Mixing and Mastering Tips- Serial Compression

Serial compression is a term to describe a way of using multiple compressor feeding into one another in order to create an affect that cant necessarily be achieved with just one compressor.

The reasons for doing this can be to really change the envelope of a sound and control its dynamic impact.

A good example of this is by using a fast attack/low ratio compressor to grab the initial transients of a signal and then feeding this to a slow attack/high ratio compressor to add fatness. The resulting sound here would be hard to achieve with just a single compressor and playing around with the controls of both compressors can lead you to create some really interesting effects.