just discovered parallel compression is the SHIT

[Dexter_prog]

Could someone post clips with and without parallel compression of anything (drums, guitars, etc)?

 

[Fox Mulder]

does anybody find that when sending drums or guitars to a bus (even a stereo bus) for parallel compression, that it kind of ruins the stereo image?

Not at all.

 

[Ermz]

Just tried it again on drums and bass. It's definitely possible to go overboard. You can turn your mix into mud city unless you're careful with that shit. And use FAST ATTACKS, otherwise you'll have some weird drum transient issues down the track.

 

[GarethSE]

I don't actually use it that much at all anymore.
I can usually get stuff sounding fat and heavy and agressive pretty damn nicely without it.

I still use it on kicks quite often though, but I've found my usage of it on snares has definately diminished.
Blending in plenty of totally smashed S2.0 room mic makes my snares TOO fat if anything now haha

 

[Fragle]

The idea behind sending from individual tracks is that you get to choose how much 'squeeze' you get with each drum. You can still send them all to the same compressor and get synchronized pumping effect, it's just that this way you get fine control over how much you send. Cymbals for instance are notorious for being absolutely slaughtered by parallel compression, so you have to back the overheads off.

This is a technique that, if I'm not wrong, sounds like it gets used a lot by Jens Bogren. He always has that pumpy/muddy thing going on, which to me is somewhat of a parallel comp signature. I may be wrong.

Also, the 'correct' way to use parallel compression is with a very fast attack. If you do it with a very slow one and let the whole transient pass then you're defeating the entire point of doing it.

I dig the idea of parallel slamming the kick and bass together. I once bussed both to a group and serial compressed them, barely moving the needle and it did what was needed to glue them. It's just a bit of an annoying routing job, as I like my kick to group with the rest of my drums and not the bass. But hey, whatever works.

well, i totally get what you're trying to say.
the thing is, when i tried it that way i didn't really find the results very impressive. doing it the way i described above just yields way better results - to me at least.
i might be mistaken on the attack settings thing, though...will check that session tomorrow.

another point: maybe it's because i used this on midi drums (SSD 3.0) rather than a real kit (for this mix)....i'd assume that with the whole leakage that comes along with a real kit, the cymbals might quickly get overbearing - just like you described. so well, maybe it's more of a midi drums thing, where you don't really have any bleed to start with, often resulting in an oddly seperated sounding kit....and parallel comp'ing the whole kit just seems to glue it together a bit more.

 

[Charles J]

I was just messing w/this on some drum tones I have setup for an EP I'm working on and hell if I didn't like it at all.

Like Ermz said, it can turn into MUD CITY if you're not careful and for some reason. no matter what comp. plug I tried, I was dealing w/weird phase issues that I just do NOT want to be fucking dealing with.

Could be a problem that I've already got my drum tones pretty much EXACTLY where I want them from several stages of serial compression? I thought it'd be cool to see if I could make them sound even 'better' but it didn't happen. I actually had more luck sending the SNR/Toms to a parallel DISTORTION track, but even so, MUD CITY w/even just a hint of it going on, so fuck it.

(mind you, I also already have some saturation happening on the drumbuss itself as well as compression, so...)

 

[Fragle]

alright, just checked the session, and i used the shortest possible attack time for the drum para group, so just disregard what i said about that before lol.

and sigmund, thats similar to what i was experiencing earlier. maybe you should try using it on the full drum bus, and also back off on the individual drum compression?
with the mix i tried using it on, i didn't have any compression on my kick snare etc whatsoever, only the parallel comp, and another stage of compression on the 2bus. i guess when already compressing the individual instruments the way you want them to sound there's not much point in using parallel compression again. the idea should be to have the uncompressed sounds, and then blend in a really smashed version of these, so you get both the clarity of raw sounds AND the punch of compressed ones.
btw, i also used a saturation plug (tessla SE) on the drums bus (not the para one), and fwiw i didn't run into phase issues at all. what daw and which plugs are you using?

 

[vespiz]

Oh yeah, just remembered that in the Mixing Engineers Handbook, it mentions that you should boost 100Hz and 10kHz by about 10dB on the parallel comp return. I try to do this every time. (It's the so called New York compression "trick"..). That should clear up any mud!

 

[Charles J]

alright, just checked the session, and i used the shortest possible attack time for the drum para group, so just disregard what i said about that before lol.

and sigmund, thats similar to what i was experiencing earlier. maybe you should try using it on the full drum bus, and also back off on the individual drum compression?
with the mix i tried using it on, i didn't have any compression on my kick snare etc whatsoever, only the parallel comp, and another stage of compression on the 2bus. i guess when already compressing the individual instruments the way you want them to sound there's not much point in using parallel compression again. the idea should be to have the uncompressed sounds, and then blend in a really smashed version of these, so you get both the clarity of raw sounds AND the punch of compressed ones.
btw, i also used a saturation plug (tessla SE) on the drums bus (not the para one), and fwiw i didn't run into phase issues at all. what daw and which plugs are you using?

I think that's just it, since I'm already compressing them individually and then sending K/S/T to a Buss w/MORE compression and saturation.

I actually tried putting the Marquis Compressor on the drum buss in series and using it's wet/dry knob, which, gave me hella phase issues unless you set the mode from "Phasy" to "Linear". Lol, go figure.

Then, instead of that I set up a buss w/the Rocket and buss'd my entire drumbuss to it via Cubase's FX-Send (Pre-Fader, 0.00dB) as to get the entire signal to the para comp no matter where I had the DrumB fader set.

I dunno, it's just kind of too clumsy for me and too many variables. I'd rather get 'there' via several stages of compression, but, you never know, whatever works!

I have a feeling most of my favorite mixes/mix engineer's aren't really using para. comp most of the time, I could be wrong but it seems that...

Whenever you ask some big name mixer what they did to get this sound or that sound, they are almost ALWAYS very cavalier in the way they come across in explaining their methods. As in, they don't seem to be micro-managing and over analyzing things as much as we may think. Most of the time, it's just kind of 'go with the flow' and just do what sounds good! It's more of an artistic vibe than some kind of fucking science experiment.

I think that's a common err a lot of us can easily fall in to, myself included!

Anyways, back on topic....

 

[kev]

This is the sort of experience i've had with it to show an example:

No PC Bus: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1206505/paralell compression bus muted.mp3

With PC Bus: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1206505/paralell compressed.mp3

I've never actually bothered using it in a mix however. I think next mix I do I will give it a crack.

Question for you guys- Do you ship out 100% of your buses to the compressor track? I've never really known how much to add.

 

[Charles J]

See, I like the NON Para Drums wayyyyy fucking better. They already sound pretty damn compressed in the first place (but that good, 'you did it right' kind of compression).

...and then I heard the para. comp added in, BLARGHHHH. It's too much, maaaan! At least for me, anyways. I don't like what it did to the transients at ALL and it made it kind of messy and smeary. I don't like smeary drums, personally.

After I listened back the regular drums and ahhhhh, sense of relief.

I guess it's more down to a taste thing, eh?

 

[Fox Mulder]

I guess it's more down to a taste thing, eh?

Definitely. PC is not a rule.

Edit:
Here's a stupid question: How many of you actually send the room to the PC buss? I never tried that predicting it would freak me out. Any opinions regarding this?

 

[kev]

It feels good for a big rock kit I think, when you're talking speed metal im not so sure . Anyway, I dont really know much about this stuff so im going to go read before commenting any more.

Edit: Ok for you guys out there who also didnt know it- the "big guys" recommend you start at 0 and bring the parallel track up until you just begin to hear it Thats definitely not what i did on my tracks above, so they can stay as a "extreme" example.

 

[Charles J]

It feels good for a big rock kit I think, when you're talking speed metal im not so sure . Anyway, I dont really know much about this stuff so im going to go read before commenting any more.

Edit: Ok for you guys out there who also didnt know it- the "big guys" recommend you start at 0 and bring the parallel track up until you just begin to hear it Thats definitely not what i did on my tracks above, so they can stay as a "extreme" example.

Exactly. I can see it's uses in other forms of music for sure, but for extreme death and tech, eh, not so much.

And yeah, at the start at zero thing, kinda like reverb, lol. Bring it up until you hear it, then back it off a bit. Mute it, and if something is missing when you mute it, you've got it!

Haha, but obviously, nothing is a rule.

 

[20Mg]

All to the same compressor, Chris, or separately? I've heard about comp'ing the kick and bass together to glue things nicely, but having the snare in there seems like it might mess things up (but of course, go with what sounds good!)



Sending a group of instruments (guitars, drums) to an aux track, slamming the ever loving crap out of it with a compressor, and then blending it in with the unaffected instruments for happiness (haven't tried it, will soon!)

create aux tracks for each individual track? is this a common technique? is it compulsory to blend the PC'd track with the original one? i too havent actually tried this.. anyone can give me a little pointer on how to do this in logic 9? i have a rough idea but cant try it till i get home.

 

[colonel kurtz]

Just tried it again on drums and bass. It's definitely possible to go overboard. You can turn your mix into mud city unless you're careful with that shit. And use FAST ATTACKS, otherwise you'll have some weird drum transient issues down the track.

why not EQ the low end out of the compressed buss?

 

[colonel kurtz]

is it compulsory to blend the PC'd track with the original one?

it's 100% necessary

the whole point of parallel compression is to have one compressed-to-shit track(or group) playing simultaneously with ones that have the original transients intact

 

[Dexter_prog]

When you people say "blend" you mean having 2 tracks or do you use some plugin that has a wet/dry option? (or would that be the same as having 2 tracks?)

 

[botus99]

When you people say "blend" you mean having 2 tracks or do you use some plugin that has a wet/dry option? (or would that be the same as having 2 tracks?)

It could be either really, but having a second track leaves much more flexibility! Pre or Post EQ to the compressed track can have a world of difference

 

[Harry Hughes]

My drums were horrible without it, but that would be partly due to lacking any skill though. But yeah, it is the shit.