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4. Parallel processing in Live

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Parallel processing is a technique whereby a processed (for example, compressed) signal is mixed with the unprocessed version of itself. In the case of compression, this would give us a balance of loud ‘wet’ signal and punchy ‘dry’ signal. Start by dragging Funky jungle.wav onto an audio track in Ableton Live. 3

Set the Glue Compressor’s Threshold to -27dB, Makeup to 7dB, and Attack to 0.3. Add a Saturator after it, with its mode set to Sinoid Fold and its Drive turned up to 11.2dB. The processing we’ve added has boosted the peak level by a few dB, which we can check by bypassing the effect. 5

This puts both effects in an Audio Effects Rack. Click the Show/ Hide Chain List button and a list of chains appears in the Audio Effects Rack. Currently, there’s only one chain in the Rack. To add another, right-click below it and select Create Chain. 2

Drag Glue Compressor onto the track. The effect has a Dry/Wet knob, which means that we can mix some of the dry signal back in directly from the plugin itself. However, by setting up a parallel processing chain we can use multiple effects, which can then be mixed with the dry signal at the end. 4

To compensate for this, turn the Saturator’s Output down to -2dB. Now the signal peaks at around the same level as the unprocessed signal did, although the dynamic range has been significantly reduced, so it hits the peak level much more often. Now let’s create our parallel routing. Select both effects, right-click and select Group. 6

Now we’ve got our ‘wet’ chain with effects on it, and a new ‘dry’ chain for the unprocessed signal. As we’ve got two versions of the signal, the output of the track will be very loud, so turn both chains down to -6dB to halve their volume. You can use the Chain Volume parameters to balance the signals, and toggle the Audio Effects Rack’s Device Activator button to compare the parallel processed signal with the unprocessed version. (Audio: Parallel processed beat.wav)