Parallel Compression

June 5, 2009 · Posted in Compression Techniques

compression-curve

This technique is commonly used on drums or vocal tracks, but it also works very well on other material like guitar and bass guitar, even on brass and strings.

If you haven’t heard of this yet, it involves making a split copy of an original signal, then applying heavy compression before balancing the copy back with the source signal.

The idea behind it is to maintain the dynamics of the original source, which works quite well because all the transient signals are still there. Additionally you get louder “quiet” parts of your signal. The result is a different compression curve, which gives the sound a different character.

There is a great article on http://www.hometracked.com/2007/03/31/parallel-compression-for-fatter-drum-tones/ which goes into a bit more detail.

If you use Pro Tools LE/M-Powered, be aware that this technique creates phasing issues which you need to compensate. You can do this using either the onboard time adjuster or the Mellowmuse ATA plug-in. See the Pro Tools category of this blog for more information about delay compensation in Pro Tools.

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Tags: Homerecording, mixing, parallel compression, Pro Tools

Comments

8 Responses to “Parallel Compression”

rebecca on June 5th, 2009 1:52 am

great post, ive subscribed to your rss feed! keep up the good work.
Museum of Techno on June 9th, 2009 5:28 am

Do the phasing issues only affect Pro Tools? Or other DAWs too?
admin on June 9th, 2009 6:12 am

All the major DAW’s have built in plug-in delay compensation except for Pro Tools LE and M-Powered…
Regards Alex
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admin on October 21st, 2009 6:50 pm

I use a customized Wordpress Platform. I’m glad you like the articles. Regards Alex
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