Choosing the best compressor type for the job is the first step in being able to control the drums without causing too much unwanted pain.

Everybody loves compressors, from what I’ve observed. There are so many unique, interesting, and powerful compressors available these days that it’s no wonder how popular they are.

The colors and types available give us the ability to radically shape the sound and perception of a drumkit.

So much so that they have become a standard tool in our audio toolbox. I honestly can’t imagine working on any modern project without compressors and am happy that I don’t have to.

But, just like distortion, it’s so, so easy to overuse them without regard for how the drums are being affected. Their overuse sometimes stems from a lack of awareness of how drums really behave, and more notably, a lack of understanding of how compressors affect that behavior.

Drums Are Loud, Noisy and Fast!

If you’ve ever listened to a drum kit in real life (and I hope you have), it can be a brash, full-on sensory assault. Drums are naturally a loud instrument and at times can be borderline violent (drummers: you know who you are!).

Being in the same space with a loud drum kit can have a visceral effect on our perception of how it sounds (as you are subjected to that violence). Even the way the drummer looks while playing may affect what we think we hear.

Drums are noisy too. When you hit the snare drum, every other drum and cymbal vibrates sympathetically. When a drummer plays a groove, the participating parts of the kit are certainly the loudest, but the resonance from everything else contributes to the roar of the drums. This is part of the signature sound of an acoustic drum kit that we know and recognize immediately…and one reason why samples don’t sound quite like the real thing.

And while being loud and noisy, drums are also a highly transient instrument. A snare drum goes from 0 to 100% in an instant when the stick strikes the head. Cymbals have a quick ramp up and then a very gradual decay, rich with harmonics and character. Any standard groove on a drum kit will incorporate several parts of the kit simultaneously, so these complex textures will blend and layer upon themselves making the picture even more sonically intricate.

Adding to the complexity of all of this, we tend to listen to drums through the filter of our prejudices and preferences. What we think we hear is not always accurate or realistic. This is especially true if you happen to be recording someone else’s drums. Every drummer has an ideal drum sound in their head but not all of these ideals are based in reality!

In other words, drums are difficult to capture and more difficult to render in a believable yet exciting manner. If you want the drums to maintain that excitement in the context of a dense, track-heavy mix, you may have to resort to some unusual tactics. In these cases, creating a “hyper-reality” is the only way to do so. But hyper-reality is not an easily achievable goal for many reasons.

A Desire for Control

Because of the sharp transients, power and complexity present in a drum kit, many engineers feel the need to control the drums in the same way they might control a vocal or bass guitar. This usually involves the use of one or several compressors to limit the peaks and make the performance more even throughout. The general aim is to keep the average levels hovering around some preferred level, while limiting peaks, so the drums can be placed comfortably in a mix. If the drums are predictable, they should be easier to use in a mix. No problem.

This all sounds good on paper (or in our heads) but the reality is quite different. Some type of level control is certainly necessary, but still, it’s short-sighted to think that we can have perfect peak level control and good average levels across a full drum mix without a sonic penalty being levied. Compressors, if set improperly, can alter the attack and sustain and character of each part of the drum kit to where they are unrecognizable.

Even worse, if true level control is too aggressively pursued then the transients can be practically eliminated. And the loss of transients = the loss of impact. Heavily compressing the drums will bring up the noise and ring in the drum kit, which may be acceptable, but the loss of transients is probably a bridge too far.

So, if compressors are designed as a level control device, then why do we have to pay a penalty for using them to do just that with drums? It goes back to those pesky transients again…

Compressors Are Fast Too…But Not as Fast as Drums

Compressors were originally designed as “leveling amplifiers” to be used for “automatic gain control”. Basically, a compressor turns stuff down that exceeds a defined threshold by a user-stipulated amount. They were often employed to protect the tape from saturation and allowed higher average levels to tape which effectively reduced the apparent noise level. They were a great safety net.

But it’s important to know that while providing protection, a compressor is always manipulating the dynamics of the original performance when it is actively in gain reduction. That’s just what a compressor does. On its face, it would seem that this is exactly what you would want to keep the transients under control, right? Yes. Kinda. But not exactly.

When it comes to drums and their quick, massive transients, a compressor can’t react fast enough to catch very front end of the transient (though some look-ahead digital comps are pretty good at this). A little bit always gets through. Once the threshold is exceeded then the compressor kicks into action. The trailing signal (the decay) is then pulled downward aggressively. As the compressor holds and releases, the decay of the drum feels as though it has been extended. What’s really happening is that the difference in level between the end of the attack portion and the decay portion has been reduced. So, in effect, the quiet part is just as loud as the loud part.

We’ve all heard and know this sound. We’ve all used this sound! But while it’s a cool sound, it doesn’t completely control the peak levels, and it can completely change the way the drums sound and behave…and not always in a good way.

You should also consider this: While the decay of the drum may be louder, so is the ambience bleeding into the mic. Now multiply that phenomenon by however many mics you have around the drum kit. You end up with more decay and room sound from different sources combining into a blurry, washy mess. So now you have less impact, more ambience and more noise overall.

Is this what control sounds like?

It’s unrealistic to expect the same kind of control or absolute levels that you can achieve with a sample or some other “slower” instrument. You can, however, knock the drums down enough to get good average levels, while still retaining the character of the drums in their natural state. You just have to think about how to get around the actual problem. This starts with a deep understanding of compressors and compression.

Compressor Types

Looking to control peaks? Try a FET compressor, such as the much beloved 1176.

In general, most people want their drums to “slam” and “hit hard”, while still keeping their levels under control.

But alas, this is never easy and there truly is no free lunch. Choosing the best compressor type for the job is the first step in being able to control the drums without causing too much unwanted pain.

(Note: I can’t go into a deep dive about compressors without writing a completely new article about it; it’s a pretty complex subject!)

There are 4 common types of compressors that you will encounter most of the time. Each has its own behavior and characteristic sound.

They are:

VCA (e.g., dBx 160 or SSL comp)

Optical (e.g., LA-2A or LA-3A)

Tube or Variable Mu (e.g., Fairchild or Manley Vari-Mu)

FET (e.g., 1176 or Germanium)

(Note: There’s also the ultra-cool, diode bridge Neve 2254 and Abbey Road Compressor, but they’re not as common—though they are really good on drums!).

In general, VCA and FET compressors are fast and fairly transparent-with the FET being the most transparent and versatile to my ears. The Optical and Vari-Mu are smoother and more musical and colored sounding, particularly when using lower amounts of gain reduction.

If I’m mostly looking to control peaks, then I’ll use a VCA or FET compressor; if I want some average level control (more RMS) then mostly I’ll use Vari-Mu. To my ears the Optical compressors are almost always too slow to do what I want to hear on drums, though, when combined with something else in series, they can be quite effective when used in moderation.

I recommend that you experiment on your own with the different types of compressors and familiarize yourself with the unique characteristics of each type. There’s no substitute for hearing what each type does to a kick or snare drum under identical conditions. It can go a long way toward making the best choice when compressing drums.

So, Where Did My Transients Go?

We still haven’t solved the transient riddle and it’s still the biggest issue when trying to compress drums.

Consider again the behavior with a fast attack time and a slow release time: a fast attack will cause the compressor to react quickly and kick in the gain reduction rapidly.

If you use a slow release time it will never come out of compression, which has the net effect of turning the whole thing down the whole time. The attacks and decays become less distinguishable from each other so the whole idea of “hard hitting” is completely obliterated. No thanks.

With some discretion (and much less gain reduction), you can use a fast attack and slow release to enhance the ringy-ness and decay of the drum, though you’ll still have a softer front end.

If you’re looking to change the sound and presence of a drumkit, this is a good way to do it. The softness of the front end can help the drums sit behind other instruments a bit more easily. While this is a cool, unique way to manipulate a drum kit, don’t expect something that will knock you over with brute force. You need transients to do that.

To preserve the sharp, clear attack of the drum, you have to go in the other direction and use a slow attack and fast release. The effect on the decay is more subtle, though still plainly audible. This technique was employed in the past when recording to tape to enhance the transient that was softened by hitting the tape. The compressor really only acts on the decay portion of the drum while leaving the front end mostly unaffected. This also has the effect of making the drums feel a bit livelier since the decay is slightly exaggerated.

But even then, it seems like we have to make the choice of either maintaining transients, or having good average levels, right?

There is another way of course.

Parallel Compression: The Holy Grail of Drum Mixing

I am pretty certain that most people reading this know about parallel compression, but I’ll still offer a brief description:

Parallel Compression is when you combine an uncompressed signal with a heavily compressed duplicate of the same signal. The technique allows you to maintain the transients (the uncompressed part) and enhance the decay and liveliness (the compressed part), while being able to balance the mix between the two elements. The technique has been around for quite a while but has gained more widespread acceptance and understanding over the last 5-6 years. In fact, many compressors (and other processors) now include a “mix” control, allowing you to balance this effect within a single compressor.

The thing that becomes immediately apparent when you use parallel compression is just how seamlessly it can combine the best of both worlds, particularly with drums. As I stated earlier, destroying the transients in the quest for absolute level control will always leave sonic casualties in its wake. Compressing the drums excessively for consistent average levels will also change things too much (compared to the original), even if you happen to like the sound.

My belief that drums generally need to have an unimpeded transient to do what they do in the wild does not mean that I don’t want to be able to manipulate the decay and ambience envelopes too. I want both and I want to decide how much of each treatment I want to hear. Parallel compression accommodates this.

But there’s another side-benefit to using parallel compression that wasn’t as apparent to me when I first started using it. If I spend time on the balance between the compressed and uncompressed signal, the drums seem to sound more real, as counterintuitive as that may seem. There’s something about being able to hear the compressed part of the signal just beneath the transient that feels more like the assaulting, first-hand experience of listening to drums. It’s as if it more closely approximates what my ears and eyes tell me is happening when I’m listening to and watching a drummer play.

Is Real Real Enough?

You could argue that dry, uncompressed drums are closer to “real” than something that’s been manipulated in any way, but I would disagree. We often mic a drum kit with a combination of close and distant mics which we then balance to taste. As a listener, you would never listen to a snare drum from 2″ away, nor would you stick your head inside a kick drum. In both cases this is very unnatural sounding and would be dangerous to your hearing. Not to mention, every mic that you use hears everything from a different location. The tone and ambient signature of each mic is unique. Yet we combine them all to create a drum mix that is supposed to be “real”? Not really.

You may further argue that you could record the drums from one location in the room with a stereo mic to ensure absolute reality and accuracy. This certainly gets closer, but microphones, no matter how good they are, do not hear things the way our ears do. Our brain can focus on some things and ignore others, providing a dynamic mix as the performance unfolds. Microphones just capture what’s happening without prejudice. Even with careful placement there will always be a difference.

On top of all of this, there’s the added problem that a drum kit recorded in such a way may not fulfill the needs of the production of a song (this is based on the genre and instrumentation, of course). If it’s a jazz combo or an acoustic guitar-driven track, then the single stereo mic may be the perfect choice. But once the track count goes up and the instruments get bigger and fuller, then the drums will be quickly obscured in the mix. Perhaps “real” is not the goal in the first place.

I think it’s better to strive for “believable” within the context of the song. I want to believe that the drums sound like they were part of that performance. I like to be able to picture a drummer playing what I’ve recorded and mixed. But the key to this is that it is “within the context of the song”, because what sounds one way on its own will sound different once it’s a part of a mix.

This is where parallel compression shines.

Earlier, I alluded to the roar of a drumkit; this is the noise that the full drum kit makes while it’s being played. This always gets swallowed up in a mix, and even more so in a dense mix. But that roar is part of what makes a drum kit feel more believable, and arguably, more powerful.

Using parallel compression almost gives you a volume control for the roar. You do have to exaggerate this effect to hear it within the context of a mix but doing so goes a long way towards enhancing the size of the drums. Even if the noise and sustain are only slightly increased, the perception of this component draws the listener closer to the intensity of the drum track.

Granted, doing this also makes for a messier, noisier drum track, but that is a worthwhile tradeoff when the drums are fighting for space against big bass tracks, a wall of guitars and stacks of vocals.

Summing it Up

So much of recording is sleight of hand, particularly in rock and pop productions where reality is not usually the end goal. Most people obsess about the vocal, and how the power of a great performance is necessary to connect with the listener.

The truth is that most vocals that fans connect with are anything but “real”, since they’re put together using multiple takes, editing, comping, tuning, and effects and processing. There’s nothing inherently dishonest about this because a recorded performance doesn’t have the added benefit of the visuals like a live performance does. We usually have to cheat a bit to even things up.

The same is true when recording drums. We don’t have the benefit of a loud, live drummer to make people believe that a performance was in fact “loud” and “live”, so we have to tip the scales in our favor to draw the listener in. We want the recording to embody what the artist intends-not to sound like a bunch of musicians in a studio.

Using these insights should make it easier to deal with the multitude of problems that will arise from any drum recording. Applying these techniques can help you walk the tightrope between reality and excitement, so everyone comes away from the experience feeling as though they got what they were expecting. Care, diligence, attention to detail, and a deep understanding of the causes and effects of the recording process will go a long way toward helping you achieve this outcome consistently.

Mike Major is a Mixer/Producer/Recording and Mastering engineer from Dunedin, FL.

He has worked with At The Drive-In, Coheed and Cambria, Sparta, Gone is Gone, As Tall as Lions, and hundreds of other artists over the last 30 years.

Major is the author of the book Recording Drums: The Complete Guide.

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