When applied at such a late stage, compression should only really be used in a very gentle fashion, just to tidy up the odd peak here and there. Putting a compressor on at the very end of a mix can significantly change the balance and undo a lot of good work. The sonic difference between starting your mix with a compressor and putting one on at the very end is huge.

However, compression can be so integral to the sound of electronic music that it strays from being a technical process into being a creative one. You will read articles saying to leave mix compression to the mastering engineer – and admittedly, there is a some general wisdom in this. While electronic music doesn’t technically require the same amount of compression as acoustic music does, mix bus compression plays an important part in the overall mix dynamic, and compression is used in a very different way in electronic music than it is in, say, country & western. This technique adds power, swing, polish and cohesion to your mix.

Mix bus compression (also sometimes called master bus compression) refers to adding a compressor to your main stereo mix. Chris Lyth has some ideas to get you started… Used correctly, bus compression can help the various elments in a mix gel together better.

Mixbus compressor