How And Why You Should Use PARALLEL COMPRESSION

yo-yo was going to you guys for tomorrow in raw form and welcome to another help me Devon raw tutorial and today in this help me Devon walk tutorial I'll be showing you guys how and why you should be using parallel compression now parallel compression can be used for vocals it can be used for drums it can be used for anything and I'm gonna show you guys how and why you should be using this technique to add more power more fullness more everything to your modern-day sound of recordings now granted I've done parallel compression videos in the past but it is time for a refresher and a meet for me to also show you how I'm using it currently today let's get right to it okay so first and foremost I'll play you the song that we're using today I'll press play unless you get an idea of it listen closely to the vocals so to use Gomez gonna get you I can't even front up at my stuff on the back call for your okay so you can hear the vocal it's very present it still has this eerie sound but you can hear the vocal every nuance you hear that vocal it's cutting through that mix very very strongly now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna play this for you one more time and this time I'm gonna bypass the parallel compression so I'm gonna have it on and off I'm gonna keep turning the parallel compression point and forth listen very closely to how this sounds okay so with first and watch this em over here see this em on the parallel compressor I'm gonna turn it on and off listen close so do you I was gonna get you but I can't even [Music] [Music] so you can hear a huge difference when you turn in a parallel compressor you notice that everything kind of just pops right through the vocal cuts right through that mix you hear em just it just has a more more powerful vocal of fullness to it that I just love in a door and I use this on all my vocals the template that I'm also using so that you can probably follow along is the rowdy rich type vocal template that we have on our website right now download is in the description if you want to follow along with me I use that same template for this song as usual so what is parallel compression now there's a number of different ways that you can do it preferably this is how I like to do it so all the parallel compression is for you those of you who don't know is it's a copy of your other audio signal for now let's say vocal it's a copy of your vocal so here's one vocal with my mix and all the bells and whistles and then I have another vocal I make a complete copy of that complete duplicate I take that duplicate vocal this parallel compression vocal and I compress it to the max I'm talking about I squash this vocal so the point where there is basically no dynamics it's a squished squashed brick I then take that signal and I blend it in with the original that is not so squashed that has all of its dynamics and I blend the two together okay that's the concept of parallel compression for the most part so it's basically taking a copy of your other signal and squashing it and blending it in with the original now this is very powerful off the strength that now you instead of really damaging that original vocal you can do it and do a lot of damage and hurt the other copy and blend it to taste and that's where you just get you keep your dynamics but you get that vocal or sound that kind of cuts through your mix and sounds extremely extremely aggressive and powerful so what are my settings for the actual parallel compressor before I actually tell you the sentence I'm going to show you how I exactly route this okay so how do I set this parallel compressor up right so the way I like to do it is I like to do it through sin now what I do is I go I don't know over here to the vocal I set up a sin so this is like an oxen or an ox track for you and EDD aw that's using I go down here and I send out a signal and I send it out with under this thing that says parallel compressor which is right here so parallel calm that's what I'm sitting it out to so I send it up to the parallel cup and it hits the parallel car so the parallel cup is this fader right here so that copy of the signal is being sent out full blast out to the parallel comp track so on the advanced side I like to do this pre fader and the reason why I like to do this pre fader is because if you do a post fader then any time you move this the original vocal up and down or anything in volume it will affect the parallel compression and you don't want to really affect that for this type of thing so always make sure it's pre fader don't worry don't get too tied up on that that's more of an advance like setting that you have but just know create a send send it out to a track simple as that okay so now let's move on over to the syn or the track that we created in order to create the parallel compression so the first thing I like to do is of course I put the NLS bus on everything in LS channel and everything it just adds a little bit analog saturation that's pretty standard what I always do here's what you do I want you to grab a compressor if you can get the CL a76 from ways amazing because it has this amazing function where it allows you to press all so your ratio the ratio on when you're doing parallel compression you want it to be a very very hard ratio so something like a fifty two one ironically when it comes to this particular compressor when you push in for eight twelve twenty it's a setting where you can basically basically push in all of them and it makes it more of like a fifty to one ratio a very hard ratio which is similar to what a limiter ratio so if you don't have this plug-in right here you could set your ratio of any of your compressors to about fifty to one and this is what you're gonna do so for me I press all because that's I'm fifty to one ratio I like to set my attack to the fastest I possibly can so that all the transients are caught inside of that and I like to set my release to medium so it really holds that compression so basically I'm hitting and cut and cutting those Peaks and I'm really holding the compression so I'm really getting a vocal that is squash that's something that is really holding the dynamics in place next thing I like to do is I like to move on over to a limiter so you can use for instance in l1 I use a very simple limiter when it comes to parallel compression because I'm not looking for this crazy thing that sonically you know has a certain sound I'm looking for something to really stop those peaks and make sure nothing cuts through so next thing I do is I use this l1 limiter I bring the threshold down to about a 4 to negative 14.3 I'm gonna play this for you right quick so you can see how hard is hitting look closely so I'm really hitting it on the peaks really hard with on the peaks is hitting on about our negative 6 DB of gain reduction on the limiter also what I did fail to mention to you guys was how hard do you use the compression or how much gain reduction should you be looking for from these this compressor when you're doing this up typically I like to go to this like the negative 10 range so look at this closely I'll show you what it's do look so Joe I can't even so you can see my Peaks on the compressor compressed compressor are hitting around negative 10 DB so that's where I'm getting a lot of that compressions from about negative 10 B DB of compression at a 50 to 1 ratio then I move on down to the limiter and I'm getting about negative 6 DB of gain reduction as well so I'm giving it negative 60 DB of gain reduction on top of that negative 10 that we already did a lot of compression I'm squashing this vocal okay you'll notice my output ceiling is that negative 8.1 which is a preference I just like to turn it down just a little bit because we realize this thing is squash so that's what I like to do now these next two things are extremely optional and the reason why I say the option is because this is you kind of tailoring um and fine-tuning the sound of the parallel compression sound so for me knowing that I'm blending I like to roll off a little bit of the low end on it and the only reason is because I don't want too much of that stuff especially that I'm using a copy of it and blended that in so I like to roll off a little bit of my low end um and then the last thing I like to do is don't get caught up on this particular EQ all I'm doing is I take out a little bit in that 3 kilohertz range because that's the pain frequency and since we're compressing it's so hard I know that that'll probably jar your ear or come out a little more so I just take a little bit of that frequency out that 3.5 kilohertz range now that's all that is don't get too tied up on that that is so optional but something I do recommend if you do come down to that issue and you recorded so once I do that basically I play it back and this is what we have so to use going I can't even front uh pat myself on the back now granted what you can do is mine I have my fader set at negative twenty five point four so this is what you would do I would bring it all the way down and basically I bring it in up up I bring this fader up until I feel like oh that's the sweet spot so let's bring this fader up slowly listen close so do you I was gonna get you I can't even front I Pat myself on the back surely mess with the way giving it to no one you got me gassed up and I'm an equal for your [Music] so you hear that our original vocal is unscathed it's not bothered but this parallel compressor is just adding so much power up to the vocal and present and it's cutting right through the mix now you can do the same exact thing for your drums for your instruments for your vocals you can use this parallel compression technique for so many things remember you take a send from the original audio fader or file you send that to another fader you call that fader parallel compressor and you do all of those things that I kind of walk you through squash it so mint make sure when you sending it out to this fader that it sit at zero so it's sitting right at the nominal level level so it's not a little lower nuttin you're sending it out right at zero I'll show exactly what I mean is this right here you send it out right at zero so make sure you guys use this technique to taste uh you know some people can overuse it but nonetheless if you use this thing right you can really get that modern-day sound that you're looking for even on the softest or most smooth vocals when you're just looking for a way to make it cut through the mix without adding eq without adding anything to the original vocal you can use parallel compression to bring up just a little bit more power from your mix a lot of people even do this for mastering and actually parallel compress the entire mix which I do do sometimes so that is parallel compression I really hope you do use this and I really do hope it helps I think it's a sick technique and I think it's something that so many people are missing from their mix when it just doesn't have that life or just that dead aggressiveness that you're looking for so make sure you comment like subscribe make sure you email us at help me Devon at gmail.com once again if you wanted to follow along with me and watch this again you can download the template for this the Rowdy rich type vocal template in our description below and help me Devon dot info make sure you follow us at help me Devon on the Instagram and this is the road to 100k and I want to say again appreciate you guys and until next time

Channel: Help Me Devvon

Views: 70,732

Keywords: parallel compression, compression, tutorial, audio, mixing, music, compressor, plugins, compression tutorial, how to, home studio, pro tools, waves, logic, mastering, vocals, recording, parallel drum compression, fl studio, rear bus, 1176, compression techniques, sidechain compression, drum compression, hiphop, production, devvon terrell, help me devvon

Id: 3FjI79lMHDU

Length: 11min 52sec (712 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020