EDIT: Testing to come about Live's pdf and parallel comp

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
DangerousDave
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EDIT: Testing to come about Live's pdf and parallel comp

Post by DangerousDave » Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:28 pm

Title pretty much says it all. If I am using parallel compression for my drum buss by sending the compressed version to a return track is live's PDC issue going to cause destructive feedback?
Last edited by DangerousDave on Fri Nov 21, 2014 3:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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JoshG567
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by JoshG567 » Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:36 pm

Only one way to find out: Try it.

I sidechain like a wildman - multiband instrument group off the drum group, ducking on guitar reverbs, delays, repeaters off the main signal, instruments off the vocals etc. All in the same set.

DangerousDave
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by DangerousDave » Wed Nov 19, 2014 7:51 pm

I did try it, and have tried it before, I am not sure if I can hear and audible example of destructive feedback, but if it is there I would like to avoid the practice all together, as it might be more noticeable in some instances than others. Also sometimes I feel that transient issues and things become more noticeable after being downsampled, I don't want to finish a track only to listen to an mp3 version and go "fuck" and have to do another mixdown without parallel compression.
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roringtonsmithe
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by roringtonsmithe » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:33 pm

I'd sooner do Pcomp either in a rack or using wet/dry knob.
The nice thing about using a rack is that if you think plugin latency/PDC is going to fuck your phasing up you can use a copy of the plugin on the dry chain and set it 100% dry.

78% of the time it works every time.

I don't trust returns for tight time based stuff. I have trust issues.

leisuremuffin
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Nov 19, 2014 9:38 pm

What do you mean by 'destructive feedback?' Live's PDC works correctly for audio, which means it will calculate and correct timing issues. Using parallel compression will not create phasing issues. However, if you are placing your compressor on a return track, make sure that all sends for that return track are disabled or Live will not be able to compensate.
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doghouse
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by doghouse » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:10 pm

You guys need to drink more coffee and smoke more meth, then listen again and maybe you'll hear something in the mix.

DangerousDave
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by DangerousDave » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:42 pm

leisuremuffin wrote:What do you mean by 'destructive feedback?'
Basically, phasing, transients not being lined up perfectly, being a ms or two off after going through the parallel compression signal path.
Using parallel compression will not create phasing issues. However, if you are placing your compressor on a return track, make sure that all sends for that return track are disabled or Live will not be able to compensate.
Wait, what? As far as I know, the only way to setup parallel compression is with sends and a return track. I do have sends disabled for the return track that is being compressed. My question is will Live compensate for the signal path that is getting compressed, because a compressor usually implements a small amount of delay in order to compensate for "look ahead." Once the signal path is joined with the original, uncompressed version, are these going to still sync up properly?
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leisuremuffin
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by leisuremuffin » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:45 pm

If sends are disabled on the returns, yes it will sync up.

As mentioned,the other way to do parallel compression is with an effects rack with one dry chain and one wet chain.
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DangerousDave
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by DangerousDave » Wed Nov 19, 2014 11:56 pm

Ah, ok cool. Thanks LM.
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doghouse
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by doghouse » Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:58 am

DangerousDave wrote:[As far as I know, the only way to setup parallel compression is with sends and a return track.
I never use sends for parallel compression.

The native compressors have a wet/dry mix. It's becoming more common on third party plugins as well.

leisuremuffin
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by leisuremuffin » Thu Nov 20, 2014 2:47 pm

Ah, but if you use sends you can process before or after just the compressed signal however you want.
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by H20nly » Thu Nov 20, 2014 3:12 pm

*bookmark*

JoshG567
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by JoshG567 » Thu Nov 20, 2014 10:23 pm

As mentioned above by others, glue and compressor both have wet/dry now; set it at 100% and then once it's dialed back it off until it's parallel enough for you.

Alternatively if one insists they can use returns if they have them to spare, but I prefer to conserve sends for things I use with many tracks and will use parallel chains in a rack on one track instead for things that only involve that one track.

Steve Glen
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by Steve Glen » Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:06 pm

There will be latency (*) on a return track if you route the return track's audio back into another audio track. The following problems will occur:

1. Such a routing can cause an infinite feedback loop, because you could (in theory) use the audio track's SEND controls to feed the signal back into the return track and so forth. In this case, Live cannot compensate latencies anymore, so the latency compensation will be deactivated for all tracks which are involved in this feedback network, regardless if the SEND control is indeed used by you or not. A possible solution is to deactivate the SEND controls on the audio track (right-click on the SEND control and choose "deactivate").

Note that the same problem may occur when you activate the SEND controls on the other return tracks, e.g. activate SEND B on RETURN A and SEND A on RETURN B.

2. There will always be at least 1 sample delay when routing a return track back into an ordinary audio track. This has to do with the computation cycle of the audio engine. Here's a (simplified) explanation: Live basically "scans" each of your tracks from left to right and "collects" each track's audio data, sample by sample. At the very end of each cycle, the master track's audio (or anything that is routed to your soundcard's output) will be sent to the DAC. Then it starts over, calculates the next sample and so forth. Now, if you route audio from a return track back in to an ordinary audio track, this signal will always be delayed, because it falls into the next computation cycle. Thus you will never be able to reach full phase cancellation in such a routing scenario. There is no workaround for this. Note that this really only affects return tracks which are routed back into audio tracks. Routing an audio track into another audio track is no problem, regardless into which direction.

(*) Well, strictly technically spoken, the latency is always there, but in most cases you won't notice it as long as Live compensates it.

Best,
Nico

DangerousDave
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Re: Is parellel compression negatively effect with Live's PDC?

Post by DangerousDave » Thu Nov 20, 2014 11:16 pm

Thanks Steve/Nico,

I see with my current routings I should have no problems. By default, sends on the return track itself are disabled. Why would one want to create an infinite feedback loop anyways?
JoshG567 wrote:As mentioned above by others, glue and compressor both have wet/dry now; set it at 100% and then once it's dialed back it off until it's parallel enough for you.
I am still working on 8, but I may try out the effects rack layout and see which one I like better. I have never maxed out the number of sends I am using so I don't mind too much about using one for parallel compression.

Thanks for the info everyone.
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