In this tutorial, Fab Dupont takes the parallel processing madness one notch deeper and shares his advanced parallel drum processing techniques.
Use these tips to:
Give your drums a larger than life depth, punch, buoyancy and presence
Preserve the irreplaceable transients and dynamic range
Learn how to recognize and handle phase issues when working in parallel
We strongly encourage you to watch Fab’s Parallel Compression on Drums to learn the basic principles and concepts that are referred to in this tutorial.
Plugins Used:
Massey CT4
Universal Audio UAD 1176LN
Sonnox Oxford EQ
This video is part of our ultimate compression bundle. Check it out!
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00:00:07 Good morning children!
Today, we're going to talk about
advanced parallel drum compression.
00:00:12 Advanced...
"hou, la, la!", as we say!
We're gonna start where we left off with
the regular parallel drum compression.
00:00:19 If you remember, we had two busses :
a clean bus and a crush bus
and they were both fed
to same drums.
00:00:26 Here's what's different
in the advanced version of that.
00:00:29 The first step is to separate
the two busses.
00:00:31 Different sources for each one of them.
00:00:33 So I'm gonna switch this one
to something called "Drum Crush".
00:00:36 I'm gonna send, via a Send,
all the drums to that Drum Crush.
00:00:40 So now, you have a regular mix
down here that goes to the clean bus
and then you have
a separate mix up here
that goes to my crush bus,
and they're independent.
00:00:51 You can do this in Logic,
in Cubase, all the same.
00:00:54 I'm gonna switch to this mode here,
so that I can see what's going on.
00:00:57 A nice thing about Pro Tools is
I can automatically copy my mix...
00:01:03 my regular mix down here, to the Send
Boom!
And now I have the exact same mix
here, and here.
00:01:11 The next step is to put everybody
in Pre
so that the mix up here is independent
from the mix down here.
00:01:17 And now, I can listen to my clean bus...
00:01:21 And then my crush bus...
00:01:24 The beauty now, is that I can actually
change the mix of my crush bus
without touching the mix
of my clean bus.
00:01:31 At this point, they're both the same
because I just copied the clean mix
to the crush mix
but I can start making changes.
Let's listen.
00:01:38 This is my crush bus, on its own,
with the current mix.
00:01:51 Ok, that works! I think there's
a little too much snare, though
and I think the bass drum
maybe is a little too boomy.
00:01:57 So I'm gonna play it and adjust
my mix up here to my liking.
00:02:02 I am probably gonna take
the snare down...
00:02:04 the outside bass drum
microphone down
and the inside bass drum
microphone up...
00:02:09 while listening to the compressor
freaking out. Here we go!
I think that would work.
00:02:26 If you listen to it with the clean bus,
it sounds like this...
00:02:36 That's very neat.
As a reference...
00:02:38 this is what happens if I switch back
to my original system
where both the clean and the crush bus
are fed with the same signal.
00:02:46 That's the original way...
00:02:55 Now, I'm gonna switch
to the new way, with a separate mix.
00:02:58 Pay attention to the attack
of the bass drum
and the presence of the snare.
00:03:09 Now, it's not as loud, but I think
it's more balanced and interesting.
00:03:13 I can raise the level a little bit
to match, but that's the spirit.
00:03:16 You have full control. You can
compensate for what a compressor will do.
00:03:19 Say, some compressors are gonna
freak out on the bass drum
you can send less bass drum.
00:03:22 Say the compressors are freaking out
on the overheads
because there's too much cymbals,
you can take the cymbals down.
00:03:27 It requires some thinking,
but it's not that hard.
00:03:29 I think that the extra flexibility
far outweighs the extra complexity.
00:03:34 Now, let's dig deeper.
00:03:37 We've been doing parallel compression
on the whole drum set.
00:03:40 How about we do a little parallel
compression on individual instruments?
First, let's do the bass drum.
00:03:46 I have already created a little...
00:03:49 bass drum parallel compression bus,
just for you.
00:03:52 You'll notice that its output is SUM,
which is the clean bus.
00:03:57 I'm also sending it to the crush bus.
00:03:59 You don't have to send it to both,
you can send it to either/or.
00:04:02 I like to send it to both.
00:04:04 The input is called
Parallel Bass Drum.
00:04:07 I'm going to send
the inside bass drum microphone
to my parallel bass drum bus.
00:04:13 Why?
Because...
00:04:16 I think I need more punch,
and not as much boom
it's already boomy enough.
So I'm gonna set it on Pre...
00:04:22 Raise the level here...
00:04:25 Stay with me, I'm gonna show you
the signal path.
00:04:28 This track right here,
called Bass Drum In
is being sent to the SUM clean bus...
00:04:34 to the CRUSH crushed bus...
00:04:36 to the parallel bass drum crush bus...
00:04:39 which is this one right here.
00:04:41 And then, this crushed parallel bass drum
is being sent to the SUM,
and to the Crush. Simple, right?
And it sounds like this.
00:04:50 If I listen to just
the crushed bass drum...
00:04:56 As a reminder, this is the bypassed...
00:05:04 What am I trying to do here?
I'm just trying to make it more dense,
and more compact
and get a little bit
of that "mmm" thing going.
00:05:11 If I have the attack open enough,
which it is...
00:05:13 then I'll have a little punch too.
00:05:15 If I play all three bass drums together,
it sounds like this.
00:05:22 As a reminder, without the compression,
it sounds like this.
00:05:32 With...
00:05:40 It's a little more dense,
it's got a little more tail...
00:05:43 it's got a little more of that "poc! poc!"
in the 200-300Hz, which is nice.
00:05:46 Let's do the same thing to the snare!
Here's my parallel snare drum.
00:05:50 Same exact principle.
00:05:51 I'm gonna send the snare into it,
via a bus...
00:05:55 Parallel Snare, here you go.
I make it Pre.
00:05:58 Give it some level.
Here's the snare.
00:06:02 Here's the compression.
00:06:03 Here's the snare,
without the compression.
00:06:12 And with...
00:06:20 It's just a little vibe, right?
A little crush, a little something...
00:06:23 It's not as drastic
as one would expect
but it still does something very nice
to the...
00:06:27 kind of like the depth of the snare,
depth this way...
00:06:30 and also depth this way.
00:06:31 It lengthens the tail a little bit,
and it gives it a little fuzzy tone
so it's not as real sounding.
I like that.
00:06:37 It's time to listen
to the whole thing.
00:06:39 First, let's listen to it raw,
with no compression at all.
00:06:42 Then, let's turn on the parallel
compression bus on the whole kit
with the custom mix.
00:06:47 And then, individual parallel compression
for bass drum and snare drum
and see how the kit grows.
00:06:52 Listen to the attack of the instruments,
but more importantly...
00:06:55 listen to the sound stage
and to how the drums make you feel.
It's ok to close your eyes!
I won't do anything funny while you have
your eyes closed, it's a promise.
00:07:04 So first, raw.
00:07:13 Parallel compression on the whole kit.
00:07:22 Bass drum, and snare drum.
00:07:32 Going from the raw sound to the fully
processed sound is a nice trip.
00:07:35 It's like... a documentary
to a movie
or real versus dream.
00:07:39 The beauty is that,
since you're parallel compressing
you're not ruining your transients.
00:07:44 You have to be gentle with your transients,
transients are people too.
00:07:47 You also have to be very careful
with your phase.
00:07:50 Let's look at the situation
where parallel compression can become
a hindrance
if you're not paying attention to phase.
Check it out.
00:07:57 If you do this a lot, you're gonna have
the urge to use EQs
so you can custom tailor your drum
compression bus further.
00:08:05 Why not? Since you're having a separate
mix, why not a separate tone?
I'm gonna add just a simple little EQ
on my parallel bus.
00:08:15 And I'm gonna listen to it raw.
00:08:26 That sounds good, but I may have the urge,
for example, to clean up the bottom.
00:08:30 I'm known for high-passing
everything, right?
So what if I wanted to high-pass this?
Make a nice little filter,
say, 36dB/octave. Turn it on.
00:08:38 And then, start high-passing it.
00:08:40 So if you listen to it right now...
00:08:49 It sounds good!
This, for example, would be a good way
to get a lot of the "poc"
and push it through, and less
of the "boom, boom, boom"
on the parallel bus.
But here's a problem.
00:08:59 Check this out: let's turn the clean bus
back on
and listen to the two of them together.
00:09:11 Houston, we have a problem!
What's going on?
What's going on is the bass is gone,
even on the clean bus...
00:09:16 even though we're high-passing
only the crush bus. Why is that?
That's because we're using
a very steep filter.
00:09:23 And what goes on when you use
a very steep filter
is there's all sorts of phase shifting
weirdness at the cutoff frequency.
00:09:29 What you're hearing,
is you're hearing the crush bus
becoming out of phase at the cutoff
frequency with the clean bus
and ruining the bass on the clean bus.
00:09:37 So what are your options
if you really, really want...
00:09:40 to change the tone of your crush bus?
Well, number 1, you could use
a linear phase EQ, that works.
00:09:46 Number 2, you could choose not to,
that works great, it's very fast.
00:09:49 Number 3, you could use
gentler processing
which is like, say, a 6dB/octave filter,
or a shelf EQ.
00:09:56 You're still gonna have
some phase shifting
but not that much,
you can get around it.
00:10:01 Number 4, you could process
the source tracks.
00:10:04 If you process the source tracks
then your clean bus will get affected too
which is kind of a headache.
00:10:10 That's why it's really interesting to have
that separate mix for the crush bus.
00:10:14 One mix for your clean bus,
and one mix for your crush bus
which allows you to alleviate some of
the problems, change the tonal balance
without having to use EQ
on your parallel compression bus.
00:10:25 Et voilà!
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Fab Dupont is a award-winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has received many accolades around the world, including wins at the Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards, US independent music awards. He also has received Latin Grammy nominations and has worked on many Latin Grammy and Grammy-nominated albums.
Parts of this site and some files are only accessible to pureMix Pro Members or available to purchase. Please see below our membership plans or add this video to your shopping cart.
I'll have to watch it at least 2,3 times more to understand all the process, as the name says.
Advanced, and definitely it is. Fab killing it as usual, good explanation of this complicated concepts. More to this but in electronic music (House Minimal Music) would be great.
jaycarlinmusic
2020 Feb 22
Just spent the last 6 hours going through all the "Ultimate Compression Bundle" videos, and trying out all the concepts explained on different compressors, etc. I already felt I knew a lot about Compression, but the concepts and suggestions by Fab took me to the next level.
One of the best parts of PureMix might be how a single video can have useful information for beginning, advanced, and semi-pro mixers. You are not only great engineers, you're great teachers. Thank you.
pchimbidis
2019 Nov 20
Fab, your videos are always so informative. Thanks! I know it's an older video, but I have a question: when you copied the mix to the send, you copied volume but not pan--your overhead tracks were going to the crush buss without pan information. Was this intentional for effect? When I do a drum crush buss, if I don't pan my overheads and toms to the same place they are in the clean buss, the enhancing effect of the crush buss makes them sound like they aren't panned at all in the overall mix. Or am I doing something wrong?
derek.h
2019 Jul 02
Very nice!
G.MICHAELHALL
2017 Oct 16
" One choice is you can do nothing, it's fast.. and sometimes works great"- F.Dupont
Epic
thombleasdale
2017 May 30
I'm learning so much. Fab, you are a wonderful teacher! Thank you!
soundspace2001
2016 Dec 01
A great step compared to the other video concerning parallel compression - very sophisticated - still don't know whether pro's do the same with OH and Room-Mics
composermikeglaser
2016 Jun 08
Great video! Often times I'll turn my crush bus down because the kick drum blows it up, sending to the crush via a bus is brilliant! Thank you.
Nevets
2014 Sep 09
Excellent video! The concepts were perfectly conveyed. I've been able to adapt this to a few sessions in Cubase and noticed that when combining both the clean and crush buses with the additional kick and snare compressed individually, the need to EQ individual kit pieces is greatly reduced.
bradleym
2014 Jul 29
Thank you so much for this! It clears up all the "why is this" for me.
Would love a tutorial on the differences between the Linear Phase EQ and the regular EQ in Logic, as they look the same but are named differently.
not the mama
2014 Jul 04
I've run into quite a few compressors that have a output mix knob, including Logic's compressor. Couldn't use you use this feature in place of the more complex send routing and call it a day?
sual
2014 Jun 30
Wow! Two light bulbs went off after watching this. I lost my kick drum on a mix after putting EQ on the parallel track and couldn't figure out why--now I know. And copying the main fader settings to the send faders and treating it just like another mix. It makes perfect sense, but it never clicked in my head--now I know.
Thank you Mr. Fabulous!!
rayg
2014 May 31
Great video.
Fabulous Fab
2013 Oct 11
@Karim. Yes that is what I am doing. It works. Try it. You'll see it adds a little fuzz and excitement. It does not work all the time of course.
karim
2013 Oct 06
When you created the individual instrument parallel compression (let's say the bass drum one), why did you send that individual bus to the crush bus? You are parallel compressing the parallel compression?
Eric Vo
2013 Aug 01
The issue with eq was good to know!
musicmacd
2013 Jun 11
Been trying to mix for years and these tutorials opened up some doors in my mind, Well Done Fab. Also love the way you present the information, clear concise and straight to the point.
