Mastering: Compression/Limiting makes my drums disappear

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DarthFaders

New member
Whenever I put enough compression or limiting on my tunes to make them comparably as loud as my fav CD's, the drums seem to be way to quiet.

Anybody know what I'm talking about? I think the compression is just taking out the transients, and it's kind of fixed with a slower attack time, but then I get too much pumping/breathing in the song.

Any suggestions?
 
It's natural for that to happen.

And it's a sign that you're limiting too hard. When determining where to set the threshold, find the spot just before they start to disappear.

Generally speaking, though, if your mix is well balanced to begin with, then you shouldn't experience that problem.

There are many more factors involved in getting your mixes louder, and limiting is just one of them. Attaining a superior balance through mastering EQ, properly compressing each track, and multiband compression (when necessary) are all the keys to getting the best balance. And that is what will ultimately give it natural volume, by insuring that no single track or frequency range is hitting/triggering the compressor disproportionately to the rest (which is what is happening right now with your drums).
 
I'm a big advocate of compressors like the C1, because they have sidechains that allow you to modify what the compressor sees. Put the sidechain to highpass at about 850-1k or so, and you can get a nice fat bottom without a huge amount of pumping and breathing.
This isn't the end all be all solution, of course, but it compliments nicely what chessrock said.
 
I'm using the L1, and the Renaisance Compressor (both from Waves). I'm trying all of the presets that I can, and none of them are doing what I want them to do. I haven't tried the C4 yet, but it's my next move!

Thanks guys,
Darth
 
Compression and limiting tend to "darken" the sound of music. You have to take that into account when you are mixing and plan on mastering later.

I have had the opportunity to hear mixes before and after Brian "Big Bass" Gardener at Bernie Grundman Mastering mastered them that were mixed by a guy who sends a lot of his stuff to him. I noticed right away that the kick and snare on the original mix popped up around 6db over the rest of the mix and were almost thin sounding. No big bottom on that mix.

Essentially, what this did was give the mastering engineer a way to only limit the kick and snare and basically not do any limiting/compression on the rest of the mix (except of course when the kick and snare hit, but this is very short lived compression....). It seems to work quite well. Try a mix this way and see if you can then achieve a lot of level with your L1 and not have the drums disappear.

Good luck.

Creepy
 
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