Need Help using RNC to compress kick

[Tim Madorma]

Hi,

I am trying to compress a kick drum that is too dynamic throughout the song - sometimes too soft in parts and other times blurts out.. I can control it with my RNC, but I don't like the change in tone that I get. I seem to loose a little low end thump and gain a little high end smack. It isn't that bad and I can adjust on my EQ, but I was a bit disappointed that the tone changed the way that it did. Can someone give me some advice? settings are: thresh 0, ratio 8:1, attack .2 msec, rel .8 sec, gain +4 dB.

[ninjaneer]

tim-
when you compress you have to analyze exactly what the compressor is doing. those unsatisfactory results are actually an accentuation of the problem frequencies in your kick. go back and practice your eq before you compress. repeat until you get the results you wanted. this will also get your ear more in tune and speed up your engineering process in the future.
good luck.

[TexRoadkill]

How is it sitting in the mix? A little high end smack is usually what you need to help the kick cut through.

[Tim Madorma]

Hi,

thanks for the info. I think the issue is that I was expecting the compression to not affect the tone (as it does not seem to with vocals), but I'm new in this area with drums. When I look at the digital wave form for the kick, I see a very quick and significant spike followed by a smaller amplitude of the wave form that decays in a fairly short time. When I compress, the initial spike (which sometimes pegs the meter) it is attenuated as I would like, but then to handle other parts of the song where the kick is entirely too low, I have added some gain with the compressor - this slightly increases the overall size of the waveform after the initial spike.

Ok, I may be wrong here, but I expect that the initial spike contains more low frequencies (low end thump) and the remainder of the wave form contains more high frequency components (high end smack). So.. by compressing the way that I am, I am getting a little less low end thump and a little more high end smack.

Question: is it normal for the kick tone to be affected this way when compression is added?

thanks in advance for your response!
Tim

[mixsit]

As you're looking at the waveforms, compare the tone of the soft, normal and hard hits, (preferably at similar volumes if you can -volume automation?). They may all be very different. The quieter or medimum ones may have the most low end, the med and hard hits may have the best snap. You can do fast attack like you're doing now to control the hottest ones (now they have less snap AND poor low end ) -but- the tone will never be consistant even if you do compress them to the same volume.
A slower attack will let the snap through, but then you loose your peak control.
Welcome to trying to make inconsistant playing sound like it isn't.

Wayne

[Tim Madorma]

Wayne,

thanks for your post.. I guess using compression on drums will invariably change the tone.. I just have to find a good compromise. Your info is real helpful!

[Warhead]

Originally posted by Tim Madorma
Hi,

I am trying to compress a kick drum that is too dynamic throughout the song - sometimes too soft in parts and other times blurts out.. I can control it with my RNC, but I don't like the change in tone that I get. I seem to loose a little low end thump and gain a little high end smack. It isn't that bad and I can adjust on my EQ, but I was a bit disappointed that the tone changed the way that it did. Can someone give me some advice? settings are: thresh 0, ratio 8:1, attack .2 msec, rel .8 sec, gain +4 dB.

Have you tried another compressor? When you say a threshold of 0, do you mean you're only effecting signals at 0db or hotter? You may be clipping the unit, there is no limiter on board that RNC. Maybe you're recording the kick too hot?

I'm confused. You know they say talking about music is like dancing about architecture or something like that!

Warren Dent
www.frontendaudio.com