Drum Compression

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Hardnox

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I've had a lot of people tell me they run all their drums through the same compressor. What do you out there think of this, what do you folks do?
 
depends on what the tracks need....i think its rare that the whole kit needs the same compression...some will probably need no compression at all.....
 
If I were gong to use compression I'd do them seperately but I don't like using it when tracking. I'll use it when mixing but not across the whole kit. One compressor on the kick, one on the snare, etc. YMMV.
 
theres no rule that says you cant compress the kick and snare together...it will work if you do it...like i said before, usually the compressor settings that you do the track best will be completely different for the kick and snare....if you have plugin compressor, thats no problem...if you have 1 outboard compressor, back to the drawing board...at which point are you compressing, tracking or mixing?....if you are doing it during compression on a digital recorder, id throw it across all the tracks but just use it as a mild limiter to catch the bad peaks....
 
RNC on the two kit mics, 166's on the kicks and snares, generally.
The RNC often reacts to the snare first (most) when it's the loudest drum on those mics. This gives quite a lot of leeway as to how the snare is treated in those tracks- playing with attack/release, ect. Never tried just a sub mix-comp. Seems like the snare and kick might get the whole kit to pump, (I guess you could mix it so it didn't.)

So how does it sound?
 
Mult and squash in an insane way, blend to taste. Best way, using most of your original track lightly compressed asmmain track so that there is dynamic content, and the thickness from the multed track behind it.
Even run the compressed multed track in to a distortion unit or vintage warmer. Works great with snare and distortion units.
Compress the room mics to one solid wall of sound too, nice....
Damn I'm fried right now.
 
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