Parallel Compression vs. Multiband Compression

[Sonika]

hmmmm...interesting

[Today]

the more i think i know about compression, the more i realize that no, i don't
its weird
sort of this holistic (non-)understanding that comes with time

[Sonika]

Wow haha I must really not understand it, it seems pretty simple to me....but you guys treat it like it's an art form. Now I feel like I don't know it at all......

[Today]

no, the experience and knowledge u have now is good
but
you'll probably find that you cycle between thinking you know most everything about it, and knowing that you really don't

first you start using it and you get the hang of it
then you start to learn more applications of it
and different compressors behave differently
and some are better and worse for certain sounds
and there's bus compression

and sometimes you know whats going on when you squash a sound
but one day you realize, you really didn't have a clue
and makeup gain... limiters, maximizers

its really hard to explain why, but over the years my "knowledge" of compression has gone up and down a lot
it all just comes down to applying it to tracks and having results
then looking back at the sound of your results from years ago vs. what you would do today

i have had moments where i "realized" i ought not to use ANY compression
and of course changed my mind
but you get the idea...

[Sonika]

okay haha well right now I'm in a stage of blissful ignorance, thinking that I know how to use compression

I usually use it to get a certain type of tone, or put it on a drum bus to glue my drums together a little bit

[Today]

wait til u start tracking vocals and instruments with compression from a preamp

at the moment i've begun to realize how effective compression is for bringing things forward in a mix (as opposed to just volume)

what comps are u using primarily?

[Sonika]

For compression, really only the stock logic compressor

[didi]

wait til u start tracking vocals and instruments with compression from a preamp

at the moment i've begun to realize how effective compression is for bringing things forward in a mix (as opposed to just volume)

what comps are u using primarily?

Pro-C, and Pro-L.

To be honest anything fabfilter.

also got a couple analogue imitation, etc. one's with character, nd a certain sound.

[Volatile Psycle]

waves API 2500 is the don

[Ghost of Muttley]

It'd wanna be for 400 bux...get outta the box with a nice lil toft joint for not too much more than that...alright almost double but still..

[Volatile Psycle]

It'd wanna be for 400 bux...

The hardware unit is £2500!

[Today]

waves API 2500 is the don

waves API everything r the don
thats gonna be my next bundle purchase. or the SSL's, not sure yet

[bassinine]

I usually don't use mbcomps, just ableton's and waves c1 once in a while.

Mbcomps could be used for anything, but I feel they're best for drum busses, so that you can compress the kick, snare, perc all different amounts. if they're already seperated on different channels you can just use a compressor on each. it's handy, but almost too much for my needs. maybe if I start mixing for bands or something I would use it more.

and on the note of parallel comp, I see that no one has mentioned the dynamics, which are preserved better with parallel than other types of compression.

[Sonika]

So for parallel compression you would layer a heavily compressed drum track with the same drum track which just hasn't been compressed at all, correct? And that gives it punchiness?
And yeah I usually send my drums to a bus with compression

[bassinine]

exactly.

[Today]

you can use a send to do it
put a compressor on the aux track with dramatic settings to really smash the drum hits
send a bit of each major drum to that aux (kick, snare, maybe hh etc)
use pre-fader send so that you can adjust the volume faders on each drum without affecting how much gets sent to the comp
then you can basically build two drum mixes, a majorly squashed and a dry
the mix of the two should give you volume, punch and presence without killing the hits' dynamics and character

[Sonika]

Hmmm...what's the advantage of doing that vs just bouncing out the drums and creating a new track of them heavily compressed alongside the original?

[bassinine]

Hmmm...what's the advantage of doing that vs just bouncing out the drums and creating a new track of them heavily compressed alongside the original?

it takes less time, and you can route multiple channels to the same parallel comp bus in different amounts - depending on the send level of the particular channel you're using.

really though, all about your workflow, do whatever is easiest.

[Sonika]

I'll play around with all of it. Thanks all

[inDistinkt]

In Logic's stock compressor all you have to do to parallel compress is click the triangle in the bottom left hand corner to open the extended parameters area and you can just set the wet/dry volumes with the slider. Afaik this is no different than setting up a send to an aux channel.