Intro to Parallel Compression

[@evansawatey923]

You are an absolute Genius Joe! Best explanation on parallel compression I've heard so far👍

[@bcfortenberry]

Joe’s giving y’all the good stuff. Get out there and crush a drum buss!

[@todd6726]

This is along the same idea as a wet/dry guitar rig. I had a marshall 412 set up in a left/right configuration where I had dry guitar from my head going to the left side and a "wet" effected signal coming from a load box, reducing it down to line level, and then going thru a multi-effect unit and then re-amplified to the right side of the cab. That dry signal gave it such punchiness combined with the wet effected side. sometimes guitarists will mix a cleaner amp like a Fender twin with a distorted sound and it will give the distortion more clarity and it will have more punch than the distortion alone. Great video Joe.

[@thatlonzoguy]

Basically the point is to maintain the transient of the original while also getting a bigger sound

[@nathanaelashnonmusic2615]

A simpler way of saying this is maintaining the wet to dry ratio

[@thatlonzoguy]

@@nathanaelashnonmusic2615 true, good way to put it

[@nathanaelashnonmusic2615]

@@thatlonzoguy ay don't thank me, thank my college. Try looking up the videos that the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences puts out. It's legitimate industry professionals teaching my courses and I think you'd find allot more substance there. They go real into depth about why things do what they're supposed to do and you get a much deeper understanding of how all this works.

[@thatlonzoguy]

@@nathanaelashnonmusic2615 I will check that out

[@Voidpiercer]

Good explanation. I prefer to keep my cymbals out of the equation and contain parallel compression to kick, snare, toms at varying levels.

[@elvonzomatthews7589]

Thanks for your input

[@marcwilliams4097]

Appreciate your time Joe. Have a great week.

[@stuartdickson6251]

Thanks (again) Brother Joe

[@localpm]

Great easy Explanation.Thanks a lot Joe.

[@GaryCunninghamyouareenough]

I love how you explain things man - much appreciated 🙏🏻

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Thanks Hary

[@HomeStudioCorner]

I meant Gary

[@GaryCunninghamyouareenough]

@@HomeStudioCorner I got a reply from Joe - do you really think I care what you call me? 🤣. Your channel is amazing sir - thank you for your constant time and effort 🙏🏻

[@scottakam]

Thanks Joe.

[@LambertDriveStudios]

Great Explanation Joe! almost every mix I complete now has at very least parallel drum compression.

[@hellion_spitfire]

Fun fact. 10 minutes ago I was cleaning my kitchen and I was thinking about parallel distortion, and alternatives. Magic....

[@L3MNZ]

Thank you for the tip!

[@fingereze7202]

Thanks for the tips Joe! Gotta start trying this for sure.

[@michaeltablet8577]

Always helpful! Thank you so much!

[@ShiningHourPop]

I read that Motown would do a blend of dry vocal and driven vocal using the desk. That’s probably what gave the vocals such an exciting sound in addition to the brilliant vocalists.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Oooooo....I hadn't heard that. Very cool

[@annother3350]

I think comprssion of reverb was also important to that sound

[@NicholasGreenwood]

Andrew Scheps has multiple videos where he demonstrates using parallel compression on a separate mix bus. I tried it and it's AWESOME.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

That guy is solid gold.

[@SoulicParadox]

Question! The plugins in the modern DAWs have mix knob. So, if you add a compressonr in the insert and adjust the level with the mix knob, can you tell it is the same as pararelle processing?

[@ClockAgentOfficial]

The Parallel Compression makes each individual part of the kit stand out, while not taking away the original sound of the instrument. I only really use the compression on drums, but do parallel process my guitars and vocals with the reverbs and fx.

[@adiquest]

Morning Joe, Nice explanation of Parallel compression. What mic are you using?

[@brettmarlar4154]

Of course, it can also be done without duplicating tracks. It can be accomplished with a splitter tool or even with a dedicated bus, which requires some fancy routing. Room mics on drum kits also make for crushing compression too. They capture the whole kit so it's like having a duplicate track. then all the dedicated mics can keep things clean.

[@sandy.redding]

Yeah... that got me wondering... why not just split the track?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Absolutely! I thought about talking about all the ways to accomplish parallel, but figured I'd just levae it at the concept level and let people figure it out on their systems (since not everyone uses Studio One and has the splitter tool)

[@brettmarlar4154]

@@HomeStudioCorner That is a very fair and valid point.

[@TheLowLandGardener]

What if i use single drum track then send it to effects bus with compression on it then mix it? Is it the same as parallel compression?

[@firmans12]

Cool. I like to split the shells and the cymbals. Or send the cymbals lower into the parallel track. I don't like cymbals pumping too much or if you have a bad OH track the hihat can be destructive

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Yup that's a great strategy.

[@tatertotter25]

hey Joe can you do a video or a short segment on parallel compression using external hardware? I have the art vla 2-channel unit that i've tried using to route a drum bus to, and using the splitter tool to get that parallel effect, but it ends up doing really weird stuff with the phase and overall sound of the drum mix. is that because stereo compression doesn't work for this kind of thing? it doesn't happen when i use a singular plugin on the overall bus and use the splitter. wondering if anyone else has run into this..

[@anthonyhendriks]

Thanks Joe. What about phase issues?

[@jacobwhite936]

I love what parallel compression can do. The actual signal path has sadly become less relevant now that most plugins have a mix control.

[@gianlucagasparini]

Duplicate VS send to bus (with a compressor on it) are there eny diffeerence?

[@michaelcope9501]

Question: Does sending the source signal to an auxiliary channel with only a compressor on it also qualify as parallel compression? Also, does using a compressor on the source track with a mix knob also count as parallel? Oops, just got the answer to my second question indirectly when you talk about guitar pedals at the end.

[@annother3350]

Question: Does sending the source signal to an auxiliary channel with only a compressor on it also qualify as parallel compression? - yes

[@michaelcope9501]

@@annother3350 efficient answer! Thanks!

[@annother3350]

@@michaelcope9501 no problem. I would say its better to do that than a wet/dry mix control as yoiu can further process EQ etc of the compressed signal. good luck

[@fidalgosoundlabs4388]

Could you just use a Send-to-FX-Channel with a compressor rather than having a duplicate of the first track?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Yep you can. The only problem here is that depending on your DAW, the plugins on the channel will be applied before the send.

[@oladeleobadimeji8940]

Question: what's the best way to get the best out of your parrellel compression? Do U EQ and compress your main signal bus First before duplicating the group line for parrelle compression?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

It depends. A lot of times I like to leave one of the copies completely uncompressed

[@cult2]

can you share some of your microphone settings? the one you used for every video, im curious to know whats your boosting eq and subtractive eq for that, also the compression

[@HomeStudioCorner]

You mean on my voice? A tiny bit of EQ cut around 2.5 k and a limiter. That's it.

[@MarkAMensah]

Hello Joe, can you demonstrate this on your console? I want to try this out in a live mix

[@HomeStudioCorner]

I don't really have a way of doing this on a console. This is a studio thing.

[@nico-zh4eo]

Does that work on vocals ?

[@moritztorsiep5161]

Pair uh Lell is a grea project name

[@Endless_Skyway_Adventures]

Ok one of my personal tricks, parallel mulitband limiting of vocals using waves L3-16 multi band limiter, shhh don’t tell anyone.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

🤫 I won't

[@saintjedi]

Hi Joe which is a better studio monitors the Adam audio tv8 or the sceptre S8 by PreSonus?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

I don’t know the atom, but I have used the Sceptres and they are fantastic

[@saintjedi]

@@HomeStudioCorner then sceptre will be the chosen one!! Gracias Joe!

[@jarekmn]

Isn’t it the same what Dy/Wet knob does?

[@BullerbynStudio]

My question exactly. Joe, is there any difference at all?

[@Endless_Skyway_Adventures]

Yes, he said it in the video

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Yes it’s the same. Although sometimes I would like to do more than just parallel compression. For example, on the heavily compressed signal I might want to EQ it as well, meaning EQ only the compressed signal, and the mix knob doesn’t allow me to do that

[@jarekmn]

@@HomeStudioCorner Thank you

[@Bigal5296]

Can you split the signal in the drum buss in Studio 1.5 and do it that way??

[@nathanaelashnonmusic2615]

Yeah that could work. What you gotta do though is bus em to two seperate group IOs and put compression on one channel while leaving the other one dry so you can maintain the wet to dry ratio.

[@scottakam]

In Studio One, you can also use the routing/splitter to do the same thing on one track.

[@jacobwhite936]

Just add a compressor with a mix(blend) control to the drum bus. That mix control is now the amount of compressed vs dry signal of the entire bus... ie parallel compression.

[@dapdirect]

you should of started the video at 1:06 for some reason i always want to jump to the info

[@nathanaelashnonmusic2615]

Basically you're just splitting one channel with a mult and then maintaining the wet to dry ratio with the two channels that you multed out of the one channel

[@BebroMG]

But why are you doubling this drum track and why aren't you just using wet/dry on compressor

[@HomeStudioCorner]

🤷‍♂️ Lots of ways to do it.

[@dannydaniel8975]

I didn't like the way it made the crash cymbals sound

[@Neil-Aspinall]

Mmmm unless this was a very bad comparison it all seems pointless?

[@nathanaelashnonmusic2615]

Not pointless. Gives you more control over the output resolution of the wet to dry ratio on the compressor. You don't want all compression all the time, and while yes you can minimize it in some spots with automation, some compressors also dont have a built in wet to dry ratio you can mess with, so this just gives you more options and infinite choices of combinations of compression and the dry signal.

[@michaeltablet8577]

Many great mixers, including Joe Gilder use parallel compression. I am not a great mixer yet but use it on doubled vocals on the choruses of my songs. Makes the lead vocal pop out.