got DBX compressor now what?

I use my dbx 266XL (I'll assume that's what you have too)on the kick and snare. on the Kick I pretty much turn the ratio all the way up the attack and release times as fast as they will go and set the threshold just to where I dont get any pumping and breathing- I also use the gate to gate the hell out of it- ratio and threshold pretty much all the way up. on the snare I use a sidechain for the gate to gate out the rattling of the snares when it isn't played (thanks so much for tip sonusman) I tape this cheap acoustic trasducer to the head of the snare (a slightly different approach than sonusman, but...) and plug that in to the sidechain insert. I set the theshold of the gate between -10 and 0 and the ratio at 2:1 I set the compression kind of around the same areas just enough to have a little limiting on really big hits. Just use your ears, that's the best thing too do. The compressor shouldn't sound like it's doing too much- go for subtle processing, unless of course you think you need a really compressed sound.
 
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