#47: Compression Basics Explained | Drum Compression Tips

In this episode, Marc explains compression basics in an easy-to-digest format and demonstrates how to configure a kick drum compression, parallel compress a snare, and compress a hi-hat.

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Transcript

Marc Matthews: 0:28

You're listening to the Inside The Mix podcast with your host, Mark Matthews. Hello and welcome to the Inside the Mix podcast. I'm Mark Matthews, your host, musician, producer, and mix and mastering engineer. You've come to the right place if you wanna know more about your favorite synth music artists, music, engineering and production, songwriting and the music industry. I've been writing, producing, mixing, and mastering music for over 15 years, and I wanna share what I've learned with. Hello and welcome to another tutorial episode of the Inside Their Mix podcast. In this episode, we are gonna be focusing on one of my favorite parts of the mixing process, and that is compression. And compression is probably also one of the most challenging ones to get your head around, and hopefully this tutorial will help give you a platform to. Build upon in terms of your knowledge. It's a really basic foundational overview of compression. But before we start, what I want you to do is this. If you are watching this video on YouTube, please do like, uh, this video and also subscribe if you're listening to this on your podcast, Player of Choice. Also, please do follow the podcast and leave a comment or leave a review. Rather leave a comment on YouTube. Let me know what you think of the tutorial. Let me know if there's anything you want covered or if you disagree or if you do, would do things differently. How do you start compression? And with, if you're listening on the pod platform, please do leave a review of the podcast. Let's get to it. So before we actually move on to using compression in context of drums, it's probably worth going over, uh, what compression is. So I'm gonna use the analogy of a parent and teenager. So the teenager in this instance is playing music too loud. So I'm the teenager, I'm blasting out Megadeath Hanger 18. It's got some mighty Freeman's blistering solo, which I'm still trying to learn. Uh, probably never will. But anyway, I try and, um, it's too loud. So the parent runs upstairs and bangs on the door, says, You know what? That's hit my threshold of tolerance for volume. You gotta turn it down. Okay, so that's your threshold of the compressor. So in response, I say, Well, how much do you want me to turn it down by? And in that instance, the parent then says, You know what? For every five DB you are over my threshold of tolerance, you are gonna reduce the output to one db. And I said, Okay, fair enough. So in that instance, for example, if I then have an output of 10 DB over the threshold of tolerance of the parent, it's gonna be reduced to two db cuz it's five to one compress. So when I turn it down, how fast I turn it down, when my parents says You've gotta turn it down, is the attack. So the attack is how fast I'm gonna turn the music down. Obviously a fast attack comes down straight away, a slower attack, and I'm gonna gradually turn down the music. So when it comes to the release, so the release can be, um, seen as the time it takes for me to then turn it back up to where it was in response to my parent leaving the room. Obviously, a fast release means that I'll turn it straight back up again, and a slower release means that it's gonna probably take a bit of time, but it will eventually get to that release. So another thing to be wary of as well is what's called the knee. So you've got a hard knee, you've got a soft knee, and there's a bit in between as well. But we're not gonna go into too much detail on that. So a hard knee would be me turning it down straight away. So imagine I've got the volume knob and I'm just immediately turning it down. A soft knee would me, would be with me. With the volume knob and just gradually turning it down. So that is compression in a nutshell, and I hope that analogy helps you to understand or cement your understanding of compression. So what I'm gonna now show you is how I would go about configuring a compressor. So I'm in Logic Pro and I am using the studio f e t Compressor, and it comes with a Logic Pro. I'm using an F e t cause it's a transistor compressor and it's, I've got a very fast attack time and that's what I want. Cause I've got a kick run sample. So I want a nice faster take. So the way I would set a compressor is, and you can use this for any type of audio, and it's a really good starting. Is this, I'm gonna set the attack all the way slow. I'm gonna set the release all the way first. Now, if you're using logic and this particular compressor, make sure auto release is off and auto gain is off as well. I'm gonna pump the ratio all the way up and I'm gonna bring the threshold all the way down. Okay, So if I play the audio. Bring down the compressor. So the threshold set at minus 50, and I've got game reduction of about about seven minus, well, seven DBS minus seven db. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna push the makeup gain so it's nice and audible. Yeah. Don't want it to distort. So that's how, those are my initial settings. Obviously that is not gonna be the final thing. So with this particular one here, I don't want the attack to squash the transient. So I don't want a fast attack time. I want that hit of the kick drum to come through. So the way I do this is like this. I'm gonna play the track. Or rather play the drum and I'm gonna slowly bring in the attack to make it faster. And as soon as it starts to the sound of the kick drum, I'm gonna stop. So that's probably, but you can hear it's dull, the kick run. So I'm gonna dial it back. Okay, so that's my attack. So get it to the point whereby it is dulling the sound and then just pull it back a bit and that's letting that transient through. So I'm gonna do something similar with the release. So I've got the release set super far, well all the way fast, super fast. And I'm gonna slowly increase the release until it does the same again. So the sound is, Here we go and bring it back. It's a pretty fast release to be honest, and I'll stop it there. So now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna change the ratio and I'm gonna start here with four to one. And obviously you can play around with this depending on what, uh, sounds you wanna get from this. Ultimately, are you just aiming for a nice, smooth compression or you trying to catch peaks? So then I'm gonna start at a four. Let's play that and then I'm gonna bring down the game. Let's put that zero for now, and then the threshold. I'm gonna go for about, let's go, but minus 25. I've got about 3D B of game reduction, and then use the game to make up for the reduction. Okay. And that is how I would initially set a compressor. So that's a really, really good starting point. And then you can go from there and do what you need to do. So let's just play it without the compress. Now with, so hopefully you can hear the difference there with that particular sample. The dynamic range isn't that varied, to be honest. And I could have used a better, uh, better example. But in this instance, what I wanted to get across was how you could initially set up a compressor. Cuz sometimes if it can be quite difficult to know where to start. So use that as a starting point for your mixing. What you could also consider is this, when you're using a compressor with the gas to your threshold and the ratio, the lower the threshold, try and have a lower ratio, okay? With a higher threshold, you could then have a higher ratio with the idea being that a higher threshold you could use to catch peak. Okay, catch those wild transients and you can have a higher ratio to control those. Then with the lower ratio and the lower threshold, you can use that to just smooth out your mix if you're using it on your mix bus or on the individual audio. So another really good tip for you there. Let's take a quick break from this episode so that I could tell you about a free resource that I made for you. It's a PDF checklist that describes what you need to do to properly prepare a mix for mastering. So you've done the hard work and you love your mix, yet suitably preparing a mix for mastering is often overlooked by musicians, resulting in delayed sessions, excessive back and forth conversation. And frustration on both parts. I want to help fix that. So if you want this free resource, just go to www.synthmusicmastering.com as this checklist will help and guide you to make the mastering process as smooth, transparent, and exciting as possible. So again, the URL is www.synthmusicmastering.com for this free preparing a mix for mastering checklist. Let's get back to the episode. So this next technique is one of my favorite compression techniques. And you can use this on a multitude of instruments, and I particularly like use it on drums with those fast, hard-hitting, transient, and it is parallel compression or New York compression. So in this instance, I have a, I'm gonna mute my auxiliary channel. So I've setting up, uh, set an auxiliary channel, work with a compressor, and I've got this SNA loop. Actually, I just want the first two bars of it. Okay. And I have bused this out to a parallel compress. And it sounds like this at the moment, obviously that is just the stock F U F E T compressor in Logic Pro with the settings that appear when you first set it up. What I wanna do with this here is I wanna set it so that I've got a faster attack and I've got a faster release. I absolutely wanna kind of smash those transients and ultimately I'm just gonna blend it in underneath the original. Track. So I turn off the auto game again and turn off the auto release, and I want a pretty high attack time, to be honest. I'm gonna go for six to one on this one as a setting and you can play around with this. And let's try bring the T down. So wanting and then my makeup game to compensate for the game reduction. Bring into more release. Okay, so what I'm gonna do now is I'm going to bring the fader all the way down for the snare, and then I'm gonna slowly blend in. Compressed signal with the dry signal. Okay, So hopefully you can hear the difference there a lot punchier. So I'm just gonna mute the compress signal, and that's with the parallel compression with out. So with outs and with, So now I'm gonna blend that with my kick from earlier. So now I'm gonna blend that with my kick run from earlier. And there we go. Once again, that technique can be applied on a multitude of instruments, as I said at the beginning there. And, uh, try it on kick drums. I think it sounds fantastic on kick. And you can also use it really well on vocals as well to try and add a bit of beef to beef to a vocal. Um, that's probably not the technical term, but still what I'm gonna use. So just did a nutshell with parallel compression. You've got the dry signal, you've got the wet signal, the wet signal being the compressor, you're gonna gradually bring that into taste. So you want a fast attack and a fast release. You. Medium to high ratio, I would say, but play around with that. Do it to taste. And the threshold I aim for between sort of minus five, so not the threshold and the, uh, the actual game reduction between minus five and minus 10, and obviously the makeup game to compensate to bring it back to that. That level that it was at before. So there we go. Parallel compression, give it a go. So for this final drum compression tutorial, I'm going to compress a high hat and I'm gonna follow the similar technique or steps that I did for the kick drum initially and setting up my compressor. But this time I'm using an opto compressor cuz it's not so hard. On the clamping down of the transients, it's a bit smoother. So I'm using the vintage opto, uh, compressor that comes in logic price. So once again, I've got my threshold all the way down. I've got my ratio all the way up. Uh, I've got about 10 db of, uh, of gain compensation, of makeup game, slow attack, fast release, and this is what it sounds. At moment the compressor. Compressor isn't being triggered. So I'm gonna bring down the attack so it starts toll the sound. Hear there? Bring that. So I slow on this. There, same again with the release. So let's bring the release in. You can hear it there, so dial it back and bring the makeup down. So to save my ears is, and I want a fairly high threshold on this, I'm gonna set a 10 to one. I really want to hit that, hit that, uh, that game. Reduction hard. Just bring down a threshold, tiny bit to be fair. So that's without. And that's with brewing down that makeup game. So with without. With without. So just hits a bit harder. So ultimately that is something that you can do on room mics as well. It's a pretty good tool to use on room mics and um, High hats as I've done here. So what I'm gonna do now is play all three tracks together. So that's to kick the snare and the high hat with all the processing. And I'm gonna remove the. So that's with no processing whatsoever. And this is weird. So hopefully you can hear the difference. I think it hits a lot harder, it sounds more aggressive. And that's the sort of sound I want to go for this particular sort of, uh, composition I've got going here. So a small composition mind you. Um, but. Do use these techniques in any of your mixes. They're a starting point. They're a guide, okay? They're not rules, right? If there were rules, rules are there to be broken. Anyway, you gotta know the rules to break the rules In the words of sunglasses, kid, check out episode 46. So there we go. Compression. I hope this has helped. So there we go. That is the end of this. Tutorial on compression. I hope you've enjoyed this particular tutorial and I hope it's been of use. And, uh, once again, it is a framework, a foundation for you to build your compression knowledge. And, uh, if it helps in some way in terms of your mixes, please do let me know whether that's on YouTube. Leave a comment or you could message me. On Instagram at Inside The Mix Podcast. And also if you're listening on your podcast Player of Choice, do leave a review. Let me know what you think. Don't forget to subscribe if you're watching on YouTube. And also like, and if you're listening on your podcast Player of Choice, please do follow the podcast as well and look out for next week's episode. Thank you for listening to our show. If you like what you're hearing, make sure to rate our show on Apple Podcasts.