Ableton Forum

I always group together my kick and claps when i work in Ableton and i wondered if anyone have any tips on what i should set my Ableton Compressor to help to get them to sit well together. I'd like to to really make them sound more tight.

What settings are you guys using for this. Im sure i could be doing it better. I normally just bring the threshold down a bit and have the attack and release pretty almost at zero. The ration around 1.68.

Any advice?

Thanks in advance

You could try using the Multiband Dynamics instead of the Compressor, as it splits the frequency spectrum up into three bands and compresses them each individually, this would mean the the bass of the kick and the upper end of the clap would each be compressed separately. This should give a tighter sound.
I'd also EQ out all of the low end of the clap using a high pass filter, as much as you can while still retaining the sound you are after, this will prevent any phasing or muddiness from the low end of the clap combining with the bass frequencies of the kick, helping to also tighten up the sound.
If you want to accentuate the clap slightly you could also cut the 1-4kHz range of the kick slightly, which will allow the 1-4kHz (snappiness) of the clap to come through better. Boosting the 6-10kHz region of the clap slightly will also give it a bit of a clearer, and possibly tighter sound.

Hope that helps

Are you working with house/disco style stuff, where the kick and clap trigger at the same position? If so, then as well as sidechain compression you could try experimenting with adding micro-delay to one of the sounds, my intuition is that the clap should happen ever-so-slightly in front of the kick to maximise the impression of 'clarity' or 'sharpness'.

Thanks for the help guys

Yeah im making disco / house beats and i already move the claps just before the kick to give that snappy feel to them. Works really well. I just have to practice i guess and work out exactly what im looking for when i add a compressor to try to tighten the beats, or make em gel a bit better..

Cheers

I would put em on a seperate channel so you can apply different settings for your different needs adding reverb, delays and maybe a bit of saturation to make it bite.. Generally speaking I would not compress my claps as you lose the life in the transient.

Undercover Soul wrote:I would put em on a seperate channel so you can apply different settings for your different needs adding reverb, delays and maybe a bit of saturation to make it bite.. Generally speaking I would not compress my claps as you lose the life in the transient.

From my experience you only loose the life in the transient of the sound if the attack is too low. For most percussive instruments you need to use an attack of about 20-30ms if you want to retain the transient.