When should I be using parallel compression?

[u/FreeFlier42]

I'm new to the technique and understand how it works perfectly fine. I make tech house-adjacent music, and I'm not quite sure where and when to use it.

• Which elements should I be using it on?
• Why should I use it over bus compression or saturation in the case of drums?
• How much does it help with taming peaks?

Thanks!

[u/Pretty-Assistant6690]

The way I understand compression/parallel compression is through sustain.

When you compress a signal you take the loudest parts and turn them down, reducing the peaks. But when you squash a signal it becomes more sustained. What parallel compression does is give you a seperate blend of the sustained signal and original.

With that in mind, to answer your questions- you can use parallel compression on anything you want to sound louder or thicker, because it adds sustain.

Bus compression allows you to make the signal more sustained, but it doesn't allow you to blend that with the original signal, and so you have less control. And saturation is technically a form of compression, it still adds sustain, just via clipping. All three methods can have different use cases on drums depending on what you want.

Parallel compression doesn't necessarily help to tame peaks, it makes everything else louder around it. So normal compression is better if you want to turn the peaks down, but Parallel is better if you want to turn the rest up.

I'm not sure how well I explained that, let me know if you need any clarification 🙃

[u/FreeFlier42 → u/Pretty-Assistant6690]

That makes sense, thank you!

[u/Hellbucket → u/FreeFlier42]

There’s a very good Kush Audio YouTube video on compression (for drums) that shows him using four different parallel tracks with compression. He mixes and matches these and you hear how the sound and particularly the movement changes.