Compression on drums helps you bring out more sustain and energy from the most important elements of your kit. Like whenever you use compression, being too aggressive will actually work against you and suck the life out of your drums, so let’s talk how to use compression on drums, piece by piece.
Compression on Drums
Note that this compression on drums cheat sheet is taken from my free, overall compression cheat sheet.
Here’s a snapshot of the entire cheat sheet before we break down each piece in the kit one by one.
Let’s begin with the kick compression.
Kick Compression
The nice thing about kick compression as well as the snare is that the level of these elements is very predictable when it comes to their levels.
The dynamic range of most elements in the drum kit are predictable, making it easy to set the threshold and get the 2-3dB (or 5dB at max) gain reduction when combined with the rest of the settings.
Use a hard knee to ensure that the threshold is closely adhered to.
In the case of the kick, I like a moderate ratio of 5:1 to add a little sustain to the tail end of the body.
15ms attack is extremely conservative in ensuring you keep the entirety of the “click” of the beater on the head of the drum which helps the kick to assert itself in the mix.
Snare Compression
As I just alluded, the snare has clearly defined dynamics, as well.
I like to set the threshold roughly 10dB below the peaks which should be pretty consistent.
I’m going with a slightly higher ratio on my snare compression at 6:1. As is always the case, if you want more energy, go a bit higher.
The attack is a little faster here as we have a lot more high end information on the snare to begin with. 5ms is enough to keep your snare’s transient “crack” clear and cutting through the mix.
The release is a little longer so I can get more of the body of the snare with 80ms and once again I’m adding in a 20ms hold to keep that compression engaged for a split second even after the level drops down again to give the snare a little extra fatness.
Tom Compression
I compress tom drums similar to/in between my settings for the kick and snare.
This means a 5:1 ratio, attack of 5ms, a little added hold of 40ms with a release of 50ms, and aiming for 3dB on average of gain reduction with 5dB max on the loudest tom hit in the set.
Like the kick and snare, we’re aiming for more body and sustain via compression, and these settings will get you there.
Cymbal Compression
I like an optical compressor for my cymbal compression for two reasons.
One, an optical compressor is a great way to transparently and naturally add thickness to my cymbals whether that’s the hi-hats, ride, crash, etc.
It’s also a great way to emphasize the compression on the high end which is great for taming cymbal harshness which can be one of the main offenders of a harsh mix.
The Waves CLA-2A has a specific control which allows you to either favor compression on the high end or keeping it evenly distributed/flat.
Drum Bus Compression
Don’t forget to compress your drum bus itself. This typically takes two forms: glue and parallel compression.
Glue Compression
Glue compression is commonly used on various busses in mixes because of its ability to bring cohesion to the multiple tracks flowing into them.
It works especially well for drum bus compression when you’ve got a lot of loud and splashy elements in making them feel more like a unit.
The main settings to note on the drum bus compressor are that you only want 1-2dB of gain reduction as a product of an attack of 3ms (10ms for more transient punch) and a 2:1 ratio (4:1 for more energy and less dynamics).
Parallel Compression
Parallel compression involves throwing an extreme ratio and other compression settings at your audio, sucking the dynamics out of it to create a thick sausage of sound. Blended in alongside your “dry” audio, this adds thickness and energy to your track(s).
Parallel compression with these settings when applied to your drum bus makes the kick, snare, cymbals, etc. all fire at the same level. You also swallow up the transients for the sake of creating this thick sounding drum kit which you can blend into your “dry” kit.
As such, you want to leave the parallel compressor on a separate track, either from sending the drum bus audio to an additional track or by adding an Aux/Return track so that you can use that track as a send on that drum bus.
However you do it, the point is to keep that drum bus clean in terms of compression beyond the glue compressor, then blend in the level of that parallel compressed signal to taste for more or less thickness and energy.
Again, make sure you check out my overview on how to EQ drums as well as grab my complete compression cheat sheet for in depth and easy to copy graphics for effectively compressing every instrument in your mix.
