Reply To: Parallel Mixing techniques

[James GormanParticipant]

Aside from something like this and the mix knob in Reaper (or a lot of compressors plugins now) I sometimes use a parallel inline technique. In this there's no parallel buss, just the effects chain, with a pair of compressors routed in parallel.

I've used this in Tracktion, Reaper, and Mixbus, which all have good channel routing. What you do (for stereo) is:

- pre-compression effects
- duplicate channel 1(L) -> channel 3 and channel 2(R) -> channel 4
- attack compressor on channel 1/2
- this guy is looking to shape the feel of the attack, so 20-50ms attack, release to suit, hard-ish knee, 1-5 dB down, not smashing it
- decay compressor on 3/4
- this guy is the equivalent of the parallel buss. 0ms attack, <50ms release, soft knee, 10-20 dB down. Crush to bring up the tails of things
- blend 1/2 and 3/4 back to 1/2
- post compression effects

I mostly used on this acoustic guitar and vocals, basically as a transient designer to shape the attack and decay.

I haven't done this for a while, but found that it made it simpler to mix. Once I got my vibe (<- that's for you Warren ;-)) and had the track sitting where I wanted it, there was no need to muck about with thinking about the EQ on multiple tracks and their blend later on. On the other hand it does hide away a lot of what it's doing, albeit just for a pair of compressors.