Would this be Parallel compression?

[BFSound]

Our analog house board has built in dynamic compressors. If i sent lead VOX to L/R master Dry(no compression) and also to a Sub group and compressed the group and sent that to compressed subgroup to Master L/R. Would this work and be consider parallel compression. Effectively mixing dry vocals and compressed vocals.

Thanks

[Roland]

That would do it. Some compressors have the ability to send processed/unprocessed signals (I'm thinking plugin's here). It is quite popular in mastering and as a drum buss trick as well.

Roland

[BFSound]

Does parallel compression help for live music? This would be on our FOH board. Compressors has default 4:1 ratio which should be good for vocals correct?

Thanks

[Roland]

I don't know that it helps as such, but some engineers like to bus the drums and crank the hell out of them and then blend that with the uncompressed sound, not so sure that would be what you want on a vocal, but I guess it depends on your band sound.


Roland

[Rick Sutton]

Just remember parallel compression will bring up the bleed and noise. Could be a problem in live (may also affect feedback threshold)

[BFSound]

Originally Posted by Rick Sutton

Just remember parallel compression will bring up the bleed and noise. Could be a problem in live (may also affect feedback threshold)

Good point. Prob best not suited for live vocals as feedback threshold needs to be as high as possible for lead Vox.

Thanks guys

[jenkel16]

I do this in a live settting whenever I can. Bus vocals to a group and L/R, compress the group, and blend. I wouldn't send the compressed signal back to the monitors but it's absolutely fine for FOH. I find that a little boost on the bus can help to improve intelligibility during louder passages and the method improves vocal presence and solidness in a mix overall.

[BFSound]

Originally Posted by jenkel16

I do this in a live settting whenever I can. Bus vocals to a group and L/R, compress the group, and blend. I wouldn't send the compressed signal back to the monitors but it's absolutely fine for FOH. I find that a little boost on the bus can help to improve intelligibility during louder passages and the method improves vocal presence and solidness in a mix overall.

Another good point if i bus to L/R and bus the sub and compress and blend for FOH that will work. I will no do that for monitors though.

Thanks ill try it out.

[mixedupsteve]

I did it live recently too. I had the lead voc on one channel and assigned it to LR and I took an aux to a compressor and returned it to another channel. Worked great. (I had spare channels and auxes). We did have very low stage volume though and I didn't have alot of compression going on anyway.