Compressing toms (how to prevent overs while retaining initial attack?)

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Henningsgard
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Steve Henningsgard

Steve Henningsgard

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Just a general question for you guys: on individual tom tracks, supposing they were tracked relatively hot but with no overs, how do *you* compress them to increase volume/"phatness", while retaining the initial hit? Meaning, say I set my compressor to a medium attack, letting the initial hit go through, to increase the attack. How would you then increase the volume of the track, if the initial hit (undoubtedly the loudest part) isn't being compressed? Would you throw a second compressor on the track? Or would you rely on parallel compression and send the compressed track along with the other drums to an uber-compressed bus, to be blended in with the originals?

I hope I'm making sense! It's much easier to describe in person...
 
All you have to do is set the compressor for a slow-ish attack time and a fast release.
What i do sometimes is set the attack and release as fast as they will go. Then set the ratio (my starting point is 4 to 1, ymmv) and threshold so that the drum just turns into a softmush of low end. Then I start turning the attack knob towards a slower attack. You will hear the transient start to poke through. When you get the smack that you want, stop.

You may have to play around with the release to get the exact sound you are looking for, but you get how I'm doing this...
 
Farview said:
All you have to do is set the compressor for a slow-ish attack time and a fast release.
What i do sometimes is set the attack and release as fast as they will go. Then set the ratio (my starting point is 4 to 1, ymmv) and threshold so that the drum just turns into a softmush of low end. Then I start turning the attack knob towards a slower attack. You will hear the transient start to poke through. When you get the smack that you want, stop.

You may have to play around with the release to get the exact sound you are looking for, but you get how I'm doing this...
Click to expand...
Yep! I've been doing that to get the attack and such, but how would you then increase the volume of the hit? Or should I just be turning everything else down? :D
 
Fast release, and increase the makeup gain. You may also have to turn the ratio down a tad.
 
Daisy said:
Fast release, and increase the makeup gain. You may also have to turn the ratio down a tad.
Click to expand...

But increasing the makeup gain will increase the gain of the initial hit as well, thus pushing it over the top. See what I'm getting at? :o
 
steve.h said:
But increasing the makeup gain will increase the gain of the initial hit as well, thus pushing it over the top. See what I'm getting at? :o
Click to expand...

Parallel compression... I read a very good article on it in Tape Op a few months back. Will see if I can find it.
 
steve.h said:
But increasing the makeup gain will increase the gain of the initial hit as well, thus pushing it over the top. See what I'm getting at? :o
Click to expand...

Then lower the attack time until it doesn't.

Or you could use a peak limiter. But then, that would make too much sense, though, wouldn't it? :D

(Just messin' with ya)

.
 
Daisy said:
Then lower the attack time until it doesn't.

Or you could use a peak limiter. But then, that would make too much sense, though, wouldn't it? :D

(Just messin' with ya)

.
Click to expand...
See that's what I was getting at; using a 2nd compressor/limiter to control overall volume without peaking. Is this common practice? Or a crutch to get somewhere you shouldn't have to go anyway? :p
 
is the attack at the correct volume?

If you are that close, I would bring it all down anyhow to leave some headroom.
 
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It really sounds like you are recording way too hot.

BTW, are you talking about recording or mixing?

If you are talking about recording, I wouldn't bother compressing on the way in.

If you are talking about mixing, all of your levels are too hot. There is no way that your toms should be anywhere near clipping in the context of a mix.
 
You seem to be on the right track with how to use the compressors to shape your overall sound. Using a second compressor can be useful, but may also reverse the effect you were after with the first comp to a certain extent. It seems to me that all of your tracks need to go down at least 6 db if you are experiencing clipping from individual channels. Leave yourself some more headroom and then you can try all of the suggestions in this thread safely;)
 
I find that simple limiters usually work better on drums then compressors. Compressors are good for softening and evening out a track but limiters are best for taming peaks and keeping the impact.
 
I have never compressed or limited individual drums. I usually put a compressor on the Drum bus that all of the drums route to.
 
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