vocoder units.And connect the output from each 4 available slots in each input signal from the vocoder. Notice that there is no sound yet since the output of the malstrom goes to the spider, and there the output simply stops. This should result into the next picture: Add a spider merger and connect the malstrom to the splitter function (to the right of the spider) to re-use the same signal 4 times. Add any given instrument (I will choose the malstrom this time with a sawtooth 16). The 4 band compression using a vocoder is pretty straight forward. But its also an option to use the stereo imager (which I will cover too since it has some interesting features).

To create the band seperations we could for instance start of with using the vocoder (as I have mentioned). Since those are probably the easiest once to setup. In my first examples I will use a 4 band compressor to start of with. However, this will become a real time consuming proces and you will need + 256 equalizers to begin with. On the other hand, one could many re-create the equalizer of the vocoder by placing all kinds of different Equalizers with a very high Q factor and the gain all the way up and have almost +256 frequencies to change. Since there is only one specific device that handles that amount of different bands to split, which is in this case the BV512 Vocoder. In theory, one can make as maximum a 32 band compression. How many channels can we multiband compress? This will all start to make sense when I am going to present a first step to multiband compression.

How about a multiband phased out sound? or, a sound that detunes differently on the high frequencies then on the low frequencies. On the other hand, there are tricks that you easaly do within reason to take it one step further even. Each band can have its own unique way to either fine tune the sound, boost up the frequencies or make a certain frequency jump in fast and drop away fast. We can use this specific range to compress differently then the 500Hz till 3Khz for instance.

One band is in this case a frequency range (for instance 100Hz till 500Hz). Multiband compression is splitting up the sound in to different bands.

Multi band vs single band compressor