Yeah man, I hear ya, I guess I'm just having a hard time really understanding using compression ....I use none at all on the guitars while tracking...a little on the bass guitar...my original mix I did use a compression plugin in reaper (the one that comes with reaper),created a send and routed the rthym guitars to it ......also had compression on the master track.This last I mix killed those sends and only had the compression on the master, again a Reaper plug using a preset ...I think called super solid or something like that....Hear so much talk about using compression, I almost think i have to automaticly, even if my ears are telling me its fine as is...I am gonna go back and experiment more with this, thanks for taking the time to listen and comment again, I value your opinions on this stuff!