Quick Tip: Super Quick Parallel Compression
Tutorial Details
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Time: 10 minutes
- Requirements: A compressor plug-in with a "mix" function, like Fabfilter's Pro-C or Logic Pro's compressor
There’s no denying that parallel compression is a great way to pump up just about any group of instruments. The technique involves creating a parallel stream of audio, compressing the hell out of it and mixing it with your original signal. It tends to work especially well with drums and percussion.
Although this is a great technique, a traditional parallel processing set up can often be time consuming to set up. I’m going to show you a way we can use certain plug-ins to create a parallel compression effect, in a fraction of the time.
Choosing Your Plug-in
First up we need to choose the right compressor plug-in for the job. Usually, when we are constructing a standard parallel compression buss just about any compressor can be used. The key here is to use a compressor with a ‘mix’ function that allows us to mix the dry and effected signals.
Although not every software compressor has this feature (although maybe they should!), I’ve picked out two that I use. Logic’s stock compressor has a hidden mix function that can be accessed via a small drop down menu, in the lower half the plug-in’s interface.
A third party software compressor that features a mix function is Fab Filter’s excellent ‘Pro-C’. Of course this plug ain’t free but it certainly wont break the bank ( €149 / $199 / £129 ) and you get an extremely flexible processor for your money. Check it out here.
Fabfilter’s Pro-C is an excellent tool for stand-alone parallel compression.
Of course there will be plenty of other compressors out there with a wet/dry mix feature. If you have a favourite or know of a free product, let us know by leaving a comment.
Using the Right Settings
Before we get into how we create our instant parallel buss we need to look at some typical compression settings we’d use in this situation. More often than not pretty extreme compression settings are used in conjunction with parallel processing.
You can afford to use much more intense settings than you are used to here. As we are going to mix the final result with a dry untreated version of our audio, you can really push it and use high ratio and threshold values. I wouldn’t often recommend this approach but … don’t be scared, go ahead and smash it!
The extreme settings in Logic’s compressor.
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The dry uncompressed signal
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The audio with heavy compression
Mixing the Effect
With the dynamics crushed out of your audio and our intense settings in place, it’s time to use our mix function, introduce some dry signal and ultimately create our parallel compression effect.
To apply our compression it really is as simple as starting at zero (or 100% dry) and slowly introducing our heavily compressed signal. I tend to find that around 20 – 30% of the compressed signal tends to work well but of course this is just a guideline.
So if you have a compressor with a mix function get stuck in and quickly serve up some parallel compression effects in seconds!
Our parallel compression effect is created.
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The dry and compressed versions are mixed
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By Mo Volans
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And if your plug-in doesn’t have a dry/wet option, you can achieve a dry/wet mix by placing the compressor on a send channel and mixing it in with the volume, or use an effects rack with two chains if you’re using Ableton Live.
Hi Otto, thanks for the comment… Using send / returns is the traditional method I talk about early in the tutorial and this is supposed to offer a faster easier method for similar results.
also feelin here it is important to point out (to anyone new to this), that you should then mix it with the send channels output signal, rather than adjusting the input signal to the send.
Lately, when using compression on a drum track (especially when using parallel compression) I like to add a gate before the compressor, depending on the loop, of course. Without some gating, you can get the effect of bringing out the ambience of the drums which can sound more like adding reverb to the drums and can change the mix drastically. Using a gate cuts down on the ring or tail of each drum hit keeping more of the original flavour. Of course, you would need a compressor with a built-in gate *and* a mix setting for this quick tip to work…
So.. do you add this to everything, just the drums or what?
Hi there, you can apply this to anything you like! It does work particularly well with groups of instruments and lends itself to drum processing, vocals, guitars and percussion. Try experimenting with anything though ;)
Just to let you all know… there is now some audio included to demonstrate the effect. Cheers.. Mo
Amazing! Heard about this technique before and haven’t come across a simple how-to until now. This is the second tutorial of yours I read right before finishing a track. Makes me feel silly for thinking it was done before adding this!
I’m using the FX Send method, and mixing it back in at about -14dB on both drum and bass groups. What levels does anyone else tend to use on a send return?
Just so that I understand, with this technique, you have an original loop (example) and another one which is heavily compressed. This means that on the second version of the loop, if the dry/wet signal of the parallel compression is set to zero, you would have two instances of the same “dry” loop?
You can do this multi-band as well
http://en.wikiaudio.org/Logic:Parallel_multiband_compression
Claudiu — you only need one loop. if your compressor has a wet/dry control. Start with the compression fully wet, compress heavily, then scale back the wetness to introduce some of the original dry signal — voila.
If you don’t have the wet/dry control, then set the compressor up as a send ‘pre-fader’ and mix the return of the send (after compression) with the original signal – voila again.
Just a note, if you are using REAPER as your DAW, it allows you to control the wet/dry mix from ANY plug-in! Meaning you can do this with any compressor you have. Very useful feature :)
Nice one, thanks
parallel compression isnt the same as halving the ratio? or make a 20 % of it in this case well not linear but square root the ratio? for a 50 – 50 mix
thank you so much
Thanks to Setvice for remember us that Reaper allows us to control wet/dry signal of any plugins.
Nobody gave us free compressor which has got wet/control signal so I ‘ll to do for you!
his name is Molot (very complete.I love it!)
You can download it here: http://vladgsound.wordpress.com/downloads/