Top 10 Ways to Make Better Mixes With Clever Compression Tricks

�1BJÖRGVIN BENEDIKTSSON - WWW.AUDIO-ISSUES.COM

"1. Tame Drums - !

If the drums are getting in your way, careful attack and release timing can tame some of those pesky transients to make for easier-sounding drums in the background.!""

2. Explode Drums - !On the other hand, if you want them to explode, parallel compression can make your drums big and juicy.!""

3. Take care of lousy bass players - !Inexperienced bass players can be all over the place. Using the threshold and ratio to control their dynamics so that their notes don’t pop out all over the place is a great way to use compression.!""

4. Make the rhythm guitar pop - !Compression on tight and strummy rhythmic guitars can fatten up the guitar tracks and make it pop.!""

5. Smooth out lead guitar dynamics - !

�2BJÖRGVIN BENEDIKTSSON - WWW.AUDIO-ISSUES.COM

If you have long lead lines soloing in the background, long releases can make your solos sustain even longer. You might even go grab a cup of tea and it’ll be like “wheeee” when you come back. If you didn’t get that reference go watch Spinal Tap.!""

6. Side-chain compress for automatic dynamics - !Side-chaining the bass to the kick drum can give both of them space in the mix. The same goes for the vocal and a busy guitar part.!""

7. Make the room sound bigger and punchier - !Compressing room mics can make your drum sound even more explosive. This, combined with parallel compression can make your drum sound real fat.!""

8. Bring out the intricacies of the vocal - !A juicy valve compressor, even just an emulator, can bring out the little intricacies and nuances of the vocal. Compressing to retain dynamics while bringing out the emotion is the key to a well compressed vocal.!"""

�3BJÖRGVIN BENEDIKTSSON - WWW.AUDIO-ISSUES.COM

9. Thicken up toms - !If your toms aren’t compressed, you’re losing out on a punchier drum sound. Scoop the EQ a little bit and add some heavy compression and your thick toms will sound like they’re straight out of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.”!"

10. Keep the reverb at bay - !Since compression is sort of an automatic volume leveler, using compression on effects such as reverb can really help.!"Of course, compression is just a part of the puzzle. For an overall look at the production process of both recording

AND mixing, check out the Recording & Mixing Strategies bundle here.!

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�4BJÖRGVIN BENEDIKTSSON - WWW.AUDIO-ISSUES.COM