The Power of Parallel Processing

[violent grey]

I really enjoy Reason's ssl mixer. It is very power, and has everything one would need to shape and sculpt his or her sounds to desire. I recently did a mix of stems I found online where it was legal to do so and for/with the intent to be mixed... and found myself having a night of epiphany... It was truly a ground breaking night where I not only heard but felt, everything fall into place. And I dont mean in the mix itself. but in my understanding of how really high fidelity sounding music can be created, without using harsh effects, which that can other wise taint or over saturate the rest of or surrounding sounds.

I ran the stems into my mixer layout and got it ready for my listening - the raw mix that is. I use a channel for the raw mix along side with the mix I will be doing, so that I can compare the original or raw vs my work. I mainly listen to the raw or mix for an hour, and really take it in. I dont do this for a business so, I guess I got the time. I got the mix shortly and after a few runs I settled on my levels and prepared to gain stage. I ran thru all the stages as normal and was impressed with how it sounded, compared to the original mix... what really blew my mind was, I was only half way there.

Once I get my first run of the mix, that is, to say all the original samples only, I can then move on to parallel processing the parts I want to accentuate. Pretty much, every sample gets a parallel channel whether I use it or not. Instead of adding tons of reverb, I added some eq or width in the stereo spread, and added a delay maybe in one of the effects chain. I like taking the original sample tracks and leaving them pretty much effect-less... just use dynamics and such, maybe some eq.. filter. the parallel channel gets all the effects and such. and with that mixed into the original sample, it really brings out character in your sound!

If you dont use parallel channels to mix with the original, i challenge you to try it! try mixing various effects in the paralleled channel with the original sample and see how much it will improve your mix, maybe you will see that with another set of samples, you can pan a bit here, add some delay and various dynamics.

The end project sounded 10x better than the original, and 5x better than the mix I did with just the original samples with tons of effects.

less effects, more controlling in the mix, use parallel effect processing and create that unique sound you are looking for. I guess you dont need to have as many channels as I do, you can have 2x more though too, scale it to your needs. I did post a hearing of the mix in the reason music section, titled chillout if you want to hear.