How to apply volume automation during softer parts of a song?

There's nothing wrong with the OP idea. It's perfectly valid and actually makes plenty of sense for a lot of things. Sometimes I actually do this "destructively". Apply Item/Take Volume envelope as necessary to hit the compressor consistently. Often some long RMS compression to level things even tighter and then whatever "transient shaping" is necessary. Then I'll just render that to a stem and apply automation to that to make it follow the actual dynamics of the mix.

There are a number of other ways one might handle this kind of thing, too, depending on about everything.

One option would be to automate the threshold of the compressor to be lower on quieter parts and higher when the input is louder.

Another was kind of a fad for a minute. A variant of parallel compression that was called "two stage compression" where you do like normal parallel compression then run the mix of dry and compressed through another compressor. The parallel compressor is set to handle things in the quiet parts, but then as the input gets louder, at a certain point it will basically mask the compressed signal and then you set the second compressor to handle those louder parts. I've honestly never tried it, but it was all the rage in the TapeOp community a few years ago. Here's a vid explains it. He shows mostly drums, but does mention doing it on Vox too.
 
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But there is that thing that the mix should be under control before the master bus out....


Thank you for the link! I get it..

I do understand what the guy is doing there. But I tend or try to make that happen before the master out.

Tho I have been leaning towards others mastering projects recorded here much more lately. There is that thing about not being in the band, that only an outside 'good' ear can hear.


I really gotta get me some real Distressors. The VST version isn't doing it for me. Great, here goes my GAS syndrome...haha!
 
I mean, I thought the OP was talking about individual tracks, and the video I posted is about like a drum group and vocal track. These can techniques work about anywhere, but yes probably better at the individual track and/or bus stage rather than a full mix. It might work there, too, in certain situations. Whatever it takes...

I don't really mean to advocate too hard for the "two stage" thing, but I'll point out that it can be a heck of a lot easier if you use a compressor with a wet/dry control for the parallel part. This way you can really keep the whole thing on one track, or one bus, rather than all the extra routing fuckery. A lot of plugin comps and even some hardware are including those controls to make parallel compression easier, and Reaper of course makes that even easier by adding a wet/dry control to every plugin.
 
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