Okay, we've just gone over basic drums and
EQ and level setting Which a lot of those theories apply to the rest of our channels.
Now id like to go over some more advanced techniques for gates and compression, too
creatively come up with some sounds, and help just make your mix have that much more impact and depth to them. So we'll start by talking about some compression. Compression is a way too
deal with whats called the envelope of a transient So, you can affect the attack of a transient,
how quickly it hits out of a speaker, too the decay and basically you can elongate it,
or make less punchy, different transients to achieve different effects. A good example
of elongating a transient would be too take the hit off of a snare bottom and gain back
up with a slower release So that you get that rattle to last a little bit longer, and you
can get like an explosive type snare that way. A good example of making a transient
more punchy would be too slow down your attack and let that initial come through, but then
compress the tail a little bit so you can get some hit, but not have a lot of ring so
when you dealing with a big room, you can get some punch out of the PA but not get all
the mud that the rooms going to generate when your throwing lots and lots of noise into
it. Lets start going over this compression techniques with our kick drum. Are kick drum
is good because we have two mics in this scenario. One where I'm going to have some punch that
I want, and one where I'm going to want a little bit of carry over for the low end.
So we'll start with kick in, and we'll hit the view button on this dynamic section. Gonna go ahead and pull out some of these other sounds by muting them. Cool, so thats our
kick in mic right there. What we're gonna do is we're going to go for around a 5.0 to
1 ratio and our attack, so we want our punch, we're going to slow it down. Slow it down
to about 30, 36 milliseconds slow. Transients on kick drums are somewhere between 30 and
50 milliseconds,there about. Thats usually the full breath of a whole transients, Then
you get the tail and the ring. This particular compressor has a hold on it, which I will
turn down cause I don't want the compressor holding. And i'll use the release. I'll use
a moderately slow to a little bit faster then slow release with about 70 to 80 milliseconds
depending on the sound. So then we'll bring our threshold down. And what we should start
to here is the tail end of the kick drum not being so prominent, but the initial hit of
the kick drum being a fair bit more prominent. Ill go ahead and bring the make-up gain back
up. Now we'll take this in and out of line. Thats out, you can hear the tail. Thats in,
you'll get a little bit more slap, a little bit more punch. So lets go ahead and work
on our kick out which is where all of our low end is. If you can hear that, what ill
do for the sake of this, is i'll turn the kick in on, but i'll keep it low so that you
can hear the initial. For this, what I really want to do is kind of tighten up on the front
end, because we have the punch, but kind of make the tail a little bit breathier for our
kick in. So we're going to go ahead and start with a similar ratio, 5:1. We're going
to go ahead and have a little bit of a faster attack. So I'll go maybe like, 24 or 25. Take
our hold down again cause we don't need that on this particular case. Bring our threshold
down. Get about same as the other one, 2 to 3 dB of compression, more then enough. Espicially
in the live arena. Get the speed up, the release so that the tail comes back out quicker. So what we're going to get is a pairing of the punch that we pulled out of the kick in, and
the tail that we have in the kick out. So just so you can hear this and i can emphasize
this, ill take this out of line so you can hear it. Gain back up a little bit by 2 dB
cause that about the amount we are going to be compressing. So here is the original, and
here is the,Im going to put this back in line and you should hear the tail become a little
bit more prominent. Still a little bit of a punch in there. Cool, now I'm going to go
put them back together. So we'll take the compressor out on both. thats without compression,
thats with compression. Just a little bit more defined, its not a lot, we don't have
to get crazy with the compressors. But it'll give us just a bit more definition and power. Now lets talk a little bit about snare compression. Heres where things can get a little bit more
extreme and a little bit more creative. We're going to do the same concept we did with the
kick in and the kick out. We're going to get some punch out of one, and some crack out
of the top, and we're going to get a lot of breath out of the bottom. So we'll start with
our snare top. We are on our compression page still. lets use a fairly aggressive ratio.
Alright, lets use a 7:1 ratio. Lets slow our attack down. Right the way down, 50 milliseconds.
Get rid of our hold, and lets go with a 90 millisecond release. Bit slower on the release.
What I'm going to achieve there is, I'm going to get the punch to come out, but I'm also
going to let the rise be a little bit slower too mimick elongating our snare a little bit.
Lets go ahead and bring this down. Lets get a little bit crazy. I think 4 dB. I'm quickening up the release a little bit cause its kind of cutting into the next hits a little too
much for my liking. Lets gain it back up. Lets take this in and out of line, its currently
in, lets take it out. Lets put it back in, you should hear the pop come out and a little
bit more tail. tail gets a little bit longer, pop gets a little bit more prominent. Notice
that the background noise in the snare also comes up. Be aware that when your using compression,
you are going to lift the noise floor. So if you don't have great isolation on your
mics, your going to creating more cymbal bleed, more background bleed, and things can get
messy quick. So use compression in a way thats moderate, achieving your artistic goals, but
not going to cause you problems in other areas. This is why this is a more advanced feature,
cause if your not very comfortable wit this, you could actually work yourself into a corner.
Lets go to snare bottom. We are going to try the opposite of what we did with the snare
top. We're going to have a really fast attack, little bit slow release, and try and get that
rattle too just ring through with the kick hits, with snare hits, make it longer. See
if we can get this thing to really rock. Get rid of this hold. Make sure our attack is
real fast. Lets take it right the way down to 0. Round about the same release for starters.
And we'll use our ears, you always use your ears to judge changes. Get really crazy with
it, 6 dB of compression. Going to adjust our release a little bit. You can hear it. You can hear that tail kind of elongate a little bit as the compressor releases. Going to bring
our gain back up. Our make up gain. Heres an instance where background noise is actually
going to work in our favor and its one of the few instances where it does. Cause now
what your hearing is the kick. Everytime you hear the kick hit, you get some rattle. What
that does for the listener is it actually triggers the ear to think that its really
an acoustic kit, even if your using samples and stuff, because when your playing the drums
and your hitting the kick, snares going to rattle. Hit the tom, snares going to rattle.
So that rattle's actually a real key to authenticity here. Now ill show you what this compressor
sounds like out of line and in line so you can here exactly what I'm trying to explain.
Thats the original, hear how theres no rattle on the kick and its just barely there when
the snare hitting. Lets put it back in line. Hear it? Lets show you what the snare sounds
like top and bottom, with and without compression. So heres without, heres going to be with. Big body, big explosions. Hear how that just smacks you in the face. Heres our drums without,
okay lets put it back in. huge, just a little bit of compression here and there, little
bit more on the snare and, huge. Okay so lets start working on some overheads. We're going
to use compressors similar to the way we did on the snare bottom where we are going to
get rid of some transient, and we are going to elongate the cymbals, make them little
bit more explosive and also give some room in the transient space for the close mics
to pop through. So lets bring our overheads back up. In our compression window, we are
only going to use 4:1 here, not so crazy. We're going to bring it down, our threshold
here. Going to get our attack nice and right around 15 i'd say is a good fast attack for
this. Lets get rid of our hold, Turn it faster to get rid of it. Get our gain back up. You
can hear already the cymbals starting too explode lets get rid of our compressor. pretty
dry, pretty standard. Lets put our compressor back in line. Lets put our drums
back in. Take our compressor off the overheads. Kind of just loses a little bit of life. Lets
put our compressor back on the overheads. Sounding huge, sounding nice and big and punchy.
Sweet, lets move over to our toms and get them prepped and show you what we can do with
toms to just make them absolutely epic with some compression Okay, lets pull our overheads
down. Kick and snare down a little bit so we can focus here, tom 1. So its pretty good.
Little bit short but i know that theres more tail there so lets get some pop and lets bring
the tail out. So a combination of what we've been doing with the snare top and the snare
bottom, the kick in and the kick out. We are going to let some transient in but we're going
to let the tail kind of come back a little bit slow to make the tom bigger. So lets go
over here to our compressor. Lets use say a 5:1 ratio. Lets come down. Lets go ahead
and get rid of the hold, lets go with about 100 milliseconds on the release. I personally
like about 5 dB of compression on the toms, again dealing live watch for your noise floor.
Often toms have a lot of cymbal bleed. You can hear how that slower attack, sorry the
slower release lets that tail come back out a bit slower and just kind of makes it bigger.
lets take compression off and show you what thats like with and without. This is without,
theres kind of a pop and dies. Lets put it back in. you can hear it a bit longer. We
are going to do the same thing with the other tom. Kind of get a duuhh, it dies a little
bit. Lets do the same thing. Slow down the attack a little bit, lets get rid of the hold,
lets go to about a 116. Lets get about 4 or 5 dB of compression on it. Now I can quickly
see here that this release might be a little too slow. Lets get that gain back on it. Slow
down the release just a little bit. Can you hear that? Kind of carries a bit longer. Lets
hear without it. Lets put it back in. Doooommm, thats what your looking for. That nice long
decaying, lowering in pitch sound. this is a preference, this is just a style of mixing
for this song its working out well. Remember its all artistic choice, Put the over heads
in, lets show you what the toms sound like without compression. Lets put the compressor
back on the toms. hear that, hear the tail come out. and that is how you use compression
on drums.
