How much compression should a drum have?

How much compression should a drum have?

between 3-6 dB
Compression can be tricky, but it’s one of the keys to achieving a modern drum sound. It’s common to apply between 3-6 dB of gain reduction to the kick and snare. Toms sometimes get compressed as well, but it depends on how often they’re used in a song.

Should you compress drums together?

This is a great way to “glue” the drums together after you’ve shaped each one individually with compression. You don’t want to compress the drums too hard at this stage — just gently squeeze the drum mix together by setting a higher threshold and lower ratio to reduce the dynamics by only a dB or two at the peaks.

Should I compress my drum bus?

Drum bus compression can greatly improve the tonality and impact of your drums. With that in mind, drum bus compression is no doubt a popular and highly useful form of compression – one that can be used to easily create a cohesive sound amongst the percussive instrumentation in a song.

Should you parallel compress drums?

If you want your drums to sound punchier and more impactful, parallel compression may be the answer. First add sends on all of your drum tracks and send them to your parallel compression track. Generally, you want to send more of the kick, snare and toms than the overheads.

How do you compress a drum group?

Start by applying a layer of compression on the individual drum tracks in your mix. For example, you might apply some light compression to the kick and snare. Then apply a layer of compression across the drum group as a whole.

How do you compress drums like a pro?

Does parallel compression cause phasing?

If you implement parallel compression by setting up the compressor as a send effect (a pretty common choice of routing), you’ll only get phasing between the unprocessed and processed signals if the routing or processing introduces a time delay between the two audio streams.

How do you make drums more punchy with compression?

Drum Compression: One Simple Technique for Punchier Drums

  1. Parallel It.
  2. Step 1: Duplicate the Track you want to work with.
  3. Step 2: Compress the Duplicate.
  4. Step 3: Change the Attack and Release.
  5. Step 4: Mix the original and the duplicate together.
  6. Always think of the entire mix.

Should you EQ parallel compression?

EQ Your Compression Often when using parallel compression you may only want to bring out certain frequencies. This is because parallel compression can sometimes amplify problem frequencies in the vocals that you don’t want to hear. The solution is to add an equalizer plugin either before or after the compressor plugin.

When should you use parallel compression?

Although most commonly used on drums and vocals, parallel compression can be used whenever you need to increase the presence and punch of an instrument, but still want to keep the dynamic quality of the original audio.

What are optimal settings for leveling compression?

Here are my go-to compression settings for vocals:

  • Ratio: 1.5:1.
  • Attack Time: 15ms (but up to 30ms for more punch)
  • Release Time: 40ms.
  • Threshold: -24dB.
  • Gain Reduction: 2-3dB.
  • Knee: Soft.
  • Makeup Gain: 2dB.

When should I use parallel compression?

Do you EQ parallel compression?

  • August 16, 2022