FabFilter User Forum
Parallel compression on a track
Hi,
I'm searching about the topic about the parallel compression ( using the wet and dry signal on a track), but i can not find it.
Is someone help me ?
Is the trick is to have the dry signal at 0 dB and push the wet button ?
For kick and snare, what sort of compression do you use in general, pumping ? classic ?
Thank you in advance
BERTORA — Apr 20, 2018
please, an advice ;)
Parallel compression can be used for a few different purposes so first I recommend that you decide what exactly you want to accomplish with parallel compression. Your goal will influence your best path to victory.
As an example, one of the most common uses for parallel is to use it to make drums sound boomier with longer tails of reverb/room sound, while still leaving the initial punchy transients of the drum hits mostly undisturbed. I approach this by setting my compressor at first to listen to 100% wet signal and 0% dry signal so I can hear what the compressor is doing. I then dial in very high ratio, low threshold, quick attack and quick release and get the compressor to really smash the audio hard. It'll do two thing: Squash the heck out of the initial transients so their not as punchy anymore and make the trailing tails of reverb/room sound much louder relative to the volume of the initial transients. I will at this point cycle through the various compression algorithm types to find the one that seems the most nasty and distorted since that is what I am after when conducting this goal for parallel compression. There's no one algorithm that always works best. It changes based on the song tempo and exact drum sounds I'm compressing. Note that Pro-C2 does not get very distorted and aggressive compared to other types of compression plugins that specialize in that goal, but you can still get it pretty crushed and gritty. Making the knee very hard can also sometimes help. Playing with the advanced EQ settings can also sometimes change the tone of the result in pleasing ways so that is worth experimenting with.
I'd normally not want to use this result by itself since it has removed all the transient punch from my drums and made them very distorted, but if I then change the volume knobs so I'm getting around 20% wet signal and 100% dry signal I now hear the original signal (that has punchy transients) undisturbed, plus a little compressed signal that beefs up the trailing reverb/room tails on every drum hit. I will finally adjust the release setting until it seems to breath and pump nicely in relation to the tempo of my song.
I hope this helps.
On the pro C2 ,It would be nice to have only one knob to blend the wet and dry signal instead of two.
I thinks it’s way more convenient.
Thank you Fabfilter