Giving a weaker kick those LOWS! (classic parallel compression)
I mixed two high-profile artist songs this week and this one came in handy.
In one of them, the kick was lacking in lows. EQ didn't really hit.
Pulled out this legendary parallel / NY compression technique that has helped me so many times in the past giving a kick some real GIRTH.
If your music has kickdrums, this technique is a must, ha!
Also, this is not genre-specific.
Also explaining the technique below:
1) You duplicate the kick track.
2) You compress the kick with a really snappy compressor that really squeezes the kick and emphasises transient (normal VCA prob won't do: gotta have a snappy FET compressor: hence I picked the snappiest one I know, the DBX160.
3) You boost the hell out of its very lows (here I'm boosting 30 Hz range with Pultec).
4) You cut its highs – doing it with Pultec and a lowpass filter. Try to use something that does NOT cause a delay in the signal, as that'd cause phase issues between the two kick tracks!
…and yep, at this point the kick alone does sound awful, but hear me out…
5) Mix in to taste and enjoy the added girth!
Comments (11)
Quick question?? Would you have to offset the samples to avoid weird phase artifacts??
I’d say there is no real phasing going on here (bass would likely lessen, not increase), but I’ve def tried this with plugins that introduce latency, so that won’t work due to phasing.
Quick q fanu: do you not filter out lows from original kick? Does this extra low cause phase issues at all?
No, then we’d have lows from only one kick. You need both. No phasing here (be mindful of latency times of course).
Is there a reason you duplicate the track and not create a group chain in a single channel with dry/wet versions? Our more personal preference
No real reason, but I feel it's often faster access seeing the tracks and being able to set levels with fader and mute / solo the track when needed.
I've also found that dbx 160 to be so ticky/clicky in parallel (sometimes good if your missing transient) but too poppy, I love the pultec for lows aswell so I'll add it to my dbx160 chain, might get more use out of it now :) Do you ever do much parallel with sends or just duplicate track? - so times I do experience latency phase issues with parrallel fx chains especially with bass. so I sometimes avoid. Always prefer to duplicate but can get missy at times.
I actually rarely even do parallel - most of the stuff I do, I rock it on the track. This one though, so much nicer as parallel!
Love that trick. Learned it from Dave pensado. Pray for that man.
Question - is this the same kick (looks to be so), and did you have to flip phasing if they're the same?
Yea good question and I probably forgot to mention: yes it’s the same kick duplicated! I have now added 5-step explanation to the post for clarity. The polarity flip is not part of this technique: I just happened to try it out like I often do to see if there’s any bass change. So that flip is on both tracks.