one distressor, kick or snare?

[xstatic]

There is nothing wrong with using a little EQ, compression or whatever while you are tracking if you know what you are doing. Those decisions are no harder for the qualified engineer than picking the right amp, guitar, mic, placement etc... Sometimes though you do make a bad decision, but this is just as likely to happen somewhere else in the signal chain as well. If however you are using a comp for peak control, then I would say you have an issue, but that has to do with gain structure and not with decision making. The good engineers, be it tracking, mixing or mastering are generally hired for what they do, not for what they were too afraid to do. The way I see it, if you can't make SOME sort of commitment at the get go, then you have other things that are out of order as well

 

[jmorris]

There is nothing wrong with using a little EQ, compression or whatever while you are tracking if you know what you are doing. Those decisions are no harder for the qualified engineer than picking the right amp, guitar, mic, placement etc... Sometimes though you do make a bad decision, but this is just as likely to happen somewhere else in the signal chain as well. If however you are using a comp for peak control, then I would say you have an issue, but that has to do with gain structure and not with decision making. The good engineers, be it tracking, mixing or mastering are generally hired for what they do, not for what they were too afraid to do. The way I see it, if you can't make SOME sort of commitment at the get go, then you have other things that are out of order as well

Xstatic, I 100% agree with you. But again, the question was "how to" not "should i " my response is to that. Now if the questions was raised such as " hey guys, I dont have a clue on how to use a compressor and I have 1 destresser and I want to use it on both kick and snare, how should I do that" the I may respond with something along your lines. In his last post he seems to relate that he does have a clue. I just think we should answer his question not debate about the question.

 

[gtrman_66]

here is the senereo:

i have one EL8 Distressor, but i want to give it to the kick & the snare. is there a way to do this,

You could use an effects loop on a mixer and run it paralell during mixdown.

 

[Fletcher]

I've learned some things the very hard way but I have learned and continue to almost every single day for nearly 4 years. It may sound sad but, recording is the most important thing in my life right now.

That's the best way to learn... make mistakes and then figure out how to get yourself out of the pickle you got yourself into. New ideas spring up when you're tracking, new techniques are discovered when you're overdubbing and mixing, etc.

Recording is the most important thing in my life right now [other than my kids] so I totally understand where you're coming from... however, I've found that damn near every time I record drums with any kind of dynamic processing I end up hating myself later for it [which doesn't stop me from doing it every few years... it just makes me remember why its been a few years since I did that to myself!!].

If the drummer is inconsistent with his kik hits then you'll probably want to "even" them out a bit going into the machine [I'm dealing with a "Mr. Happy Foot" at the moment... cocksucker hits the kik drum like a man on the "1" of each chorus and then like a little girl for the rest of the song... bloody annoying].

If the drummer actually has some decent technique [a rare commodity!!] then I'd recommend you buss the kik and snare to a parallel track and compress that combination of kik and snare and add it into the balance when you're tracking/overdubbing/etc. but leave the actual drum tracks alone.

Best of luck with all you do!