Parametric Compressor

Sometimes the part of a sound that needs compression is only part of the spectrum. A vocal may become aggressive only in the upper mids. A bass can be perfectly controlled except for a few low notes. A guitar might need its bite restrained without pulling down the body of the instrument. Traditional broadband compression responds to the entire signal, while fixed multiband processing divides the spectrum into predetermined regions. Parametric Compressor takes a more flexible approach. Instead of working with fixed crossover bands, you can create compression bands wherever you need them, much like placing bands on a parametric EQ. Choose a Frequency and Width, then give that region its own Threshold, Ratio, Attack, Release, and Makeup settings. Bands can be narrow enough to focus on a specific problem area or widened all the way toward broadband compression. Up to 10 bands can be created, and bands are free to overlap, allowing several different compression behaviors to work within the same part of the spectrum. The detector is flexible as well. Each band can respond to the energy inside its selected frequency range or use the full-spectrum signal as its detector. That allows the frequency range being compressed and the signal triggering that compression to be treated as separate decisions. For additional routing options, a band can listen to the main input, an external sidechain, or both. This opens up applications beyond corrective compression, including frequency-selective ducking and sidechain processing where only a chosen portion of the target signal is reduced. The spectrum display makes the processing easy to visualize. Bands can be created and positioned directly on the graph, their width can be adjusted interactively, and individual band metering shows how the selected region is responding. A global Mix control makes parallel processing straightforward, while Output provides final level matching. Parametric Compressor can handle subtle tasks such as controlling vocal harshness, low-frequency buildup, or uneven instrument resonances, but it can also be used creatively—stacking and overlapping bands, combining broad and narrow compression, or letting one part of the spectrum trigger compression somewhere else. It sits somewhere between traditional compression, multiband compression, and dynamic frequency processing, but the underlying idea is simple: Put compression exactly where you want it, and decide exactly what should trigger it.