Don't Understand Parallel Compression

Eric_C · August 6, 2012, 5:10am

neilwilkes:

Parallel compression is a marvellous technique that allows you to both bake your cake & eat it as well.
It can work in one of 2 ways, depending on your compressor’s controls.
1 - If your compressor has a “mix” control, you can simply insert this to your track and dial in the compression mix you want (more on this later) and it will be combined with the uncompressed signal in the compressor itself.
2 - Create a new Group track in your mixer (I am using the nomenclature from Nuendo as this is my DAW of choice) and insert your compressor as insert #1 (This is my preferred approach, regardless of mix dials, and is the method we will discuss here)

Usage is simplicity itself.
Using EFX Sends, feed the compressor group track with Kick, Snare (maybe hats, but probably not), any toms you want etc. You can adjust this as needed, and with this approach (option 2) you have perfect control over everything.
The idea is that instead of bringing high levels down, we bring quiet levels up - which is much more natural sounding to our ears and the artifacts created by low-level signals make the compression effect less evident in addition to retaining dynamics much better than downwards compression can (downwards compression is the usual approach, and is what you see on your attached plot as “typical insert curve”) because the transients are not being brought down but instead enhanced - you’ll see why when we look at the settings to use…

Initial settings.
Set the attack time as fast as possible to begin with. Release time should be set to taste and results required.
I’d also start with a 10:1 ratio, and again adjust as required.
Using aux sends helps here, as if (for example) we need a bit more oomph on the kick, we simply dial in a few more dB on the send.

I hope this helps to clear it all up a little…

Hi. Should I set my release on a drum buss the same in both the two group channel and the dry input method? I admit I haven’t played around with it enough…but I’m concerned with what happens to the release when you mix the two having only one compressor vs these two methods?