Two compressor questions!

[TheStoryteller]

I'm very familiar with using compressors on vocals, bass, individual drums and such, but there are two areas that I really don't know anything about: drums submixes (all drums) & whole mixes (i.e in the mastering process).

OK, drums first. Are there any typical compressor settings for drums? For example; do I set it to compress the peaks only, or should it compress all the time with a fairly low ratio? What about attack and release times?

Same question goes for the whole mix. I would like to include a compressor in my mastering chain, as I've seen people doing it and it sounds great compared to just an EQ and a brickwall limiter, but I don't really have a clue about settings. Important issues are typical attack/release times, and treshold/ratio. To me it would make sense to only compress only the peaks with a pretty high ratio (like 6:1 or even more), but I'm not at all sure.

Any suggestions?

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

You're not gonna like this answer, but... it depends on what you want to achieve with your particuliar material, lol

 

[Matt Crooks]

For the drums, try sending the drum mix to a bus, and then compressing the hell out of it (10:1, quick attack and release, threshold set to knock off 10db or more) and then mix that signal in with the uncompressed drum mix.

For the master bus, I really like to use a LOW ratio, 1:1.2, 1:1.5, and then set it for a medium attack and release, with the threshhold set so that it knocks of 1-3db of the peaks. This seems to "glue" the mix together. It also leaves most of the dynamics in place and leaves the mastering engineer room to work. I have also found that multiband compressors on the mix bus work very nicely. I'm not at the audio machine, but I'll try to post a picture of my mix bus settings...

 

[006]

Maybe try posting a clip of some drums un-touched by you so that somebody could take a shot at what you're asking and they could tell you how they did it? It's going to be hard for people to give realistic advice without knowing what you're working with really. My .02 cents.

~006

 

[TheStoryteller]

Yeah, well... I'm looking for a general theory more than a solution to a specific problem. So, I don't have a clip.

Thanks anyway.

 

[Exsanguis]

For drums, the only dynamics I usually put on the regular drum bus is a transient designer. That said, however, I also really like to tuck a heavily squashed copy of the drum bus underneath it, making it punchier without taking away that much of the dynamics.

For the mix bus(and I assume you're talking about mixing, not mastering), I usually run it at 4:1 ratio, with an automatic release, aiming for usually around -2 to -4 gain reduction, although I recently read an Andy Wallace article that said that he often finds himself hitting anywhere from -4 to -6, basically going with whatever sounds good and nothing squashed sounding. I've begun adopting this philosophy(basically a decrease in my fear of hitting over -4 on the mix comp), and it's definitely helped, so long as you're careful. I've heard of some people mixing into a limiter or Finalizer(Andy may be one of them), but I've tried that and have always had much better luck mixing just into a comp with low GR, and maybe a nice EQ, leaving the mastering to the mastering guys or the mastering stage.

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

Finalizer is a compressor as well as a limiter actually

 

[Black neon bob]

Great thread.. im in the exact same position as Fredrik..

 

[Exsanguis]

Finalizer is a compressor as well as a limiter actually

I know, but that comp is really not one that I'd want to put on my final mixes. Great for quick stuff so the bandmembers can listen to stuff on their car ride back from the studio every day, but not for permanent stuff. I'm well aware of Andy and others making great use of it, but it's really, really, really, not for me.

 

[Matt Crooks]

I know, but that comp is really not one that I'd want to put on my final mixes. Great for quick stuff so the bandmembers can listen to stuff on their car ride back from the studio every day, but not for permanent stuff. I'm well aware of Andy and others making great use of it, but it's really, really, really, not for me.

Try the subtle compression preset, turn the ratio for everything down to 1.4 and then try it. Make sure to bypass the EQ, and any thing other than the compressor and limiter.

 

[Kazrog]

Lately I've been bussing all my drums into some subtle L1 limiter settings, not mixing processed with unprocessed at all. I compress the snare and OH's with an 1176 plugin.

 

[Skaldir]

For the drums, try sending the drum mix to a bus, and then compressing the hell out of it (10:1, quick attack and release, threshold set to knock off 10db or more) and then mix that signal in with the uncompressed drum mix.

That's actually a "trick" I heard is used in mastering general.
Duplicate your mix, and compress the shit out of it and mix it very silent