it's called the 'new york compression trick' on a thread I found on one of the forums for 'tricks' people use to get fat sounding drums.
since you're in DAW land, yeah, you'd use a software compressor. What you basically do is duplicate the tracks and then send your duplicate tracks to a stereo compressor. Pan them all the same as your original tracks are (i.e. snare and kick center, OH's to wherever you panned them originally). You compress to taste, but keep in mind that you're going to mix them back in with your uncompressed tracks. In the original 'tricks' post, they recommended squashing as much as 10 db, maybe more. Then you mix them back UNDER your uncompressed tracks until it sounds god-like.
Motown used to use a similar trick with vocals to make them stand out in a mix without having to bring the level up.
I've tried the drum thing, it's pretty cool.
Chris