PARALLEL

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I’m pumped to have you in the Parallel Processing Masterclass.

Using parallel processing is one of the best ways you can take your mixes to the next level and add that extra 10% to your mixes to make them sound more professional.

Let’s get started by talking about the difference between processing your tracks the traditional way, by inserting plug-ins on the track themselves, and by using parallel processing.

When you’re mixing music, there are two ways to affect the audio you are working with.

You can manipulate your audio either by using a plug-in as an insert, or as a send.

But what’s the difference between the two?

What’s an Insert?

An insert is used when you want to process a signal directly. You insert an effect like a compressor or EQ directly onto the original audio.

This is when you do not want to retain the original audio file.

You want to change it completely (or subtly) and only hear the processed part.

What’s a send effect?

Send effects are used when you have an original signal that you want to modulate, modify, or process without affecting the original signal. Your original signal sits there by itself unchanged, but it has a separate copy being effected.

This is called parallel processing because you’re affecting a copy of the audio in parallel with the original signal, and then blending them both together. You use auxiliary sends to copy the original audio to a separate track where you further process it.

What’s the difference between an insert and a send?

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So when is it smarter to use sends or inserts?

Well, you want to use sends when you are using time-based effects. Time-based effects, such as delays need an original sound source to work. How would you know a signal was delayed if it didn’t have an original un-delayed track?

Inserts are used for processing directly. If you need to compress a signal, gate it to eliminate bleed or process it in a way that doesn’t affect the time of the signal.

Compressors are not time-based, they are dynamic processors that work directly on a signal. That’s why you should usually use them as inserts. If you were to use a compressor as a send you wouldn’t be compressing the original signal, you would have a copy that’s compressed but it wouldn’t matter because your original is still unchanged.

Breaking the “Rules”

Of course, there are instances where you can break the rules, especially if your plug-in has a wet/dry knob. For instance, you can just use the compressor as an insert as you normally would and then use the mix slider to apply the parallel compression. The same can be done with a reverb if you just put it on 20% wet.

Guitarist that use delays, reverbs and modulation effects in their signal chain are essentially using time based effects as inserts. But most guitar effects have a mix parameter to allow you to blend the two signals.

You can do the same thing with your DAW. For instance, if you have a guitar track you can usually add modulation effects as an insert. Just be sure that you’re blending the two signals.

You don’t want an insert to be 100% wet (or effected) since you won’t have any of the original signal present at that point.

Summing up

It’s smart to use send effects when you want to enhance a signal without eliminating the original.

The opposite goes for inserts. Use insert effects when you want to change the signal completely. Inserts change the signal with dynamic changes like compressors, or tonal changes like EQ.

Both methods have their uses for certain situations.

Sending a track to a reverb bus is technically a method of parallel processing. When you add reverb via a send, you send the original (dry) track to the reverb bus. When you add the reverb signal to the dry track, you get a combination of the two signals in parallel.

Reverb and Delay Effects

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However, this is a masterclass so we won’t spend too much time on those simple techniques. Instead, we’ll discuss parallel processing using compression, saturation, stereo wideners, and exciters, in addition to a few simple reverb and delay tricks. These are the more advanced techniques to try out so you’re going to learn the best parallel processing secrets that I know.

In the next few pages, and through the complementary videos, you’ll discover several tips and tricks that are guaranteed to add power and professionalism to your mixes.

We’ll talk about:

A note before we start: Parallel processing is the extra 10% processing you do after you’ve done the necessary mixing to each track. It shouldn’t replace your basic mixing techniques. If the original track sounds bad because you haven’t done the necessary mixing, then the parallel track will sound the same. So make sure you mix your tracks until you’re satisfied with your rough mix before you add any parallel processing. If you’d like a refresher on general mixing techniques, I recommend my Step By Step Mixing eBook or watching the Mixing With 5 Plug-ins course first.

All right, with that out of the way, let’s start with the drums.

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• How to add powerful punch to your drums with parallel compression• How to make an explosive snare with parallel saturation• How to add parallel smash to drum loops• How to EQ your parallel groups to make everything stand out• How to use parallel saturation and amp simulation to enhance your bass guitar tracks• How to bring out the bass guitar in the mix without cluttering up the low-end• How to add lush stereo to guitar tracks with mono reverbs and delays• How to make your vocals sound massive during the recording phase so that the singer

gives you a great performance• How to create a convincing Automatic Double Tracking effect• How to use a parallel exciter to bring some high-end sheen to your vocals• How to use parallel stereo widening to make your entire mix sound wider

What will you learn from this Parallel Processing Masterclass?

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Mixing thunderous drums is a goal for many a mix engineer. One of the best ways to get your drums to explode through the mix is to use parallel compression on the entire drum bus. This allows you to heavily compress the drums to the point of aggression while still letting the normal drum sound breathe through.

Here’s how you do it:Send your drum bus to another aux track.1.

Add a compressor to the aux track.2.

Add a fast, character compressor like the 1176 to the auxiliary bus. Slam the compressor hard, with a high ratio, a fast attack, and a slow release. If you’re using an actual 1176 model go with the “All Buttons In” mode to really get it pumping. You want the drums to be really compressed and pumpy on the aux track.

3.

PARALLEL COMPRESSION ON

DRUMS

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Parallel Saturation on the Snare

Parallel Saturation on the Overheads

For added measure, add an EQ to the aux track after the compressor. Boost the highs and the lows. This makes the highs and lows more present without adding to the transients of the drum track. Because the attack is so fast and the release is so slow the compressor eats all the transients up so that all you get is this thickness in the lows and sheen in the highs. Technically, you could just cut the mids instead, creating a subjective increase in the highs and lows – whatever floats your boat. With the attack so fast and the release so slow you’ll end up with thick and creamy lows and sparkling highs without the transients because they’re all eaten up by the crazy compression.

4.

Blend the compressed aux track underneath the drum bus to taste.5.

Usually, this results in a sound that cuts through the mix without getting in the way of the rest of the instruments. It just adds extra presence to everything.

Sometimes all you need is just a little bit of the parallel signal to really make the drums pack a punch. At the same time, if it’s sounding a bit too extreme, start by checking your EQ on the parallel bus and tame your low and high frequency boosts before you start decreasing the gain reduction of the compressor.

You can also give this trick a double whammy by not only sending your drum bus to the parallel compressor, but the individual kick and snare tracks as well.

You don’t need to limit this technique to just drums. Try it on vocals to get them very present in the mix. I’ve had great luck with multiple types of parallel processing on various instruments, so if a track is lacking some punch but it reacts poorly to your compressor on the insert then try it in parallel to see whether it adds the punch you need.

You probably don’t want to completely destroy your snare drum sound by adding too much saturation to the actual track. However, using it in parallel can work really well.

Adding saturation can bring out all the good stuff of the snare – warmth, thickness, and power – without sounding like you’re adding an unnatural amount of EQ boosts.

Even something as simple as a tape emulation can be enough, but you can also experiment with full-on saturation in parallel, bringing up the second track just underneath the snare to bring the beef.

Because the overheads have all the drums present, there’s a lot going on with harmonic content and overtones. Saturation can help bring out those little intricacies of the drums, add thickness to the lows, tame the harsh mids, and soften the highs.

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A subtle tape saturator of some sort (I’m a big fan of the Waves Kramer Tape) can go a long way to giving your overheads and room mics some extra dimension on your drums.

One thing to look out for when it comes to these analog modeling plug-ins is the amount of noise they might add to a track. If there is a “noise” or “analog” switch of some sort make sure it’s turned off as to not add unnecessary “analog hiss” to your mix.

You can have a lot of fun adding parallel processing to drum loops. Usually, if you get a good loop it’s already well mixed. But that doesn’t mean you can’t take it to the next level in your production by adding some parallel processing like heavy compression or saturation.

You can really go to town on a drum loop and crush it up completely in parallel. Then, add it underneath the original loop and see how the two combine.

These tips just scratch the surface of how to get a good drum mix. If you’d like to get even deeper into how to transform your home recorded drums into professional sounding drum mixes, check out my Drum Mix Toolkit right here.http://www.drummixtoolkit.com/

Using Parallel Processing on Drum Loops

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The most common problem that comes up when you’re mixing bass guitar is keeping it from muddying up the low-mids while still getting it to cut through the mix. Parallel processing gives you extra flexibility because you can really experiment with processing the parallel signal while leaving the original bass track relatively natural.

Whether you need extra grit, a little more presence, or even some width, here are some things to try out in your next mix.

A good way to increase the presence of the bass without overpowering the low-end is to use parallel saturation and a mid-frequency boost to add just enough presence to cut through the mix, especially on small speakers.

Parallel EQ and Saturation

USING PARALLEL PROCESSING

ON BASS GUITAR

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Send your mixed bass track to the parallel bus and add an EQ.1.

Filter out all the low-end so that only the mids and the high frequencies come through.2.

Boost the mids and sweep around the frequency spectrum until a particular frequency sounds good to you.

3.

Add tape saturation, tube warmth, or an overdrive plug-in to lightly saturate the signal.4.

While listening to the rest of the mix, blend the parallel bus underneath the original bass track until you can hear the bass cut through in the middle frequencies.

5.

Here’s what you do:

Bonus Tip: You can add a stereo widening or chorus plug-in on the parallel channel if you want the bass to sound wider in the high-mids.

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You can never have too many guitar mixing tricks, so let me give you three ways to make your guitar tracks larger than life.

Stereo Widening – Use a stereo widening processor in parallel to make your guitars sound really wide. This is great when you want to create a big rhythm guitar sound.

1.

Modulated Delay – Use a stereo delay with different millisecond delays panned hard left and hard right. Then use the modulation parameters inside the delay or add a modulation plug-in such as a chorus afterwards to create a shimmering sound across the stereo spectrum.

2.

Panned Mono – Send your guitars to a mono bus and add a short reverb. Then pan the reverb to the opposite side of the stereo spectrum so the dry sound is coming from one side while the reverb is coming from the other. Reverb is the go-to effect of choice, but feel free to experiment with modulation plug-ins, exciters, overdrive, or anything else you’d like.

3.

PARALLEL PROCESSING TO

CREATE WIDER GUITARS

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Parallel processing can make your vocals sound huge. Here are a few advanced techniques to try out when you want bigger vocals.

A great way to make your vocalist more comfortable during the recording process is to give them a separate parallel signal in their headphones. This will make their voice sound produced and can often give them a helpful confidence boost.

It gets great results because the vocalist feels like he’s singing on a record, not a demo.

And the best part is, you don’t have to compromise the quality of your recording. In my Apollo Twin there’s a digital console that allows you to route the incoming signal to two aux tracks. One is for reverb to give the vocalist some nice space in the mix. The other is for either an LA2A or an 1176 that’s heavily compressing the incoming signal. I then blend that underneath and feed it to the vocalist’s headphone mix.

I don’t record either signal into the DAW. It’s purely used for performance purposes. If you don’t have a UAD interface, you can do the same inside your DAW by creating two aux busses from the track you’re recording to. This results in a pretty in-your-face sound that gives the singer confidence and helps create a great performance.

Parallel Processing While Recording

BIGGER VOCALS WITH PARALLEL PROCESSING

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Of course, be careful how much signal you feed the vocalist. And make sure you’re not crushing the signal with a really slow release because the pumping sound throw them off guard.

So try a nice blend of parallel compression into the singer’s headphones the next time you want to give your singer a sense of power.

If you don’t have the time or budget to record a real double of the vocal, you can use this parallel processing trick to create a pseudo double to thicken up your vocal track. Because the delays on the parallel track are so short, it’ll give you a larger vocal without any real “space” to it.

Here’s how you do it:

You can also try to use a simple chorus plug-in instead of a delay to double the vocals. If you add a bit of the chorused signal underneath the lead vocal you’ll get a thicker sound, emulating a double-tracked vocal part. It’s a simple enough trick, and great for giving a little more breadth to your lead vocal.

Similarly, you can do the same thing with backing vocals. You can get a really nice wash of backing vocals if you have several panned vocals parts routed to a stereo chorus. Try it next time you want a dry vocal part that you don’t want to push way back into the mix.

Automatic double tracking can also work to add additional thickness to keyboards and pianos.

Different compression styles will affect your tracks differently. If you use an LA2A on a vocal it’ll sound different than a 1176 or a dbx 160. That’s why all the different compression models are so popular. They all add something different to the sound.

Doing it in parallel is no different. Depending on what type of compression shape or color you’re looking for, you can create different parallel compression busses in your mix template and then experiment with sending varying amounts to each compressor type.

Send the vocals to a stereo delay with 21 ms on the left and 29 ms on the right. 1.

Use a pitch-shifter to detune or pitch up the vocal about 10 cents.2.

Add the send under the main vocal track until you’ve achieved the desired ambience needed.

3.

An advanced way to do it is with two mono delays panned hard left and hard right with one pitch shifter detuning the vocal 10 cents while the other pitches the vocal up 10 cents.

4.

Automatic Double Tracking

Parallel Processing for Vocal Power

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Take your vocals for instance. You might leave the original vocal track fairly natural, with minimal EQ and compression. But you can add heavily compressed grit by slamming the vocal in parallel and blending it underneath. The heavily compressed signal might sound unusable and gross in solo, but once you add it to the main vocal track you might be surprised by the amount of power you get out of it.

Also, you don’t have to rely on only one compressor type. You can send your vocals to multiple parallel compressors and then add each of them underneath the main vocal track, giving your final vocal track a really powerful sound that explodes out of the speakers.

Here’s how you do it:

Throw an exciter into the mix

If your vocal is lacking in the high-end, you can throw an exciter into the mix on one of the parallel busses as well. This will brighten up the overall vocal sound without affecting the main vocal track too much. Of course, you can easily add an exciter on the main vocal track, but if you’re trying to be subtle about it, it might be better to blend it in parallel instead.

This last trick in the Parallel Processing Masterclass is something I do all the time for bigger and wider mixes. This trick helps create a sense of space, depth, and width without cluttering it up with time-based effects like reverb and delay.

Here’s what I do:

Use the same thought process as you would when you’re adding reverb to your mix. Some things need to be left dry in a mix and don’t need reverb. The same goes for the stereo widener.

And remember, some things need to be wider than others, so make sure you don’t send the same amount of stereo width to everything.

Send your vocal to two different compressors, an 1176 FET style compressor and a LA2A Opto compressor for instance.

1.

Then blend the compressed vocals underneath to taste.2.

The different compression styles will process the vocal differently so you might want more of one than the other.

3.

On an aux bus, I’ll add a compressor and then a stereo widening plug-in. I use the S1 Stereo Imager, but you can use whatever stereo widening plug-in you have lying around.

1.

Then, I’ll simply send certain instruments like the vocals, rhythm guitars, and other elements than need additional width to that bus.

2.

Overall stereo widening

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Many of the tricks I’ve talked about in this masterclass can be used on more instruments than just the examples I showed you. You can use parallel compression on any instrument in your mix if you want. Just use the step by step process I showed you with the drums on anything you want to thicken up in your mix. The same goes for parallel saturation, automatic double tracking, and stereo widening. If you want to add subtle grit to anything, like synth lines for instance, then go nuts! Throw parallel saturation or an exciter in there and blend away!

The key here is to know how to use parallel processing in your DAW to make your mixes sound better. The experimentation is up to you, and believe me when I tell you that the results are endless!

Happy mixing!Björgvin

CONCLUSION