Get Better Sounding Drums using Parallel Compression [Part 28 of 31]

Welcome to Day 28 of 31 Days to Better Sounding Drums. Today’s post is written by musician, recording guru, guitar player and all around legend (in his own mind) Joe Gilder. Joe is the man behind Home Studio Corner, a website that provides an enormous amount of tips and resources for home studio owners and recording enthusiasts.

Once you’ve recorded great-sounding drums, you’re halfway there. Now you need to mix them and make ‘em sound even BETTER.

After EQ-ing the drums, getting rid of some of the “boxy-ness,” etc., you’re ready to try out some compression.

The Problem With Compression

Compression can be an invaluable tool for your track, but there can be some drawbacks, especially when it comes to compressing drums.

First of all, it’s easy to over-compress. If a little compression sounds good, then a lot of compression will sound even better, right? He he…I wish that was the case. It’s easy to overdo things. You CAN have too much of a good thing.

Secondly, compression can cause your drum sound to lose some of its punch. Drums are dynamic, if you don’t use compression properly, you can take a great-sounding drum recording and make it sound dull.

Enter Parallel Compression

One of the tricks of the trade is a process known as parallel compression. This allows you to have the benefits of compression, while at the same time keeping the dynamics of an uncompressed signal.

Here’s how it works:

1. Route drums to a stereo bus.
2. Create two aux tracks, both being fed from the same bus.
3. Add compression to one track only.
4. Blend to taste.

The idea here is that you can compress the “parallel track” as much as you want, then blend it back in with the original signal. This lets you try out a much more aggressive compression setting without losing the punch and detail of an uncompressed track.

How is this helpful? Heavily compressing a track can sound really cool. The drums suddenly sound huge, the sound of the room gets emphasized in a good way. It just has a more organic feel to it.

Sometimes, though, this heavily compressed sound is a bit too over-the-top. That’s why parallel compression is so great. You can have the uncompressed fader at a normal volume, then have the compressed signal MUCH quieter. Simply blending in a subtle amount of the compressed signal will give the drums warmth, punch, and character.

The best part? You won’t lose the transients of the originally recorded kit.

Parallel compression, like everything in audio, requires a lot of practice to get it right. The key is to keep things as subtle as you can. Make small adjustments, rather than big, dramatic ones.

So…do YOU use parallel compression?

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