Parallel compression tips

mrhotapples

New member
I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I'm still confused....Very confused...Well, not THAt confused, but I hear people talking about parallel compression and mixing 'percentages' of signal together. My question is...Aside from judging by volume, how the hell do you gauge percentages and why is this a common way to explain mixing things?

I'm confused as all hell about how to apply parallel compression to things and get certain results, and then to get it to actually sound good.

Any tips anyone might be able to share? Let's say for some close mics on a drum kit, or (I'm more interested in this) distorted rhythm guitars. What are some common things you do, some sounds you go for with parallel compression?

Thanks you in advance.
 
For drums...

Mix your drums best you can.

Create a 2 stereo groups let's use drums and compression for the sake of keeping this simple.

Bus all your drums to the drum group then bus the drum group to the compression group.

Place a compressor on the insert of the compressor group. Set it to squash I mean 8to1 or higher. Fast attack Slow release. Lower the fader on this channel.

Play the drums and raise the fader to taste on the compressor group.

If you done it right you should have a very full deep sounding drum kit.

Will
 
BigWillz pretty well nailed it. For drums I like the 1176LN in "all-in" mode with the input set pretty high. If solo'd, the track should sound all trashy. Start out with the fader on the compressor channel all the way down, and slowly bring it up till it's too much, then back it off a bit. Another idea for drums, is to just send the room mic tracks to a comp and compress the bejeezus out of it, and add that to your drum tracks.

Works the same with vocals, although I tend too like the whole track compressed myself - more for effect and the eq swing provided when you run a compressor out of it's intended range..... :D
 
It's also in Olshansky's mixing book as "new york" style compression. Also seen it for vocals under the "motown" moniker.
I think allot of people just use a limiter on the drum group buss.
it's all in how much of the "wet" (stomped) part you dial in. There are quite a few pluggs that have a mix control for this.
 
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i used to use compression on seperate instruments, now i prefer to just re-record the part to my liking, however, i still do use more than one comp if its called for but i perfer to just mix the track to my liking then when done throw compression on the final mixdown, makes life alot easier

sometimes when you add compression to a single instrument it may not sound 'right' within the mix when compression is added later, at times it could be pretty hard to get it to sound 'perfect' when more than one comp is used

i personally prefer the 'true' sound of mixes, i use absolutely no comp on bass <100hz, and barely any on mids

however i do compress the bejeebuz out of the high end range 5khz> tres around -14 ratio around 5 knee 80 attack quick at about 3ms and release about 30, just ruff guesstimates but you get the idea

**of course this all depends on material

time for me to shut up
-my couple pennies worth
 
Thanks everybody. Decipha, great fucking idea. I was experiencing a LOT of mushing together of things and applying EQ before the comp so it was only squashing high end helped tremendously.
 
historically, NY style compression came about as a mastering technique first, but started being implemented in the small studios of NY as a result of tracking in a small room. Parallel or upwards compression was an old way to bring out more of the room sound to those things that needed it...in a new way.

It was common to use this technique on drum tracks, but is not limited to just drums. You can try this on any track and in any variation you want.

To add to Bigwillz's feedback,


One thing to watchout for is the alingment of the tracks. If you hear phasing (washing funky sound induced by plug in delay) then your tracks aren't lined up. Not all plug ins have zero delay, so watch out for that.

You may find yourself time adjusting your buss returns or you may find yourself making a copy of your audio and then nudging them accordingly.


Also, another thing is the possibility of EQing your compressed buss to bring back some clarity. I was always tought to boost at 10k and at 100hz between 3 to 6db with a fairly narrow bandwidth on a parametric EQ. You may find yourself doing this, or you may not.

It helps compensate for possible muddyness of having an extremely squashed track together with the untouched track. Some prefer before it the compression, some after.

Try both and decide which one works better for you.
 
I find it rather humorous that there are people who were actually successful in convincing a rather large, easily-impressionable audience ... that paralel / bus compression was somehow invented or popularized in New York. :D Or any other city for that matter. I also get a similar kick from similar claims out of Detroit that they somehow have a pattent on this "exciting compressor" ... which is really just more paralel compression, but with some EQ added in.

I suppose Providence, RI should get some credit for something. We should let them have the 50% wet versus dry function you get with a typical reverb effect. We'll have to think of a catchy name for it, though. How about the Rhode Island Reverb technique?

Simple, but effective.

.
 
Parallel or upwards compression was an old way to bring out more of the room sound to those things that needed it...in a new way.
Not to pick nits, but parallel compression and upward compression, while often used in similar circumstances and yielding similar styles of results, are not the same thing at all.

Parallel compression in it's classic form combines an uncompressed track with a copy of that track that has been downward compressed (i.e. the amplitude of the signal above the threshold is diminished). Upward compression, OTOH is compression of a single track where the dynamics are compressed by increasing the volume of the signal below the threshold.

And poor Keith is just pissed because nobody referrs to Bucktown compression ;) :D.

G.
 
Not to pick nits, but parallel compression and upward compression, while often used in similar circumstances and yielding similar styles of results, are not the same thing at all.

Parallel compression in it's classic form combines an uncompressed track with a copy of that track that has been downward compressed (i.e. the amplitude of the signal above the threshold is diminished). Upward compression, OTOH is compression of a single track where the dynamics are compressed by increasing the volume of the signal below the threshold.

And poor Keith is just pissed because nobody referrs to Bucktown compression ;) :D.

G.



really? I was going on memory with that one. I could of sworn I was reading on how Katz refered to parallel compression as upwards compression. I must of misread that. I just always assumed there where end and the same.

Good catch and very much appreciated
 
Definitions are tricky things.

While Detriot compression, NY compression, parallel compression, and upward compression tend to mean the same thing I believe that there are subtle differences. Detriot compression I've been told is when you use this technique on vocals. NY compresion is using this technique on drums. Parallel compression is a technique I believe developed by Richard Hulse for broadcasting see:http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/rhulse/Side%20Chain/sidechain.htm

Upward compression is a more general term (at least as I define it) to include all of the above as well as algorithms that companies like Waves use in their C4, multiband and other compressors which do what Glen said.
 
really? I was going on memory with that one. I could of sworn I was reading on how Katz refered to parallel compression as upwards compression. I must of misread that. I just always assumed there where end and the same.

Good catch and very much appreciated
Don't get me started on Mr. Katz.:rolleyes: I respect his experience and knowledge, but sometimes he goes a bit off the deep end with some of his stuff.

Now, maybe - I don't know, I'm only specualting here - there's more than one coloquial definition for "upward compression"; but classically, as I've understood it, upward compression meant dynamic range compression from the bottom up.

EDIT: Tom snuck in his post while I was editing mine. Apparently "upward compression" is indeed a much looser term than I understood it to be. Personally it makes more sense to me to keep to the narrower definition; both to avoid confusion and because the name descriptively fits that definition best, IMHO. /EDIT

Again, both can be used in similar circumstances as both will beef up a track by emphasizing the non-transient info while leaving the transients intact, but they do so in different ways and therefore result in somewhat different timbred results.

chessrock said:
Come to think of it, I think Wicker Park invented hard-panning.
Not suprising. That means both sides of the city have something to be infamed for and ashamed of. The Wicker Park Pan is right down there with the with the Morgan Park Bass Drop. :p

G.
 
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