compression on drums

R

rightbrainnow

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Ive never used compression on drums, or ever really. I know how it work with threshold, gate etc...Im decently satisfied with my drum recordings...how necessary is compression in drums? I always have a "make the sound what you want at the source" attitude, so ive never felt its been necessary to use a compressor. I read how a compressor actually adds to the sound...To my understanding, I didnt thing that it added a "punch" or "color", I thought it took parts of sound away that you dong want...am i missing something? Its hard for me to say I need it if i dont know what im missing out on...
 
A compressor does add punch, but I personally wouldn't use it on drums until after it's recorded - if there are cymbals in , for example, your kick track - it will make the cymbals louder as well. - so you would want to gate the kick track to get rid of the unwanted sound before you compressed it.



Tim
 
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I'll use any combination. Individual comp or limiting on kick or snare and/or the same on the drum bus. But about half it tends to be correcting of inconsistent dynamics or technique working with 'the local guys'. :) That's just damage control. The fun end of it is the tailoring, getting things to set in the mix.

Found a nice use for an oddball situation- low-ratio limiting. (Does that compute? :p That would be: 2/1 hard knee, 0 attack, 1ms release (Sonitus with look ahead.) Scaled down a ridiculously wild snare, sounded different than the clipper.
Wayne
 
A compressor, like anything else, will help your sound if used properly. A lack of understanding of a piece of equipment doesn't mean the equipment isn't useful. Also, "threshold" is part of compression. "Gate" isn't. It might be part of a compressor, but it's a seperate function.
There's no rule that says you have to use compression, and if you're happy with the sound you get without it, that's great. But, by learning how to use it properly, you might find some applications where it's very useful.
 
Personally, I use EQ & Compression on both the kick and snare.

I boost some to give the Kick more slap and the snare more crack. Well...depending on the song anyway.

It's all about the song.
 
Ditto!!! I usually only compress the Kick and Snare.

I Usually use something close to the following:

KICK=4:1 ratio, low threshold, quick attack, and quick release. Compressor works a lot and adds real punch to the kick. For more aggressive results I'll increase the Ratio a bit, while giving a gentle push in EQ (Around 150Hz and and 1.5kHz, obviously this is dependent on the bass drum being recorded)

SNARE=2:1 ratio, high threshold, quick attack, and medium/long release. Compressor is really only working on smoothing out the louder hits just a little, and with the slightly longer release setting, flattening a bit of the body (i.e resonance) of the snare. Overall a very gentle setting. Add EQ to taste :D
 
Tim Brown said:
A compressor does add punch, but I personally wouldn't use it on drums until after it's recorded - if there are cymbals in , for example, your kick track - it will make the cymbals louder as well. - so you would want to gate the kick track to get rid of the unwanted sound before you compressed it.



Tim
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I have a big problem with isolating the bass drum. I intend to compress the shit out of the bass drum and with a very high threshold. on the mixer, i muted the bass and the natural sounding cymbals from the overheads were buried with the bass mic.

So for tips be careful with compressors unless each drum is isolated.
 
systmovadown said:
So for tips be careful with compressors unless each drum is isolated.
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Do you mic each drum on its own or do you just use o/h snare and bass drum mic? I isolate my bass drum by making a hole in the resonant head and putting the mic INSIDE of the bass drum about 6 inches from the beater at about 35 degrees pointing away from the center. i EQ it. i mostly record metal so i boost the highs lower the mids but only by a bit and i keep the low the same. People are suprised i dont boost the lows considering its a 'bass' drum but with double bass its hard to record all the bass drum kicks without it sounding muffled and not coming out like a single kick each time.
Thanks
 
I occasionaly cover the bass drum and the resonant head with a sleeping bag or a cover like that so that there is no leaking from the snare into the bass drum mic.
 
breeeeza said:
I occasionaly cover the bass drum and the resonant head with a sleeping bag or a cover like that so that there is no leaking from the snare into the bass drum mic.
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How campy...Sounds like an Old Navy commercial. Good idea though.
 
I'm not usually a fan of fast attack compression on kick or snare. Dulls the sound to me. I know people like to do that for volume control, but I find that I like the sound of a more medium speed attack, or whatever you consider 10-14ms . Pretty fast release usually though. It just gives things more pop to me. I like to really play with that attack knob and find the exact point where the snare gets an extra pop and punch to it as the compressor fights it trying to clamp down on it in time and letting off as fast as possible. Then I will use a decently transparent peak limiter (PrecisionLim) on the drum bus if I need to tame levels.
 
I use compression quite frequently on most of my drum recordings. I compress to taste (very lightly), sometimes using 3 or 4 different compressors on the kick, snare, toms, and OH's. Many times with hard rock I'll bus the drums, and use NY compression to make everything jump out a bit more. I would prefer to not use compression so much, but these days everybody compresses the living crap out of everything, including the drums. but with everything comes balance. you can't erase the dynamics of a drummer by overly compressing his/her playing.
 
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