Last night I was flipping through the old Mastering Audio book by Bob Katz and happened across the section about parallel compression. I like to use it to beef up my drums, however in the mastering concept of parallel compression the compressor is virtually in permanent extreme gain reduction due to the high threshold that it is used.
On with the story, I read about this technique and said to myself I want to play with that. I decided to use it on to the Staplemouth song that I’m currently mixing and played with it in various places that were not the master bus. Unfortunately I didn’t get anywhere. In fact I got exactly where I had originally suspected after the first few second of trying it. I got nothing done this morning except adjusting 1 compressor.
I can spin this and look at the bright side. 1. I pretty much knew what would happen (but I just ignored that instead). 2. I can now say I know better when to use this technique. No longer need to rely on the logical theory of what it does because I have actually experienced it. 3. I should know better than to try gimmicky things. That’s what this really was, just a gimmicky audio concept for the way I was applying. It’s not that I don’t know how to use parallel compression, but more of a bad choice of using a mastering technique in a mix that doesn’t need or have the prerequisites to require this sort of technique. I know a lot of people will always point out that there are no rules when it comes to audio engineering, but there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
In the end although I feel that I accomplished nothing this morning, it can be really said that I gained the experience of learning when and when to not use this concept.
