frankthetank727
New member
I've seen this term pop up several times and I have never really looked into it. If anyone could provide me with a relatively thorough answer on how to do it and what its pros and cons are that would be awesome. Thanks!
Not to split hairs too much but what are you calling 'density'? A simple transparent compressor will push peaks above the threshold down by a certain amount proportional to the ratio, and that's it. Add that back to the original signal and compensate for the gain and what you should get is an average of the two, which would be much like compressing at half the knee ratio, right? This is especially true when talking about doing it on percussion because you have a very predictable attack with a simple fall-off afterwards.It also changes the density completely from the bottom up. Not the same.
But if I have those 4 vocal tracks.. all outputing to 'Group A'...
And 'Group A' is sending to an FX track with compression on it..
The original tracks won't be heard, will they?
Then it'll just be playing the compressed version?
I'm probably missing something, sorry.
I do. I use parallel compression on my snare and toms. It works fine but I'm not convinced it sounds any different to just having a compressor as an insert with a long attack. It just works out more convenient this way as I only need one plugin for it.Try parallel compression and compare it. Then it may make more sense.
I do. I use parallel compression on my snare and toms. It works fine but I'm not convinced it sounds any different to just having a compressor as an insert with a long attack. It just works out more convenient this way as I only need one plugin for it.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is that mixing your 30:1 compressed send with the original signal 50/50 (for example) would seem to be broadly equivalent to having a 15:1 compressor insert, because your original material can be considered to have a 1:1 compressor on it. You smash half the signal, then you bring half of it back by mixing in the original - seems equivalent to only smashing it half as much in the first place.
Not the same at all dood. Compression is being used as an effect in this case.