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what sort of settings should i use to compress percussion/hats?
i know its a bit of a silly question, as the settings can vary, but im just looking for some general guidelines.
help very much appreciated, thanks
come on ze migl, i know your out there! :lol:
Does depend what you are trying to do
Basically pull the threshold down so that it's doing something whenever you want it to (watch the gain reduction meter), jank down the ratio so you can hear it, set the release to 100 ms or so and then tweak the attack. Tweaking that attack will give your percussion more or less bite and bring it backwards and forwards in the mix.
If some attacks are going missing then turn the release even shorter ... depends how fast your percussion part is and whether you are compressing lots of stuff at once.
I wrote all this stuff below ages ago ... and I'm not even sure I still agree with myself but it might help.
...
Put a tiny amount of reverb on all your percussion hats and everything. A short room reverb, or just early reflections, you want it so you can hardly hear it. If you want a particular effect though it's fine to wack a longer more dramatic reverb on some of the percussion. You can stick an even smaller amount of your short reverb on the kick if it's going to be on it's own in the track at some point, just to give it a tiny sheen.
Drums from MIDI instruments, samplers or whatever will arrive in your track slightly later than the trigger, and timing is everything in a tight rhythm track. So... Record all your drums down to audio. Quantize the audio, most modern stuff has a function for this. If not then zoom in and check the timing by hand. You want most of your stuff to follow the same quantize, this might or might not be a shuffle or swing quantize, whatever you choose as a setting then use it for everything else unless you've got something that definitely sounds amazing quantised differently.
Compress all the percussion individually. Turn off the compressor if you can't make it sound better on that track using it. You can use the compressor to give sounds the right amount of attack in your track.
If it's that real driving pumping techno sound you want, wack all the percussion through a single bus on your mixer or in your computer. Put a another compressor over the lot, use 10ms attack or so and adjust the release time and ratio for the right effect. Everything should duck under the kick.
This sounds like a more dramatic version of when you stand in front of the speakers and jump up and down to your tune. If your tune sounds exciting then and doesn't when you get your butt back onto the chair then you maybe want a bit of this trick.
Make sure you aren't cluttering your mids. Selectively EQ (before the compressor) your percussion. Shelving filters at the bottom or a high pass filter are very handy here.
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cheers basil :wink:
basil knows.
basil's tha man... sorry been a bit under the weather and busy with shop stuff :(
Z
Big Up Basil, just answered an age old question I've seeking to be answered. Pat yourself on the back mate.
thanx for the advices basil.
Big up the Bazil
fab baz