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Author Topic: The drums are too loud - Will compression help?  (Read 2065 times)

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Offline jj69

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The drums are too loud - Will compression help?
« on: October 20, 2013, 02:48:41 PM »
I typically record hard rock bands.  In many venues, the drums are mixed too loud and end up in front of the mix rather than the guitars, which is really what should be in front of the mix with hard rock music.  If the spectrum analyzer in Audition is accurate, the offending drums seem to be between 200Hz and 1,000Hz.  EQ does not help becuase there's so much other sound in that frequency range that reducing those bands would only make things worse. 

Is there a way to use the mulit-band compressor in Audition to somehow reduce the volume of the drums without messing up anything else?  If so, what kind of settings would you suggest?  I've never bothered with compression, as I've always disliked what it does to the sound.  So I'm a complete novice.

Any help/suggestions are greatly appreciated. 

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Re: The drums are too loud - Will compression help?
« Reply #1 on: October 20, 2013, 05:09:13 PM »
Largely no, once its set in the mix, especially in the midrange, its difficult to fix.

If I were going to try, Id look at a multivand compfessor between about 200hz to about 650hz and set it louder than the guitars/vocals and use a soft ratio of something like 1:1.5. Super fast attack of 0ms or 1ms. Id play a lot with the release... not entirely sure what Id start with.
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Offline jj69

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Re: The drums are too loud - Will compression help?
« Reply #2 on: October 20, 2013, 05:51:03 PM »
Largely no, once its set in the mix, especially in the midrange, its difficult to fix.

This has always been my assumption.  I've never used compression to make anything better - only worse. 

If I were going to try, Id look at a multivand compfessor between about 200hz to about 650hz and set it louder than the guitars/vocals and use a soft ratio of something like 1:1.5. Super fast attack of 0ms or 1ms. Id play a lot with the release... not entirely sure what Id start with.

When you say, "set it louder than the guitars," are you referring to the "threshold" setting in Audition? 

For ration, do you mean the oppposite?: 1.5:1

Obviously, I'm a complete noob to compression. 

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Re: The drums are too loud - Will compression help?
« Reply #3 on: October 20, 2013, 10:59:27 PM »
If I were going to try, Id look at a multivand compfessor between about 200hz to about 650hz and set it louder than the guitars/vocals and use a soft ratio of something like 1:1.5. Super fast attack of 0ms or 1ms. Id play a lot with the release... not entirely sure what Id start with.

When you say, "set it louder than the guitars," are you referring to the "threshold" setting in Audition? 

For ration, do you mean the oppposite?: 1.5:1

Possibly, I think in Reaper it puts the bigger number second, I'm working from memory.

And yes, I'm referencing the threshold where it kicks in and starts compressing.
"This is a common practice we have on the bus; debating facts that we could easily find through printed material. It's like, how far is it today? I think it's four hours, and someone else comes in at 11 hours, and well, then we'll... just... talk about it..." - Jeb Puryear

"Nostalgia ain't what it used to be." - Jim Williams

Offline 2manyrocks

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Re: The drums are too loud - Will compression help?
« Reply #4 on: October 21, 2013, 10:20:17 PM »
I assume you have everything on a 2 channel recording in which case it's pretty much impossible to unbake this cake once its done.  I suppose a slight bit of compression could pull down drums that really stick out to a very limited degree before it affects the rest of the mix, but the results will likely be disappointing. 


 

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