This is a bit of a noob question, when parallel compressing , do you use two compressors? for example:

A: is drum bus
B: is parallel compression

I understand compressing B heavily then mixing the signal with A, but do I compress A aswell? or is A suppose to be completely dry because you want lots of punch? I was thinking compressing A with a high attack/ fast release and hardly touching the compressor to keep transients and for general glue, then slamming B with a compressor and mixing it with A?

 

A is unprocessed (no compressor).
B is squashed (compressor).

Mix together (raise squashed from nothing until it sounds good. Usually less is more, and it can easily be overdone). If you also add an EQ (post compressor) with low-end boost and high-end boost (shelving) on the squashed signal, the process is called New York (NY) Compression.

As almost all DAWs these days have correct PDC (Plugin Delay compensation) you don't need to put a compressor (at 1:1, doing nothing) on A. But back in the days when latency compensation was a bit iffy (Ableton Live still seems to be suffering afaik) you had to insert a compressor )same compressor as B) that did nothing, just to align them so that both signals had the same latency.

 

Last edited: Aug 24, 2016

everything baxter says is true.

never used that feature but cytomic the glue has a wet/dry built in feature. as many more probably do.

that one is nifty

 

yes, the "glue" has it while f.e. Waves SSL Comp doesn't. And if you wanna apply additional things only to the heavily compressed signal, like EQing it as Baxter mentioned, a wet/dry or mix button on the comp doesn't help. You then have to send the signal to a bus (which doubles it!) or use a plugin like DDMF Metaplugin or a Blue Cat one, forgot the name.

 

Or you can duplicate the track (if audio) and put a compressor (any compressor) on the duplicate.

More and more compressors are getting mix knobs, thankfully.

 

Nice, thanks for the advice mate

 

Also, there is nothing wrong with using 2 compressors with different setting (as long as they don't cause phase issues) in parallel, if it sounds good. do it!

 

I remember years ago using the Ableton Live Multiband Compressor x3.

Place two copies of the original source giving 3 channels with a multiband compressor on each. One would be used for the bass & low end, one for the high end, the other for all the mids. You then just simply blend the bass followed by the treble into the mids. It did give great control over the sound but extremely tedious.

I have my eye on the Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor, but that's just a pipe dream for now

http://vintageking.com/shadow-hills-industries-mastering-compressor.

 

Depends what I want to achieve. Fast and slow compression is a completely different matter, so say if the drum buss is too flat, I might add slow compression to make it more punchy and highlight the transients, then send it to a fast compressor in order to even the general level, provide a steady floor or bring out the room/overheads. Same with vocals, light compression on the original track, heavy compression on parallel. Otherwise the original (which is generally stronger in peak level) is too dynamic.

 

Be careful with wet dry knobs, they don't always work as expected.