parallel compression?...or not?

theD1CKENS

*insert clever title here
was playing around, mixing some tracks earlier and came across something a little strange. just to see what it would sound like, I copied a guitar track and compressed the crap out of it, then brought it in slowly behind the original, uncompressed track. the louder I brought it up, the more 'distorted' the whole thing sounded. not distorted like a guitar and pedal, just....funny...in a bad way.

I thought this was the general idea behind parallel compression?! if that is NOT correct, please enlighten me, and if I'm on the right path, what can I do to maintain the integrity of the track. are there some EQ tricks that I don't know about?

also, anyone know WHY it does this?
 
Parallel's main strength is allowing you to be extreme in your settings (push transient front end, or kill' them), eq it to emphasize tones, but mostly in ways you might not care to do to the whole signal.
Your key there though is to pick your effect for the blend; How deep do you want to bring up the lower stuff? Fast ‘kill squashing, gentle ratios or not?
You can very easily bring up ‘body and low stuff the just add muck and ugliness with just regular compression let alone heavy handed/parallel.
Same same as why some mixes will go to hell sooner than others. Some of that stuff down there you bring up to get it loud... Maybe you do’n wan’ hear now.
But ey, it’s only those audio snobs that’ll notice.
:D
 
Try it on something other than a distorted guitar. A distorted guitar should rarely (never?) need to be compressed because of the nature of its' sound.

Here's a cool article on what they called Mo-Town's "Exciting Compressor":
The Motown 1960's Exciting Compressor

With the Motown mix approach there were problems. If you wanted the lyrics to be heard you had to use a lot of compression on the vocal so that the the softer words could still be heard over the higher-level music. In addition you boosted the "presence range" (around 5 kHz) with an equalizer. The only problem with this is that it took the life & natural dynamics out of the vocal.

Lawrence Horn came up with a brilliant idea. He took the vocal and split the signal so that it when to 2 console channels. Before the vocal signal went to the second channel, it went through a compressor. Now he had two channels of the vocal - one compressed and one uncompressed. On the uncompressed vocal he added very little with the equalizer and he added the reverb. On the compressed channel, he compressed the h**l out of it and added a ton of high-frequency equalization. What he would do is bring up the "natural" channel to full level to get the basic natural sound on the vocal. On the other compressed and equalized channel, he brought this up just enough to add excitement and presence to the vocal sound.

The result was nothing less than amazing. In the mix the vocal sounded very natural and bright. None of the music ever "stepped on" the vocal and you could hear each and every syllable in the lyrics. The vocal never got lost.
Taken from here: http://www.recordinginstitute.com/R2KREQ/excomp.htm
 
Could be lots of things such as

The track was never a good candidate for parallel compression in the first place
Hitting the compressor too hard and overdriving it at input
setting the ratio too high (parallel comp is usually low ratio low threshold to even out the whole signal)
using a comp that is known to distort which might sound pleasing at lower level of compression but sounds like a$$ when compressed to hell
Setting the release too fast

ultimately any technique is a tool that might or might not make something sound better in a mix. If you're comfortable that your doing it right and the end result is not better then it was never the right technique to use.

Parallel comp is not a guaranteed technique to always improve your mix. When it works it's great, when it doesn't don't use it
 
The problem with applying different eq to two copies of a track is the phase interactions. But the ultimate test is how it sounds, so if it sounds good then it is good.

Yeah, compression in general isn't needed as much on distorted guitars. I've used parallel compression on drums to fatten them up, and on a slap bass part to beef up the density without completely losing the slap dynamics.
 
The thing I found interesting in the Mo-Town article is this part:
On the compressed channel, he....................added a ton of high-frequency equalization.

Adding a ton of high frequencies rarely gets mentioned when the subject of parallel compression comes up. I can understand why the high's would be brought up for vocals. You want them to cut through and sparkle. But I wonder if you would do the opposite to a bass, for example. Would you still crank the high's so it would cut, or would you bring up the lows since it's a bass????

I guess there's only one way to find out. See ya. :)
 
I just picked up an Overstayer VCA Stereo Compressor which includes a "BLEND" knob...so you can set up the compressor any way you like, and then turn the blend knob anywhere from 100% uncompressed to 100% compressed...very cool.
You get parallel compression without the need to split out to a second pair of tracks (though you can still do that if you want).

I've only started playing around with it on my mix bus...but this is one sweet sounding compressor if anyone is looking for a cool stereo comp. It also has built-in low & high EQ filters that can only be used to boost (no cut) - 50Hz or 100Hz in the low end and 12kHz in the high end - and while it's easy enough to add an EQ into the chain, having the filters in the comp unit is a very handy feature...and these filters sound really good!

They also make a 1/2-rack FET-based comp and now a 1/2-rack VCA comp but without the EQ filters. The prices for any of these three are quite reasonable. I may end up also picking up one each of the 1/2-rack units.

Overstayer Recording Equipment - Home
 
The thing I found interesting in the Mo-Town article is this part:

Adding a ton of high frequencies rarely gets mentioned when the subject of parallel compression comes up. I can understand why the high's would be brought up for vocals. You want them to cut through and sparkle. But I wonder if you would do the opposite to a bass, for example. Would you still crank the high's so it would cut, or would you bring up the lows since it's a bass????

I guess there's only one way to find out. See ya. :)
I take that Motown/Exciting compression and open it up for its implications.
Boosting the highs + the added density of the compression..? Just as valid would be say approaching from the compression/density factor and then adding or pulling out anywhere you see fitting. How about add density but pull out some mud freqs?
The thought process seems very similar to how you might want to tailor and do eq trims on an ambience effect that sets in behind a track.
 
I'm working on a song right now and I'm using parallel compression on the kick and snare - which I normally never do. I can't say that it sounds any better or different than what my shit usually sounds like.
 
Never used parallel compression, heard it being used in a way that made me think "HOLY SHIT THAT"S IT!!!", or quite understood what all the hubbub is about. However, It's on my needless trend accomplishment list.

1. Buy an iphone
2. Start using a mac.
3. Learn how to use Pro-Toolz.
4. Listen to Lamb Of God.
5. Parallel compress something.
 
Never used parallel compression, heard it being used in a way that made me think "HOLY SHIT THAT"S IT!!!", or quite understood what all the hubbub is about. However, It's on my needless trend accomplishment list.

1. Buy an iphone
2. Start using a mac.
3. Learn how to use Pro-Toolz.
4. Listen to Lamb Of God.
5. Parallel compress something.

I got you on 1 and 5. Numbers 2 through 4 aint happening though.


I'm not totally ready to pass judgement on parallel compression yet, but I'm not impressed so far. It seems like a trendy trick that's not necessary if you get clean sounds recorded to begin with.
 
I copied a guitar track and compressed the crap out of it, then brought it in slowly behind the original, uncompressed track. the louder I brought it up, the more 'distorted' the whole thing sounded.

What you were hearing was phase distortion as the two tracks were not occurring at the same time in space... if you add a plug-in compressor [never a good idea] that plug in will come with at least 1 sample of latency [imperceptible to the naked ear... complete clusterf&^k when added to an original signal]. If you were going to an outboard / "hardware" compressor then you had the latency of the D/A conversion and the A/D conversion coming back to the mix platform.

You will need to determine the quantity of latency caused by whatever processing system you have chosen... then slide the copied track ahead in time to compensate for that latency... once that is done... all will be right with the world.

Peace.
 
What you were hearing was phase distortion as the two tracks were not occurring at the same time in space... if you add a plug-in compressor [never a good idea] that plug in will come with at least 1 sample of latency [imperceptible to the naked ear... complete clusterf&^k when added to an original signal]. If you were going to an outboard / "hardware" compressor then you had the latency of the D/A conversion and the A/D conversion coming back to the mix platform.

You will need to determine the quantity of latency caused by whatever processing system you have chosen... then slide the copied track ahead in time to compensate for that latency... once that is done... all will be right with the world.

Peace.

That was my concern the first time someone asked me to try it, but the phase problems I expected didn't occur. Either the DAW I was using compensated automatically or the frequencies involved were low enough not to be affected by the delay.
 
What you were hearing was phase distortion as the two tracks were not occurring at the same time in space... if you add a plug-in compressor [never a good idea] that plug in will come with at least 1 sample of latency [imperceptible to the naked ear... complete clusterf&^k when added to an original signal]. If you were going to an outboard / "hardware" compressor then you had the latency of the D/A conversion and the A/D conversion coming back to the mix platform.

You will need to determine the quantity of latency caused by whatever processing system you have chosen... then slide the copied track ahead in time to compensate for that latency... once that is done... all will be right with the world.

Peace.

bummer, as this was the part I was most curious about. I assumed the distortion came from weird EQ interactions, so I left both tracks flat, initially. still sounded like poop, so I played around with some drastic EQing...poop. I haven't had a lot of phasing issues, so it's not second nature to check yet. lesson learned there.

@RAMI; I compressed distorted guitars cuz that's all I had recorded. it was more of an experiment than anything. my distortion is pretty jagged sounding, and LIGHT compression smooths it out a little

I think I'm just getting ahead of myself. I get pretty excited when I get something recorded that actually sounds decent, so I go out of my way to mess it up somehow
 
bummer, as this was the part I was most curious about. I assumed the distortion came from weird EQ interactions, so I left both tracks flat, initially. still sounded like poop, so I played around with some drastic EQing...poop. I haven't had a lot of phasing issues, so it's not second nature to check yet. lesson learned there. ...
You might try a test comparison duplicating the amount and style of your no eq'd parallel comp' with straight compression- depth of threshold, attack and release, but say half the ratio.
It could well be that you can get a lot of the same effect (and nasties ) with the straight comp. That would sorta illistrate whether the underlying result was indeed that track was just a poor fit for the experiment. My first reaction was 'crunched guitar is already pretty dense and compact. (You might want something with some dynamics and depths to bring up. :D
 
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