Drum Overhead Compression?

[nippecraft]

Good Afternoon Everyone,

My question is... do you compress drum overheads? I'm still new to the world of compression and I'm slowly starting to wander off, staying away from the presets that it comes with. If overheads need to be compressed, is this the general rule of thumb or just individual preference? And if so, what are you trying to attain from compressing the overheads.

I have much to learn, so please bear with me.. Thanks for the answer in advance.

[Bigduggieface]

There are 3 ways to approach compressing overheads:

1. No compression. Depending on the style of music, the drummer, the kit, and the room, often no compression is the best option.

2. Compress to level peaks. Used in conjunction with spot mics on each drum, sometimes a bit of compression helps to make the drum and cymbal hits more consistent. Set up the compressor so that it works only when the occasional loud spike occurs.

3. Compress as an audible effect. Occasionally, it may work to slam the hell out of the overheads. This will squash cymbal hits so that the transients get compressed, and the cymbals seem to swell in volume. You will also find that the room sound becomes more audible. Experiment with the release setting as you can get it to pump and breathe in time with the music. If you have a room mic(s) set up, compressing the hell out of them while leaving the overhead mics uncompressed and yield some good results.

In my experience, most of the time I have best success by lightly compressing the overheads, and do most of the compression with the spot mics on each drum.

[zildjohn01]

What genre?

[nippecraft]

Thanks for the reply bigduggieface. Reason I asked this was upon reading so many articles about compression, I'm starting to get lost in the mix of things.

The genre of our music is alternative. I have read that in this genre, compression is "heavily used" or am I wrong? now that could be in the general mix. I am trying to figure out for this kind of music, for our recordings we record with 8 mics all in all. 2 OH, and 3 for tom & Floor tom, 2 on snare - over and under, and the kick drum. I read up on parallel compression, and even tried it. And there was a significant change in the drum tone, attack etc. I routed all the toms, kick, and snare to a group channel and compress it quite heavily. As i've said, there were significant change, however the overheads is somewhat over the top and the cymbals are not leveled. There were instances that I think is a little to much compared to the rest of the track. But if I turn the volume down even more, just to compensate the volume on those spikes, I think that won't work at all. That's why I asked if overheads can be compressed, and if so, maybe you can tell me where to start. Like I said, this is a new facet for me and I'm still in the baby stage of mixing.

Thank you again.

[Bigduggieface]

Originally Posted by nippecraft

Reason I asked this was upon reading so many articles about compression, I'm starting to get lost in the mix of things.

One thing I would like to caution you (and everyone reading this) about. Reading magazine and internet articles about recording is fine. It's a good place to start, but don't rely on them. This is not said often enough.

Every situation is different. There are so many variables! The genre, the individual song, the musician you're recording, the room, the equipment at your disposal, etc.

Any engineer would agree that the best way to learn how to record and mix is through experience. We all need to get our hands dirty and pay our dues through experimentation. We make mistakes and learn from them in order to make better decisions in the future.

It sounds like you've got a good grasp of recording drums, and it's a great benefit that you can experiment with your own band. It's very helpful to record other bands and genres too.

Should you compress drum overheads? The answer is an artistic one. Only you can make the decision based upon experiment, exploration, what the song dictates, and what your ears tell you.

If you post one of your songs at the "Bash This Recording" section of this forum, we might be able to give you some specific advice. Good luck, Nippecraft!

[brandondrury]

do you compress drum overheads?

Sometimes.

What am I trying to achieve?

I compressed overheads yesterday. I actually limited them. I wanted to knock the snare sound down a bit as it was bringing something weird up. I used 0ms attack and a fairly fast release.

This is usually the only reason I compress overheads. I like my overheads to sound "pretty" and don't like to mangle them too much. I do sometimes compress the drum bus (I used to do this all the time but have gotten away from it) and I'm very careful not to overdo it.

Brandon

[garageband]

For the most part, I'd leave the dynamic contour of the OH mics alone. Compress the individual drums a little more for fatness and use the OHs for "makeup gain" and recreate the overall color of the kit.

[spaceatl]

For me, generally a peak limiter approach just to keep the transisents in check is most often the case...Nothing at all sometimes...

Sometimes when I have a mix that is really packed with big fat guitars, vocal harmonies etc where everthing has to be just right I find using a little bit of multi-band comp setup for DeEssing sometimes works better than the peak limiter...evening out a Pang vs other cymbals in the same area or softening up the nylon tips if there is a little too much ting...1 or 2 bands at the most generally and a very conservative approach generally works best for me in those certain situations...

As always, the song dictates the approach I think...I don't think I have ever used compression for effect on overheads...

[brandondrury]

I find using a little bit of multi-band comp setup for DeEssing sometimes works better than the peak limiter

Interesting. I assume you mean on drums in this context. What frequencies are you hitting with the multiband?

Brandon

[spaceatl]

Hmmm...Generally it would be around 5-6K and then the 10-12K....It really depends on where the competition is happening...For me this has more to do with the high end of the vocal mix, guitars, keys and other bits that might have trouble punching through the cymbals...

If the trouble is that guitars are not cutting the way I want and there's a ton of open hat, then perhaps a DeEss band around 2K-3K does the trick...The actual drums are less of an issue as I mic each one...Phase alignment and correction is the key and first step to a good drum mix...Bad phase will tear the high end apart in way that no amount of multi-band can ever correct for...

I have read some of your takes on multi-band comps and you seem a little more stern than I am...I certainly agree that MBCs can make things really strange...But I think that is generally the result of overdoing it or using one just for the sake of using one. ie: The loudness war that has no place to go...But is hard not to do with these digital comps these days...Some of them are so freaking transparent that all of the sudden the song sounds like "audio cream of wheat"...(Yes, I have read Bob Katz and the audio cream of wheat is his phrase, not mine...I like it though)