Whats up with all this overcomplicating things? For my tracks I just make sure all the levels are mixed properly. If some instruments, samples or synths have peaks I see if they're too large. If they are, I apply compression or some bitcrush to tame the peaks, but other than that, achieving loudness is just getting your levels right. If you have that right you can turn up the limiter get professional loudness.
parallel compression is life homie.
parallel your track, and it's daaaaaaaaaaaaank. Especially with that tape distortion.
Why would u parallel compress ur master. Wtf.. I think u're seriously making things complicated for no reason. There's no reason to do that if you fix the dynamics in the mix imo.
Parallel tracks are not even that complicated at all lol It's just throwing in the same signal over another channel and compressing the hell out of it, then blending it with the volume fader. EZ, simple, and very elementary.
Parallel compression is a great tool to use even on individual channels on your mix(i put that shit on my druuuuuuums), and has been around for a while...........this isn't any thing new... Literally no different than adding layers.
It's also does not really fix any thing, it's to add. It's dank dude, you should try it, or not. I really don't give a shit.
parallel the entire track?
You must be mad......
Allow me to demonstrate with a sound example:
https://soundcloud.com/silent_frill/reaper-parallel-clip-test
This is a downloadable 24-bit wave file. First 8 bars are unprocessed, next 8 bars are parallel clipped with the master brickwall preset from LVC's clipshifter. I set the wet knob to 40%, so 60 % is dry sound.
The BPM of the song is 115, so you can loop the different parts if you want.
The loudest peaks of the first (unprocessed) part is -0.7 dBFS (left) and -0.3 dBFS (right).
The loudest peaks of the second (parallel clipped) part is -3.2 dBFS (left) and -2.9 dBFS (right).
According to the RMS meter of SpanPLUS, both parts are equally loud but the peaks of the parallel clipped part are about 2.5 dB lower, allowing me to turn up the volume more before peaks are driven into a limiter.
Looking forward to comments on this technique.
Do you think the sound quality differs too much between both parts to justify this way of working?
I have attempted doing this at an earlier point in my career, but now i have a better understanding of the production process and could probably apply it better.
On consume speakers, i didn't hear one bit of difference between those two loops.
The idea is quite alluring however....My biggest problem is that, i am not sure that EVERYTHING needs to be brought together for that particular reason in the mix.
I think it might be best suited for drum channels being summed into a drum group and then parallel compressed.
You do bring up an interesting point about how you get a lower signal, but achieve the same loudness perspective.
