Overhead compression

No wonder I find it difficult too... I thought I sucked but it's nice to see more people are having trouble with OH compression. I usually settle for very tiny compression... if the drums are played well, as in the drummer is hitting the DRUMS hard but the cymbals softer instead of those braindead morons who hit the drums like a pussy and the cymbals as if they were a racoon who just climbed in through your window at night, they usually sound good enough without any compression... I dunno.

Just as a side note though, the best fucking drum compression I have ever heard is Underoath's "Lost in the Sound of Separation". Man the drums are pumping like FUCK and it's so beautiful. I wish I could get that pumping, I usually make it sound like shit if I attempt anything like that.
 
TheWinterSnow said:
Being a bit different here, I foudn that Overhead compression ususually enough to have a noticable effect cases some pretty nasty pumping, and personally I can;t stand when i Hear the cybals pumping. I actaully really like to keep the overheads completely uncompressed and use the room mics as an almost parallel compression, I compress the fuck out of the room to where It has that consistant pumping like the old vintage intro effect, then bring up the room until I have the compression voume to my liking. Usually brings out punch and separation, but downs sound like the overheads are pumping.

I like to keep a slow attack and moderatley slow release. 20-40ms attack and 200-400ms release. Basicallly lettin gthe peak of the transient get the most of the reduction and let the sustain be brought up in volume through the makeup gain. I duck the thrshold down pretty hard, usually a 4:1 ratio with the threshold at anywherer from -20 to -40 db, usually at least -30db on drums.

i know a bit different but I thought I would share.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't Slow attack and Slow release let most of the attack through, and then give the bulk of the reduction to the sustain? Especially with a slow release.
 
Erkan said:
Just as a side note though, the best fucking drum compression I have ever heard is Underoath's "Lost in the Sound of Separation". Man the drums are pumping like FUCK and it's so beautiful. I wish I could get that pumping, I usually make it sound like shit if I attempt anything like that.
Click to expand...

Try sidechaining the drum bus to the OH/Room track. Gives a similar effect. Although you really need good OHs and Room tracks with lots of sustain, otherwise it doesn't work very well.
 
Y'know sidechaining is something I've never really toyed with due to Cubase SX3's horrid routing. I look forward to giving it a shot when I move over to Studio One. That sort of stuff tends to work better in the more sparse rock genres though. So much stuff going on in metal if you have too much ducking it becomes pump-mania.

Okay so I'll start toying with much faster attacks for OHs and then use the individual hat, ride and China tracks to pop them out of the mix more.
 
I need to give this a shot again... last time I tried it, I found it messed with the stereo image a bit. Then again, that was like 18-24 months ago and I had no clue wtf attack and release settings did!
 
Ermz said:
Y'know sidechaining is something I've never really toyed with due to Cubase SX3's horrid routing. I look forward to giving it a shot when I move over to Studio One. That sort of stuff tends to work better in the more sparse rock genres though. So much stuff going on in metal if you have too much ducking it becomes pump-mania.

Okay so I'll start toying with much faster attacks for OHs and then use the individual hat, ride and China tracks to pop them out of the mix more.
Click to expand...

for whatever the hell it's worth, i'll post the tracks of the shit i'm working on now with their fairly-well compressed OH's as soon as everything's finished...again, i was never a fan of doing this before, but i must say i'm really proud of the OH sound on this project. it probably helps that i tracked in a decent-sized, open room with wood floors, but i can't get over how goddamned good the OH tracks sound, even with the shitty cymbals that the drummer brought in!
 
Machinated said:
only if you are quantizing in the WRONG way. edits should be made across all tracks.....
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. If you take out the snare all you have to do is cut larger sections of the OH tracks that are shifted one direction or another and align them. Not only is it less cumbersome but the OHs sound more natural.
If you know what you're doing, of course. Well, it depends on how the tracks sound and also what kind of sound you're after but what I mean to say is that it's not always a WRONG way, just a different way.
 
Shadow_Walker said:
Not necessarily. If you take out the snare all you have to do is cut larger sections of the OH tracks that are shifted one direction or another and align them. Not only is it less cumbersome but the OHs sound more natural.
If you know what you're doing, of course. Well, it depends on how the tracks sound and also what kind of sound you're after but what I mean to say is that it's not always a WRONG way, just a different way.
Click to expand...

hmm sorry dude, but im still going to disagree. i wouldnt recommend editing drums like this - you are basically going to end up with a phasey mess, and even if its a slight change or only a couple of notes, i still dont see why its not better to just edit it with all the other tracks - not that much harder.
 
Here's a slightly oversimplified description of what I did recently:
Step 1: use detect silence for the kick, snare and toms (all with different threshold, minimum attack and release times, etc.)

Step 2: Select large areas of the snare that you know should be quantized to the same note lenght (for example 1/16) and use the automatic quantize (Over Quantize). Do the same with the kick with the selections' respective note lenghts.

Step 3: Solo the kick and snare and listen for hits that were quantized incorrectly. Fix the errors and also pay attention to the breaks.

Step 4: Select all or most of the kick events and resize them so they get a couple of ms before and after what 'detect silence' has left you with. Add a really small fade in and fade out just so that there are no clicks and pops. Select snare events that are at regular intervals and resize them so that the snare gets its decay back. Most of the time it's preferable to resize the events from the peak back also so that when you crossfade them you don't get a double hit.

Step 5: Cut and quantize OH tracks manually. Cymbal hits are generally less complex and often times it's just a matter of shifting a large section left or right.

Here's what I had to work with:
Before quantizing

Here's the result:

After quantizing


And here's a screenshot
Top 2 tracks are Snare top and bottom, then there's the kick and the rest are labeled.
 
I agree you should really look over your drum editing. You should edit all drums. Group them and then edit. The only thing you can get away with is kick, wich can be edited seperatly.

And btw drum/mix on the latest Underoath album whas a big dissapointment for me.
It pumps in a ugly way.
 
for Metal I'm usually not using any compression on OH at all (if so it'll be snare ducking, or sometimes to make the cymbals ring longer...but that's just the rare exception).
for rocky stuff I'll use real fast attack (1ms or even lower) and medium release (100-200ms)
 
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