12-24-2025, 10:20 PM
I'm mixing a dense rock track and trying to use parallel compression techniques to add punch and weight to the drums without squashing the life out of the overheads and room mics. I've set up a bus with heavy compression, but when I blend it in, the result either gets too muddy or loses its transient detail. For engineers who use this method regularly, what are your typical compressor settings and blend ratios for a rock drum bus, and how do you EQ the parallel channel before or after compression to ensure it complements the dry signal instead of clashing with it?