Need some help with compression and EQ

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Common Dreads

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Hey guys. I have a ProTools session open in front of me that I recorded today. At the moment it is just drum kit and rhythm guitar as quite a few members of my band were busy.

It is a metal band and I am looking for a very tight bass drum sound. I realise that I need to put a compressor on it but I am not sure what parameters to set it to to get a nice thick bass drum with punch but not too much ring.

Any tips on EQ would also be helpful.

Thankyou guys.
 
Not sure about the compression settings, but maybe try a noise gate with a fast attack to cut the ring out
 
Maybe ping xfinsterx. He hadn't been around much for a year or two but I think he was here last week.
 
Have you thought about getting someone else to mix.

Im looking for songs to mix right now...I will PM you an ALT rock mix Im working on.
 
Common Dreads;3362717get a nice thick bass drum with punch but not too much ring.[/QUOTE said:
Compressor with a slow attack (between 20-40ms), quick release (about 50-100ms) fairly high ratio of about 6:1, and set the threshold and make-up gain to taste.

Also, never just stick to a formula because you were told one, try different things out. If the tip I gave you doesn't suit, mess around. Do you fully understand compression and it's parameters?
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Like philbagg said, dial in some fairly aggressive gain reduction but relax the attack time so the transients are allowed through untouched before it clamps down on the rest of the hit.

Once you have the timings sorted out then you'll probably want to dial back the ratio and threshold a bit to taste (the extreme settings are just helpful to make the compression really audible when getting the attack times right).

You might then want to run it through another pass of lighter compression just to level off the peaks that were allowed through the first time and pull them all down to a consistent level.
 
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philbagg said:
I do it every day :drunk: :drunk: :D
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Meh, its by far not the worst mistake I've made today...

Just picked up a new phone (HTC Hero) which I'm loving, but the onscreen keyboards and predictive text on it seem to be fairly aggressive in terms of their word suggestions and corrections... you can type about three letters and it will start trying to get you to accept suggestions like 'accommodation' and 'accumulate' when all you want to write is something simple like 'back' :p Sent some 'interesting' (though unfortunately fairly indecipherable) messages to a few friends.


Anyyywayyy, back on topic... :o
 
mattr said:
Meh, its by far not the worst mistake I've made today...

Just picked up a new phone (HTC Hero) which I'm loving, but the onscreen keyboards and predictive text on it seem to be fairly aggressive in terms of their word suggestions and corrections... you can type about three letters and it will start trying to get you to accept suggestions like 'accommodation' and 'accumulate' when all you want to write is something simple like 'back' :p Sent some 'interesting' (though unfortunately fairly indecipherable) messages to a few friends.


Anyyywayyy, back on topic... :o
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Have you been drinking? :drunk: :drunk: :drunk: :drunk: :drunk: :D
 
If you're new to the Pro Tools world I highly recommend giving the default compression presets a try... they can give you a really good idea of what settings to use to achieve a particular sound that you're looking for... and then once you have an idea of how they effect the sound, you can make your own EQ that fits what you are doing. Hope that helps.
 
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