post compression on kick drum??

[McTossa]

I'm recording my band in my basement and we have a pretty good set up. My question is should we insert a compressor on the kick drum when mixing down to stereo? My partner in this project insists on it and I just don't like how it sounds. My buddy does alot of live sound in the clubs here in town and always compresses the kick in a live situation. I like to feel it and not have to struggle to hear it in the mix. When he compresses it, I can no longer hear it and it tends to take alot of drive from the songs. He tells me when I turn up the final mix loud, the uncompressed kick will overwhelm the overall mix. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

[Tapehead]

Trust your ears! If you buddy says it will get lost in the mix when turned up loud, turn it up loud and see if he's right. Gotta admit, that's a new one to me. Why would it get lost only when everything gets loud? They all go up together when you turn up the big knob on yer amp...

[Andy Franco]

i have never compressed the bass drum before....i agree i love to feel the bass....ok it might be ok to compress it in a live situation but recording...i dont thin so.....i'd say no....but thats up to how it sounds to your ears.....
Andy

[scraggs]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by McTossa:
I'm recording my band in my basement and we have a pretty good set up. My question is should we insert a compressor on the kick drum when mixing down to stereo? My partner in this project insists on it and I just don't like how it sounds. My buddy does alot of live sound in the clubs here in town and always compresses the kick in a live situation. I like to feel it and not have to struggle to hear it in the mix. When he compresses it, I can no longer hear it and it tends to take alot of drive from the songs. He tells me when I turn up the final mix loud, the uncompressed kick will overwhelm the overall mix. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

[scraggs]

You definitely don't have to compress the kick in a mix. I usually will compress it if I want it to have more attack. To do this, try a long attack time and the fastest release time possible. I'm not sure why this works, but it does. If you have the attack time set too short, it will take all the "meat" out of the sound, which may be what you've been experiencing. Or, perhaps you just need to bring the output level of the compressor up. One thing you could try is multing the kick drum to another channel on your board, and then compressing that channel. This way, you keep the dynamics of your original sound, and you can bring up the compressed kick to add some punch