What exactly is parallel compression...?

[JonWormwood]

And how does it benefit?

I did a search and couldn't find a direct answer. From my understanding, you take two of the exact same tracks but compress one of them?

 

[derfbonker]

Yeah. Just like in electronics you have series and parallel. Series would be in line with each other, and parallel is beside each other.

Some compressors have a mix control, and this accomplishes the same thing. A lot of times people will compress one track heavily, and mix it with the dry track to preserve some of the transients, but still give you a nice compressed sound.

 

[Torniojaws]

In other words, you get more body and "fatness" to the sound, and you also still have the fast attack and the "whip" of the sound Mostly it's used for drums, but you can use it on anything creatively.

Basically you have the original source(s) and you send it to a second track. Now you have "two" (the drum tracks + one extra track) different tracks playing the same stuff. Then you compress the hell out of the new source track with all the instruments. Then you adjust the levels so that the compressed track plays along with the original sounds at a nice level. That way you get much more weight to the sound. That's it, nothing really complicated

 

[fatalforce]

With parallel compression you can achieve upward compression which is where anything below the threshold is brought up. You take a source it and mix it together with itself using a compressor on the second signal. You can naturally do fader riding.

 

[Jackal_Strain]

I use it occasionally on vocals. Neat trick.

 

[Daunt]

I wrote a guide about parallel compression on drums with soundsamples. Check it out!

http://www.faderwear.com/guides/parallel_compression.html

 

[Noumenon]

Cool. just tried it out, worked great.

 

[JonWormwood]

I wrote a guide about parallel compression on drums with soundsamples. Check it out!

http://www.faderwear.com/guides/parallel_compression.html

Absolutely fucking awesome!

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

To me it's always meant use the compressor on a send instead of an insert so you can apply compression on a set of sounds and blend it with the original.

Correct?

 

[Metaltastic]

And just to be clear, when parallel compressing drums, you guys just do it on the stereo bus of all the drums, rather than on each individual drum? And if you do just do it on a stereo bus, do you send the OH's/cymbals there too, or just the actual drums themselves?

 

[Torniojaws]

Personally I don't like parallel compressing the cymbals along with the drums, because they always end up sounding like an ass Makes them sound choked, in the not-drummer-type-choking way.

 

[Sloan]

Personally I don't like parallel compressing the cymbals along with the drums, because they always end up sounding like an ass Makes them sound choked, in the not-drummer-type-choking way.

Agreed.
Kick and snare seem to benefit most from it.
I usually can't mic toms so I haven't had a lot of experience on that end, but i would imagine that it would work in a similar fashion.

 

[JonWormwood]

I've read about parallel comp on Vox to, anyone have experience with that?

 

[fatalforce]

^ yeah thats what I use it on most of the time. it works really well for balancing out the vocal phrasing.

 

[Daunt]

Sometimes it works great with rhythm guitars too. I usually cut the mids from the parallel group to keep it clean.

 

[ManegarM]

wouuu, great tool! work perfect

 

[Fivestringcult]

Very cool trick. One question though - what processing do you guys use on the original track alongside the parallel comp? Just EQ? Or is there a bit of lighter compression on there as well?