In this article and the accompanying video, Paul Maunder explores using FabFilter Pro-MB in a post production project both as a sidechain ducker on the music for the voice over and on the master bus.
FabFilter Pro-MB is a multi band dynamics plug-in which takes a slightly different approach than most others. Pro-MB doesn’t have a fixed number of frequency bands but rather works on the basis that you can create bands as required. Up to six bands can be added and freely placed anywhere in the frequency spectrum. Each band can be set to either compress or expand and both downward and upward processing can be applied in each case.
For audio post, Pro-MB comes in very handy when used as a side chain ducker for music, triggered by dialogue or voiceover. The advantage of using Pro-MB for this purpose is the degree of control you have and the intuitive interface which shares a lot in common with FabFilter’s Pro-Q 3 and gives great visual feedback with the spectrum analyser. To use Pro-MB as a ducker, add it to your music track, create a send on a bus from your dialogue track and then set the key input in Pro-MB to this bus. Next, create one or more frequency bands by clicking in the spectrum analyser and then go into the Expert controls for each band and set the sidechain to Ext. Pro-MB will now apply gain reduction to that frequency band based on the settings you apply.
Settings include Threshold, Range, Attack, Release, Ratio, Knee and Output level. The attack and release times are not specified as absolute time values but rather as a percentage. This reflects the fact that both the attack and release are program dependent and even depend on the placement of the band in the frequency spectrum. Pro-MB allows you to really tailor the gain reduction per frequency band, making it highly customisable to the voice and music in your project. Any frequency range not covered by one of your bands will be left unaffected.
FabFilter Pro-MB also comes into its own for reducing the dynamic range of a mix and increasing the overall loudness. This is great when you need to re-work a mix which was perhaps originally created for cinema but needs to be re-purposed for another platform such as Youtube where a wide dynamic range would be less preferable. Being a multi-band dynamics plug-in, Pro-MB gives you the option to reign-in unruly frequency bands more than others which is particularly useful in cases where low frequency content needs to be brought under control in order to adapt a mix for a delivery medium where viewers are likely to watch through much smaller speakers.
The FabFilter Pro-MB is an excellent multi-band dynamics processor which is as intuitive as it is versatile. It fits well in audio post workflows and is light on CPU use, meaning that you can use multiple instances within a session if required. It produces great sounding results and has a well designed interface which makes it easy and enjoyable to use.
Take a look at the video below to see and hear FabFilter Pro-MB in a post-production session.