Drums bus compression

[HandsOfDespair]

I'm probably doing something wrong, but when I'm compressing the drums bus, the kick seems to fuck the whole compression, especially during fast double kick parts. When there is fast double kick parts, the kick seems to make the drums pump a lot.

Do you guys just compress the kick seperately? Or maybe sidechaining with a hipass filter would help?

 

[Dollarosa]

Use a faster release? I normally dont do drum buss comp, I seperate the toms (they have sends to some verb and rbass, and parallel comp) to their own buss which has some comp and eq, the output of this buss is sent to the drum buss. The kick and snare I comp, eq them separately (also some sends similar to toms), with their outputs to the drum buss. Overheads also have their own buss which is routed to the main drum bus. The drum buss I might put some saturation on, that is all, this gives me alot more control over the sound of the drum.

 

[reg3n]

when that happens to me, i just clip the fuck out of it... maybe not the best solution... but that's what i do

 

[Matthias King]

I'm probably doing something wrong, but when I'm compressing the drums bus, the kick seems to fuck the whole compression, especially during fast double kick parts. When there is fast double kick parts, the kick seems to make the drums pump a lot.

Do you guys just compress the kick seperately? Or maybe sidechaining with a hipass filter would help?

Possibly try some multiband compression. It lets you compress different freqs seperately, with different settings.

 

[colonel kurtz]

yea, i would def. just put the kick on its own comp, and throw the rest of the drums through another

 

[Ermz]

You could try bussing the kick with the bass and the rest of the drums by themselves. You can make the kick & bass sit more in the pocket if you slightly squeeze them together.

 

[Zack Uidl]

+1 to that

I normally compress drums individually (kick, snare, toms, OH/hats) and get very close to the sound I am looking for that way and then have a master drum comp bus to glue things together more

 

[madmuso]

the pumping is caused by the attack and release settings. Use slower or medium attack setting so the transients gets through and while the fast part is playing stuff around with the release setting. How much db of gain reduction is happening during the fast parts? What ratio are you comping at?

 

[KKuff]

I normally compress drums individually (kick, snare, toms, OH/hats) and get very close to the sound I am looking for that way and then have a master drum comp bus to glue things together more

+1, I always compress each drum seperately. I usually don't compress the OHs at all, and I don't have a drum buss for compression either, I just use an insert on each channel for the kick, snare, and toms.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

Thanks for your advices...I think I was just compressing the drum bus too much...

the pumping is caused by the attack and release settings. Use slower or medium attack setting so the transients gets through and while the fast part is playing stuff around with the release setting. How much db of gain reduction is happening during the fast parts? What ratio are you comping at?

I had like 6db of gr during all the parts except the fast double kick drum parts, it went to at least 10 db...

 

[madmuso]

yeah 10db was probably a bit much, especially if you were using a high ratio, at least you've sorted it out!

 

[BLUElightCory]

Using a sidechain would be a good decision here.

The reason the bus is pumping with the kick (regardless of the attack/release settings) is because the compressor is reacting to all of the low-end frequency content in the kick sound - This is basically making the compressor ignore the rest of the kit in favor of the kick (whenever the kick is being played). Using a sidechain with a HPF will definitely help if you're going for some overall compression on your drum bus.

 

[preachers]

i think the key is your "fast double kick". any compressor can't react that fast, so in that section, your compressor always in work state, this do cause the other drums pumping.

in that style of music, replacement will work well.

 

[lolzgreg]

i think the key is your "fast double kick". any compressor can't react that fast...

I hate to bust balls, but Stillwell Audio's "The Rocket" has the attack time in micro-seconds. They stress that it is the fastest reacting compressor on the market.

I own it and support it, for that matter as well. Why don't you try it out and see if it helps on your drum kit?

 

[AudioGeekZine]

I'm with BlueLightCory on this, I use the internal sidechain filter in Smack! to stop the pumping. It cuts all the lows out of the detector circuit.

 

[mick thompson]

You could try bussing the kick with the bass and the rest of the drums by themselves. You can make the kick & bass sit more in the pocket if you slightly squeeze them together.

you could try that but its going to pump your track. its called side chain compression. i never use it in a metal track though, only when im mixing for my indie dance band to create a sound of movement. for double bass its not going to pump because your kick will be going for so long its going to be too long of a delay between when the kick is on and when the kick mutes. if its too far it wont pump. it will just sound like serious sound problems in the mix. if your going to side chain you need a pretty open kick drum and a solid bass line or keys

 

[BLUElightCory]

its called side chain compression.

It's actually not sidechain compression.

I think you're thinking of the mixing technique in which an engineer will use a compressor on the bass that is sidechained to the kick drum, which will cause the volume of the bass track to drop whenever the kick drum is played.

Those of us who are recommending using a sidechain are talking about using a sidechain (a separate signal path that the compressor operates off of to affect the original signal) to filter the low frequencies out of the overall drum mix. You send the drum mix to a separate bus (this separate bus/path is the sidechain) and EQ the low end out of that bussed sidechain signal (which is muted in the actual mix), and then set the compressor on the main drum bus to operate off of the side-chained signal.

This will compensate for the extra low end in the bass drum and will cause the compressor to work on the overall, balanced drum sound (as opposed to ignoring the rest of the drums whenever there's extra low end from the kick). You will hear the full, non-EQ'd drum mix but the compressor will be reacting to the high-passed drum mix.

 

[brandy]

I like a compressed drumbus in a roughmix/tracking situation - but then the individual tracks are not conpressed. Be sure to use fast release and not-too-fast attack. In the end I usually compress the drumbus just a bit. If the music is fast, I barely compress here - maybe 1 db at max. Just a bit for the overall glue. If it is hardrock (slower stuff) you can hit it harder. But I never compressed more than 2 or 3 db.