I am finally getting around to making a new series on the Behringer XAir consoles! This series of consoles currently includes the XR12, XR16, X18, and the XR18. Mostly I am going to focus on the XR18 in my series, but keep an eye out or subscribe to my blog over the next few weeks and you will start seeing all of them pop up!
XAir Parallel Compression
One thing I wanted to dive into was the use of ‘parallel compression’ on the XAir. There are many ways of accomplishing this, the easiest is using the ‘mix’ knob inside of the channel compressor. There is one way of doing parallel compression through the sub groups. This involves sending the channel directly to the LR Bus AND sending it to a sub group for additional processing. This sub group then goes through a pretty heavy amount of compression and then is sent to the LR Bus at a varying volume to add in a lot of punch for the mix. Typically, this is most often done with the drums.
If you happen to take this sub group and insert an effect from the FX rack, like the Ultimo Compressor, the XAir series of consoles (AND the Behringer X32!) will cause the sub group to be delayed by a little bit behind the direct signal. This little bit of delay will cause a huge reduction in your high frequencies of your mix.
Check out this video with me explaining it a bit more!
The Takeaway
When doing parallel compression, just keep it simple and use the built-in compression of the bus! There is plenty of functionality to get that dialed in compression with the built-in dynamics section.