Kick Drum Compression..Dbx 166XL..Basic Setup Suggestions?

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Danoforest

New member
The on going mystery of compression. Please suggest a general setup for the Dbx166XL to provide some compression for a Kick Drum in a live sound environment.
 
I haven't found compression to be all that helpful on kick drum. If it's played evenly it doesn't need compression. If it's not played evenly compression may not be much help.

But you can try it with the attack slow enough to let the snap through and the release to best fit the playing into the song. Ratio would probably end up around 2:1 to 4:1, but again it really depends.

Even better, put the compressor on a submix group bus and do some parallel compression on the bass and drums.
 
Compression on kick at a live gig works great, keeps it in the mix and stops the kick peaking the pa system if the drummer gets carried away.

Fairly quick attack, slower release (need to experiment), hit it hard about 8:1 or 10:1. Set the threshold so that the compressor works fairly hard in during a normal loud kick and it only just works when the kick is hit soft.

Alan.
 
Try strapping the 166 across the whole drum bus. Much better, IMO. I HATE compressing individual drums, ESPECIALLY live. If the PA system is up to scratch, you shouldn't have to. It makes them sound separate from the rest of mix to my ears and can easily make them sound cardboardy.

Cheers :)
 
Three people, three completely different answers. So instead of suggesting a forth thing, I will simply point out that "it depends" is going to be the only real answer. The kick drum, the player, the genre, the room, the pa system, etc... all affect how you would set up the compressor, so without being there, its impossible to tell you how to set it up.
 
witzendoz said:
Compression on kick at a live gig works great, keeps it in the mix and stops the kick peaking the pa system if the drummer gets carried away.

Fairly quick attack, slower release (need to experiment), hit it hard about 8:1 or 10:1. Set the threshold so that the compressor works fairly hard in during a normal loud kick and it only just works when the kick is hit soft.

Alan.
Click to expand...

That's more of a safety limiter. I do that sometimes, but mostly I rely on setting the gain correctly.
 
Farview said:
Three people, three completely different answers. So instead of suggesting a forth thing, I will simply point out that "it depends" is going to be the only real answer. The kick drum, the player, the genre, the room, the pa system, etc... all affect how you would set up the compressor, so without being there, its impossible to tell you how to set it up.
Click to expand...

"It depends" is the best answer. Compression is there to even out volume differences, and volume differences will vary with the source so the settings on the compressor will also vary with the source.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
That's more of a safety limiter. I do that sometimes, but mostly I rely on setting the gain correctly.
Click to expand...

No safety in the way I run it, it is used to keep the kick in the mix especially at full on rock gigs. It also tightens up the kick sound, I also had a gate after the compressor, with the signal constant the gate was very easy to set up.

Alan.
 
Im strange, I use compression for the sound more than I use it to even out the dynamics.
 
Farview said:
Im strange, I use compression for the sound more than I use it to even out the dynamics.
Click to expand...

Exactly, I love the sound of the tight kick with the compression, that is why I actually compress it. The evening out the dynamics is part of getting the sound I want. Of course I may not do this at a jazz gig :thumbs up:

Alan.
 
Most important isnt the setting, (not saying there aren't good) but what is the level of your kick, the actual peak where is it? And what are you trying to achieve loud, limit, punch?
 
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