parallel compression?

[Ged Leitch]

Hi Earle, you ever find yourself using parallel compression when mastering?
it really works great on certain tracks, no squashing!!!

[HarBal]

Hi Ged,

Can you explain what parallel compression is? I'm not aware of the terminology and am curious to know what it is exactly.

Regards,


Paavo.

[Ged Leitch]

Hi Ged,

Can you explain what parallel compression is? I'm not aware of the terminology and am curious to know what it is exactly.

Regards,


Paavo.

Hey Paavo, how you doing? actually you will like this...
as you know every comp is the same in how it works i.e it clamps down on transients and increases the RMS, it "squashes" for want of a better term.
Parallel compression works like this...
you take a track(unprocessed) and mix in a duplicate of it which has been extremely compressed of most transients, and mix to taste.
That way all the high level transients are intact AND the low level RMS stuff is boosted at the same time.

[Phi Lion]

Yes.

I like psp vintage warmer, it has a mix function which allows this.

Plugins with a mix function/parrallel function are great.

[mflorio]

Parallel compression works like this...
you take a track(unprocessed) and mix in a duplicate of it which has been extremely compressed of most transients, and mix to taste.

Commonly known as the "New York compression trick"...

[Ged Leitch]

Parallel compression works like this...
you take a track(unprocessed) and mix in a duplicate of it which has been extremely compressed of most transients, and mix to taste.

Commonly known as the "New York compression trick"...

it's been used for ages by engineers all over the world, just under different names.

[mflorio]

Parallel compression works like this...
you take a track(unprocessed) and mix in a duplicate of it which has been extremely compressed of most transients, and mix to taste.

Commonly known as the "New York compression trick"...

it's been used for ages by engineers all over the world, just under different names.

I think I like the term 'parallel compression' better ! Seems to me you can acheive basically the same thing with a multi-band compressor - unless you want to further process the compressed and non-compressed signals separately.

Mike

[Ged Leitch]

Commonly known as the "New York compression trick"...

it's been used for ages by engineers all over the world, just under different names.

I think I like the term 'parallel compression' better ! Seems to me you can acheive basically the same thing with a multi-band compressor - unless you want to further process the compressed and non-compressed signals separately.

Mike

yeh same here Mike, it makes more sense than "side" compression which i've heard it called.
The waves Linear multiband pdf has a great section on it, but they call it "low level" compression.Too many names!!!

[Ged Leitch]

Mike, just checked out your site, it looks great mate, i actually share a similar interest in film scoring myself, but yet to have the opportunity to work on a "biggie"
just got my diploma from the LA film music institute after 2 years of scoring in pro tools.
Though obviously your a much more accomplished composer.
Keep up the great work!

[har-bal]

Hi Earle, you ever find yourself using parallel compression when mastering?
it really works great on certain tracks, no squashing!!!

Hello Ged

Yes, I have heard of it but most folks usually use it on individual tracks during the mixdown phase. Are you asking whether this should be used across an entire track during mastering?

Earle

[mflorio]

Mike, just checked out your site, it looks great mate, i actually share a similar interest in film scoring myself, but yet to have the opportunity to work on a "biggie"
just got my diploma from the LA film music institute after 2 years of scoring in pro tools.
Though obviously your a much more accomplished composer.
Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the comments Ged ! I've not yet met a filmmaker who had any money to spend but I enjoy the process, as I'm sure you do.

Mike

[Ged Leitch]

Hi Earle, you ever find yourself using parallel compression when mastering?
it really works great on certain tracks, no squashing!!!

Hello Ged

Yes, I have heard of it but most folks usually use it on individual tracks during the mixdown phase. Are you asking whether this should be used across an entire track during mastering?

Earle

yeh in mastering, you can acheive it by doing this...
copy your mix and put it in another audio track.
insert a compressor on one of the tracks.
set the compressor to "heavy" compression i.e lots of gain reduction to bring up the low level sounds.
you now have two tracks - one clean - one processed.
the idea is to "blend in" the processed track to taste, very subtly, so that when the level drops in the clean track, you still hear the compression effect on the processed track.
the most important thing in this is making sure there is no latency, or you will get comb filtering.
I simply put the same compressor on each track but one was compressing the other was doing nothing i.e threshold 0 and ratio 1.0, this was done to "match" the latency delay of the plugs and got rid of the comb filtering.
But i managed it in Pro tools okay, and it sounds great but it depends on the music.

[cadinze]

I generally call it parallel compression but I would still deam this a portion of the pre-mastering process. Let's not loose site of what mastering actually is defined as. I definitely think there are times where this is advantageous but I would label this as mix post processing rather than stating it to be a part of the mastering process. It can still work wonders on some tracks but mastering is puting the polish on your final 2 track mix and this is probably in some processing stage preceeding the actual mastering process.

Dione Williams
President
Black Collar Entertainment
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
350 Fifth Avenue Suite 3304
New York, NY 10118

[mflorio]

I generally call it parallel compression but I would still deam this a portion of the pre-mastering process. Let's not loose site of what mastering actually is defined as. I definitely think there are times where this is advantageous but I would label this as mix post processing rather than stating it to be a part of the mastering process. It can still work wonders on some tracks but mastering is puting the polish on your final 2 track mix and this is probably in some processing stage preceeding the actual mastering process.

Dione Williams
President
Black Collar Entertainment
EMPIRE STATE BUILDING
350 Fifth Avenue Suite 3304
New York, NY 10118

Finally, another New Yorker ! I would generally agree with you, but tell a mastering engineer you've already applied a MB to the entire mix and they'll tell you to take it off and give them the un-compressed mix ! Personally, I'd rather have my mastering engineer handle all post-mix compression, as it's not something I'm comfortable with.

Mike