Routing for Parallel Compression

I’ve been reading Bobby Owsinski’s book “The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook” and trying out Parallel Compression of Drums and Vocal tracks.

I’m using a Send from the track and routing to a compressor efx track. I right clicked on the Send and selected “Move to prefader”, which works correctly. But isn’t that still after all the insert effects? How does one get the audio before inserts?

How would you go about this? I guess the digital equivalent of a Y cable.

Thanks all.

It’ s after insert 1-6

If you really want / need it that way, you split it before any processing happens. For example from a “dry” vocal track one send to the sidechain compressor, and one send to a group where you apply whatever Fx you want to apply.
Or you duplicate the “dry” track…

Are you sure? I’d say it’s after all inserts. Won’t try now, it’s late here… :wink:

Yes.

Thinkingcap is correct. Both Inserts 7 and 8 are Post-Fader, which (by definition) puts them after the Pre-Fader Inserts 1-6 and Pre-Fader sends.

I’d like to add that, for Parrallel Processing, I personally like to route (not send) both wet (hyper compressed) and dry signals to a Group Channel where I can control the volume changes of these as a unit. Otherwise, you will have to adjust the Pre-fader send’s volume every time you change the volume of the dry signal. Just makes things easier that way.

Thanks for replies all.

So just for my own clarity,

Sends #1 - #6 are defaulted to PRE fader

Sends #7 & #8 are defaulted to POST-fader

But they are all “AFTER” the insert effects?

So the only way to get an unprocessed dry signal (BEFORE any inserted effects) from a track it to duplicate it?

Interesting article in Sound on Sound last February explaining how to do it. I got it work simply with the compressor in a group track with a send from the main dry track.

I thought is sounded really good and improved the track I played through it. However, (I can’t now find this) some time later there was a follow up explaining why it doesn’t work if more than one compressor is used, negating the effect. I didn’t check the maths, maybe I should have, couldn’t be bothered but it looked right.

Kings new clothes maybe I don’t know now

Not quite. There are mixer channel disgrams in the C6 manual which don’t seem to have made it over to C7. They used to be in the Mixer chapter under VST Mixer Diagrams. In case you haven’t got a copy, the approximate flow is:

IN > phase/trim > Ins 1-6 > EQ (now moveable) > Aux Sends (Pre) > Studio Sends (Pre) > Level & Mute > Ins 7-8 > Aux Sends (Post) > Studio Sends (Post) > Pan > OUT

Meter (Pre) and PFL taken from immediately after IN
Meter (Post 1) before Pan
Meter (Post 2) and AFL after Pan

Looks right, please correct this if necessary, anyone. Bear in mind this is a C6 diagram. It’s probably not vastly different in C7.

Anyway, hope it helps

Not quite. There are mixer channel disgrams in the C6 manual which don’t seem to have made it over to C7. They used to be in the Mixer chapter under VST Mixer Diagrams. In case you haven’t got a copy, the approximate flow is:

IN > phase/trim > Ins 1-6 > EQ (now moveable) > Aux Sends (Pre) > Studio Sends (Pre) > Level & Mute > Ins 7-8 > Aux Sends (Post) > Studio Sends (Post) > Pan > OUT

Meter (Pre) and PFL taken from immediately after IN
Meter (Post 1) before Pan
Meter (Post 2) and AFL after Pan

Looks right, please correct this if necessary, anyone. Bear in mind this is a C6 diagram. It’s probably not vastly different in C7.

Anyway, hope it helps,
C

Just another pitch for ‘Multing’ in Cubase. For young=uns, this means that a single track can be routed to MULTIPLE busses simultaneously… not ‘Sends’ or 'Groups, but, for example an input channel could be routed not only to the ‘master’ but also to another -channel-. Like a real desk with a patch bay.

This was introduced ages ago now in Nuendo as ‘Advanced Routing’. It was =promised= to carry over to Cubase. This promise has not yet been kept.

Typically people accomplish a similar result by duplicating a track and then applying separate processing, but that is error-prone and wastes resources.

—JC

This GREAT!! Thanks so much

IN > phase/trim > Ins 1-6 > EQ (now moveable) > Aux Sends (Pre) > Studio Sends (Pre) > Level & Mute > Ins 7-8 > Aux Sends (Post) > Studio Sends (Post) > Pan > OUT

So where you write “Ins” you mean “Inserted Effects”, right?

Still until now you have not yet managed to show us the post, where this was =promised= neither in the old blue forum, nor here…

Sends default to post fader ( all sends), and can be switched to pre fader ( again all sends)
Inserts are 1-6 prefader (fixed)
7+8 are post fader (fixed)

Ya mean, ya can’t find something by searching through a piece of SB content? I’m just shocked. Shocked. :mrgreen:

Hi all

So I tested CB 7 and all sends are AFTER the effects, regardless if you set them as pre or post fader (they ALL default to post fader).

In CB7 you can’t multi-buss (so one input to two separate channels). You can do that (apparently) in Nuendo. The code base between CB & Nuendo is the same so perhaps this feature will make it into Cubase someday.

You can kinda achieve the same thing though as follows:

  1. Select the → “edit settings”
  2. Select “no buss” in the output menu at the top of the edit settings window.
  3. you can now use the sends to route the audio to multiple busses, select “move to prefader” on the sends if you’d like.
  4. there is no signal loss with multiple sends (so if the instrument channel is a -6db 1k tone, and you set each send at “0”, each group channel will show -6db.

You could use the Channel Visibility thingy on the left to hide the originating channel, so you only see the bussed audio channels.

Kinda klunky, but it does work.

Yeah, I did hear (at a ClubCubase meeting at one point?) about the routing from Nuendo getting into Cubase.

That is incorrect. Unfortunately, there is no signal flow diagram in the Cubase 7 Operation Manual, so I had to grab this image from the Cubase 6 Manual. Notice the position of the Aux Sends (Pre & Post) in relation to the Inserts:

I loved these … talk about a few pictures being worth 10000 words. We need them updated and back in the manual.

Well I would advise you to test it out in CB7. CB6 may have different routing capabilities. Try it. Always better to try it out in the real world.

You CAN get the audio before the inserted effects, kind of.

Add a group or an effect channel.

You can add an effect to an instrument channel, then right click on it the select “move to post-fader” and the inserted effect will not have any effect on audio that gets routed to an efx or a group channel (note: the built in EQ DOES effect the audio routed to the sends - regardless where you move the eq in the chain).

Also, you only have 2 insert effects that you can set as “Move to Post-Fader”. Fill them both and you can’t add any more.

So for the purposes of old Skool Parallel Compression (or a digital Y cable), the steps I outlined work.

If you can find another way of achieving the “Digital Y cable”, I would be greatly in your debt! I’d even buy you a beer! or 12!

I know what you are trying to achieve, but that’s not what I was referring to. You said (and again, I quote you)

noise wrote:
So I tested CB 7 and all sends are AFTER the effects, regardless if you set them as pre or post fader > (they ALL default to post fader).

The bold part is specifically what is incorrect about your statement. Yes, all Sends are after their respective Inserts (i.e. Pre-Fader Sends occur after Inserts 1-6 and Post-Fader Sends occur after Inserts 7-8). But there is still a difference between Pre and Post Fader. Perhaps you didn’t mean to say that and it was just the way you phrased it that was wrong. Either way, I simply wanted to clarify this.


EDIT: Nevermind, after re-reading your post, I think I am the one who misinterpreted you. BTW, the way you described Parrallel processing above is probably the best way to do this when using Instrument Channels since that way you don’t have to duplicate the track (which will double the processing load). You are correct.

As said already.
But with prefader sends being after insert FX 1-6 and post fader sends being after insert FX 1-8

You can multi buss inputs, you can not Multibuss outputs. One input can be assigned to as many tracks as you like…

Nuendo Direct routing allows multiple output routings. But since the ouput routing in Nuendo is also post fader / and post inserts, ánd you want it pre-inserts, that wouldn´t do what you want either…