When looking for techniques to liven-up and add body to my mixes, I find compression to be one of the most useful tools available. In mixing my most recent track, “Seems I’ve been waiting”, I used techniques such as Parallel and Side-chain Compression. The track begins with an acoustic guitar and vocal, before launching into a full band (Elec Gtr, Bass and Drums) at the start of the second verse. There is significant increase in dynamics when the band enters and the drums are playing a thunderous back-beat on the floor-tom and snare.
To heighten the energy at this point I used Parallel Compression on a bus from the Drum stereo master channel. This allowed me to use the aux-track to heavily compress the drum sound, adding more thud and air. I compressed the Aux-track to a point in which if it was played on its own, it would sound overly compressed with over-powering highs and lows. My intentions behind this was so that when the aux track was blended with the original stereo track I could achieve a subtle balance between the two, creating a more substantial drum sound.
I used side-chain compression on the start of the track where there is only Acoustic guitar and vocals. I found that in order to achieve the sound I wanted for both the vocal and guitar, meant that they were overlapping each other and clashing. In side-chaining the guitar to the vocal meant that when the vocal transients were happening, the guitar was compressed, making it duck out the way of the vocal. This was a very subtle use of side-chain compression but made a more harmonious relationship between the guitar and the vocal.