kinda newbie question - compressor

[xcliffy3x]

i'm not sure if this is the right place to be asking this question, but i'll give it a go anyways.
ok i have a presonus firepod and i wanna use some outboard effects on it (in particular compression on drums). the problem is, it only has preamp outputs on channel 1 and channel 2 - meaning on my 2 channel compressor, i can only do, for example, snare and bass drum and no cymbals.
would a patchbay be a possible solution? the firepod does have outputs on all 8 channels.
my idea (which i'm not sure would work cause i'm kinda new to the whole outboard effects thing, just used plug-ins) was to purchase the m-audio firewire 1814 (which has 8 inputs on it) and get a patchbay. patch the outputs on the channels from the firepod into the patchbay, patch all my outboard effects, and then have them output to the 1814 then into my mac. but like i said, i'm not sure if that wiring is possible.
any help would be so greatly appreciated. thanks.

[jdier]

Originally Posted by xcliffy3x

i'm not sure if this is the right place to be asking this question, but i'll give it a go anyways.
ok i have a presonus firepod and i wanna use some outboard effects on it (in particular compression on drums). the problem is, it only has preamp outputs on channel 1 and channel 2 - meaning on my 2 channel compressor, i can only do, for example, snare and bass drum and no cymbals.
would a patchbay be a possible solution? the firepod does have outputs on all 8 channels.
my idea (which i'm not sure would work cause i'm kinda new to the whole outboard effects thing, just used plug-ins) was to purchase the m-audio firewire 1814 (which has 8 inputs on it) and get a patchbay. patch the outputs on the channels from the firepod into the patchbay, patch all my outboard effects, and then have them output to the 1814 then into my mac. but like i said, i'm not sure if that wiring is possible.
any help would be so greatly appreciated. thanks.

I am not all that bright so check my answer for obvious mistakes.

I do not think you want to compress everything on the way in with one compressor (or even one - two channel compressor) The reason I say this is because you do not want a hard kick to bring down the level on, say, a crash cymbal that is ringing out.

So, I ask, why do you want to compress? Do you want to achieve an effect or special sound? If so, then I would suggest doing it after the tracks are in your computer. That was you can apply proper compression to each track. OR, you could buss the whole kit to a stereo mix and lightly compress it all and then bring that sub mix back in under the natural drums.

Now, if you say you want to compress because you keep having overs because your drummer is an uncontrollable, uneven drum beating monster, then you have a problem. However, if you are recording all digitally I might suggest that you just lower your recording volumes a bit to give yourself some headroom before you hit any overs.

You could also choose to just compress the problem mics. For me, I do not compress snare or kick going in, but I do very lightly compress (actually I use my compressor as a limiter) my overhead mics.

One thing to keep in mind if you go from the FirePod to the M-Audio thing is that you will be short preamps. The Firepod has 8 mic preamps while the M-Audio thing only has two. Now, if you have a pile of preamps somewhere, you will be cool, otherwise, I might try to get the Firepod to work.

While I do not own the FirePod, I wonder if you could use channel 3-4 as inputs, take their analog outs on the back and plug them into a compressor, then from the compressor in to channels 5-6. Do that with one two channel compressor.... Then use the TRS inserts available on channel 1 and 2 to patch in another two channel compressor. That would get you 4 channels of compressed input signals (if you can even do what I suggest with channels 3-4/5-6)

I do not know if this answers your question or not, but as I am sitting here eating lunch, I though I would spew forth some of my bull$hit!

Experiement and enjoy. It's only music.

Later,

jdier

[xcliffy3x]

WOW! Thanks Jim! That was very very helpful. I am definitely gonna try out everything you said. I'm still kinda new to this whole thing, but thanks to people like you I can learn a whole lot quicker.
Thanks again!