Do you use parallel processing in your mixing?

[dvdrtldg]

Full-wet spacey reverb on a parallel channel can be great for ambient styles, especially when you start to treat the reverb with other creative effects (Fritz goes very nicely). I've been using Valley Plateau a lot for this, it's excellent

[crimsonwarlock]

Full-wet spacey reverb on a parallel channel can be great for ambient styles, especially when you start to treat the reverb with other creative effects (Fritz goes very nicely). I've been using Valley Plateau a lot for this, it's excellent

I haven't done it yet, but putting Fritz after a reverb, or in the feedback line of a delay, is definitely on my "I have to try that" list

[BRIGGS]

A lot of fx device have wet/dry, which is parallel processing, but on a smaller scale.

Splitting your signal into two with a parallel chain, is a great way to go crazy with fx, then mix back in the madness.

[crimsonwarlock]

A lot of fx device have wet/dry, which is parallel processing, but on a smaller scale.

It is parallel in setup, but it behaves differently from a parallel channel because of how the dry/wet circuits are set up. Basically when you go beyond the 50% dry/wet level, the dry signal is lowered in volume, which does not happen with a parallel channel.

Splitting your signal into two with a parallel chain, is a great way to go crazy with fx, then mix back in the madness.

Yep, that's how it's done

[BRIGGS]

A lot of fx device have wet/dry, which is parallel processing, but on a smaller scale.

It is parallel in setup, but it behaves differently from a parallel channel because of how the dry/wet circuits are set up. Basically when you go beyond the 50% dry/wet level, the dry signal is lowered in volume, which does not happen with a parallel channel.

Splitting your signal into two with a parallel chain, is a great way to go crazy with fx, then mix back in the madness.

Yep, that's how it's done

I'm thinking of giving the parallel fx chain it's own separate combinator. Seems like it would be handy for calling up presets and keeping things more organized.

[crimsonwarlock]

I'm thinking of giving the parallel fx chain it's own separate combinator. Seems like it would be handy for calling up presets and keeping things more organized.

I'm thinking about that too, but so far I have most parallel stuff setup in my project templates. Mainly in my mixing template.

[BRIGGS]

I'm thinking of giving the parallel fx chain it's own separate combinator. Seems like it would be handy for calling up presets and keeping things more organized.

I'm thinking about that too, but so far I have most parallel stuff setup in my project templates. Mainly in my mixing template.

That could work. Just save your template with 1 or 2 fx combinators.

[mcatalao]

Most of what Sheppps is doing the last 15 years is mixing very hard styles so a lot of these techniques can be wrongly applied in a lot of the stuff i do.

The things he mixes is right in my ballpark, so for me there's that


His mixing techniques have evolved over time, especially since he moved completely ITB. But he always states that he mixes the same way no matter the genre or artist, mainly because of how his Neve desk used to be set up. His main techniques are aimed at having more dynamic control and I don't see how that would only be useful for heavy styles. Reason (I think) that many top engineers have copied his techniques.

Emulating his techniques in Reason is super easy, as everything is based on his Neve desk, and the SSL mixer in Reason has the same (or even more) functionality

Dynamic control reduces overall dynamics, again something I'm not keen of on a lot of what I'm doing.

As for using the techniques in reason, I've studied them and he uses an arbitrary amount of aux buses and post insert paralels witch reason does not have, so you have to use sends witch are limited, or make a mess in the main mixer or be very creative ouside of the mixer breaking latency compensation and cpu analysis.

[moalla]

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Dynamic control reduces overall dynamics, again something I'm not keen of on a lot of what I'm doing.

As for using the techniques in reason, I've studied them and he uses an arbitrary amount of aux buses and post insert paralels witch reason does not have, so you have to use sends witch are limited, or make a mess in the main mixer or be very creative ouside of the mixer breaking latency compensation and cpu analysis.
[/quote]

Latency compensation is that thing were it get‘s complicated, I also experimented with a bus signal into my black lion audio Auteur pre and it sounds weak at the end, so maybe I‘m wrong and the 6megaohm xlr mic input of my preamp is not made for this, but otherwise ass outboard saturator two small tube mp with 12au7 tubes inside gives my mastersignal more live with it’s harmonics and messed with it’s cost the result is amazing. So but most of us working ITB parallel is the best thing and can be sometimes difficult if the plugins have to much own extra latency when it comes to parallel processing…

[selig]

A lot of fx device have wet/dry, which is parallel processing, but on a smaller scale.

It is parallel in setup, but it behaves differently from a parallel channel because of how the dry/wet circuits are set up. Basically when you go beyond the 50% dry/wet level, the dry signal is lowered in volume, which does not happen with a parallel channel.

It’s “worse” than that - as soon as you leave the 100% dry position, the dry signal is reduced already reaching -6 dB in the center position. This is why I use dry/wet knobs EARLY in the process, often at the moment I add an instrument and have not yet set basic levels.
Adding a device as an insert and keeping the same dry level would be a difficult proposition if you wanted to keep the exact same dry level (and didn’t want an exact 50/50 blend).

[selig]

Dynamic control reduces overall dynamics, again something I'm not keen of on a lot of what I'm doing.

Not if you don’t want it to do so. I often use dynamics control to INCREASE dynamics. The SSL channel comp is great for this on percussive material IMO.
But also, I find mixing to be the art of making tracks ‘gel’ or work together. I can’t make tracks work together if one is extremely dynamic and one is not.
Natural/realistic dynamics in acoustic music are difficult to reproduce in any environment that’s not as quiet as the spaces this type of music is performed in. That said, I’ve worked on a lot of pure acoustic music in my Nashville days, and you certainly don’t compress as hard or as much/often.
But the need still arises for SOME dynamic control in almost every project I’ve ever participated in. In those cases the goal is to never hear it ‘work’, exactly the opposite extreme of the exaggerated ducking effect that’s become a music element (some would say cliché!) in some mixes.
Horses for courses, as always IMO.

[crimsonwarlock]

Dynamic control reduces overall dynamics, again something I'm not keen of on a lot of what I'm doing.

Funny that, because Andrew developed his parallel techniques because he hated the loss of dynamics, and especially what compressors do to transients. The whole idea of parallel compression is to have a clean uncompressed channel as the base of the sound.

As for using the techniques in reason, I've studied them and he uses an arbitrary amount of aux buses and post insert paralels witch reason does not have, so you have to use sends witch are limited, or make a mess in the main mixer or be very creative ouside of the mixer breaking latency compensation and cpu analysis.

He developed his techniques on his Neve console, which definitely doesn't have an arbitrary amount of aux busses and parallel channels. He also does basically no processing on the clean channel, so auxes being post insert is not an issue. Besides that, with traditional recording techniques it is/was usual to do corrective EQ and such during recording and print that, to minimize the need for processing during the mix.

Again, on the Reason SSL mixer, with a combination of busses and parallel channels, it is very easy to setup these things. The most important thing to know is that you can have parallel channels on busses, and busses can route to other busses. Especially that last thing is not possible in some other DAWs.

I have yet to encounter an Andrew Scheps technique that I could not replicate easily in Reason.

[crimsonwarlock]