You have a great drum performance with good-quality recording, but the sound is not fat enough? You have compressed the individual tracks and have a great balance but still the mix isn't kicking you in the butt? Check out these samples!
In this example I used a full mix to demonstrate the effect. No sample replacement on the drums. Notice the difference? Follow the next steps to learn how to do it in most DAW:s that have ADC*. I'm using Cubase SX3 as an example. Note: there are many different ways to do parallel compression. This is just one way to do it. For more information on parallel compression, see Wikipedia.
*ADC: Automatic Delay Compensation.
DAW's Without ADC
If you don't have ADC in you DAW, you can create a mixdown of the drums and skip the first two steps. You may also need to time shift the track depending on the plugins you use.
Do It!
Create a new group/bus and name it DrumsParaComp.
Send your drum bus to the DrumsParaComp bus. Make it pre-fader if possible. Otherwise the drum bus fader will affect the parallel compressor. See picture
Take the fader on the DrumsParaComp down and setup a compressor to the bus. I'm using Waves RComp as an example.
Set the compressor attack and release to the fastest setting possible. Use 6:1 ratio. You can experiment with different settings later. Set the threshold so that you get at least 10-15 db of gain reduction. See picture
Now slowly raise the DrumsParaCom fader and listen to the drum sound getting bigger and bigger!
Sometimes you need to tame the high end on the parallel bus if you get too much overheads. That's what I did in this example.
Make the Balance Different
If you don't like the balance you are getting with the previous example, you can make your own special parallel compression mix by using the individual track's sends instead of using the drum bus. For example less overheads, more kick etc. See picture
Still Not Punchy Enough?
It's understandable that if you are mixing intense metal, parallel compression on the drum bus only may not take you where you want it to be. Especially if you are not using any sample replacement. Do the following:
Create two new groups/buses and name them KickParaComp and SnareParaComp.
Send your kick bus or tracks to the KickParaComp and snare to the SnareParaComp bus. Make them pre-fader.
Set the compressors on the parallel buses as described above.
Try longer relase times for even fatter results.
Adjust the DrumsParaComp, KickParaComp and SnareParaComp faders so that it sounds good in the mix.
Parallel compression on the kick and snare most of the times requires some EQ'ing. Usually boosting the highs and cutting the lows on the parallel kick bus will do it. Snare is more sensitive to changes in EQ, but don't be too careful. Do whatever it takes to make it sound right! Most of the time you need to use some gating/expanding on the parallel buses to avoid excessive bleed from cymbals etc. After all, you are compressing the sound beyond recognition!
Create a new group/bus and name it DrumsParaComp.