Parallel compression
Parallel compression in one plugin
Parallel compression blends a crushed copy of your drums under the untouched original: the copy brings weight and room, the original keeps every hit sharp. With a Mix knob you don't need a second track or a send.
How to do parallel compression on drums
- Put the compressor on your drum bus (in Squeeze, start from the Parallel Smash preset).
- Squash hard: ratio 10:1 or more, threshold low enough for 10 to 20 dB of gain reduction. It should sound too much on its own.
- Fast attack and a short release, so the quiet room sound and decays come right up between the hits.
- Turn Mix down from 100% until the crushed sound sits under the dry drums. Somewhere between 20% and 50% is common.
- Bypass and compare at the same loudness. The drums should sound bigger and thicker, with the transients still intact.
Watch it explained: Parallel compression: punchy and heavy drums
Hear Squeeze
What you get with Squeeze
- 12 ready-to-go presets, from Smooth Vocal and Punchy Drums to Parallel Smash and Master Bus
- Live graph of the sound going in, coming out and how much is squeezed off
- Drag the threshold line right in the graph
- Threshold, ratio, knee, attack and release, like a classic compressor
- Auto makeup keeps the volume steady as you squeeze harder
- Mix knob for parallel (New York) compression
- Ignore Lows, so a big kick doesn't pull the whole sound down
- Hover over any knob to see what it does
Questions
What is parallel compression?
Mixing a heavily compressed copy of a sound with the dry original. It's also called New York compression. The dry signal keeps the punch of each hit; the squashed copy fills in the body and detail underneath.
Why not just compress the drums normally?
Heavy compression on its own flattens the transients, so drums lose their snap. Blending it in parallel gets the weight without losing the punch.
Do I need a send or a second track?
Not with a Mix knob. Squeeze blends the compressed and dry sound inside the plugin, so the two stay perfectly in time. Its Parallel Smash preset starts at 20:1 with the Mix at 40%.
Does parallel compression work on vocals and bass?
Yes. On vocals it brings up detail and breath without squashing the peaks; on bass it makes the level steadier while keeping the attack of each note.
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