BONUS MODULE: Maintaining Drums Punch Under Heavy Compression

In this video, I demonstrate how you can use a ‘bypass buss’ to maintain the punch of your main kick and snare hits even when applying heavy compression-pumping on your main mix buss for stylistic reasons.

(If you have trouble downloading or playing this video, here’s a mirror file on an alternate server.)

I mention the option of further processing the bypass buss using EQ, but if you decide to do that, then you should be aware that EQ can cause phase-shifts, which could incur some comb-filtering between the main compressed mix and the bypass buss. In practice, I’ve rarely found this to be a serious concern, but it’s as well to be forewarned. With this in mind, you might be tempted to use a linear-phase EQ in this scenario, but I’d not recommend it myself, because the pre-ringing side-effects of linear-phase processing can sometimes sound unnatural on transients, and undermine their sense of punch.

DOWNLOADS

• Demo Project: The Reaper demo project used for this video.

• Demo Screenshots: Screenshots of all the plug-ins in my demo project.

• Test Yourself: The multitrack drum stems used for my demo project, together with bass and electric-guitar stems so that you can experiment with the ‘bypass buss’ techniques demonstrated in this module.

• Video Transcript: A rich-text file of the video’s full voiceover script.

FURTHER RESOURCES

If you’d like to experiment further with the demonstration production I used for this video, you can find its full-length unprocessed multitracks in the ‘Mixing Secrets’ Free Multitrack Download Library here:

• Trafficker: ‘My Father Never Loved Me’ – For more mixing tips, check out the August 2020 Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast and Mix Rescue July 2018.