Ableton Forum

Generally, in trap music, or in prog. house, etc. what all needs to be compressed? The kicks? Snares? What else needs to be compressed for a better mix? I know a lot of it varies on what sound you're trying to get out of it, but generally, what needs compressed?

Also, if you have studio monitors or a good headset, you can hear the amount of depth in the kick drum used in this song: https://soundcloud.com/oskimusic/oski-spaced-out

How do I achieve such a deep, badass kick? 808's layered on kicks?

Thanks a lot!

Everything needs to be compressed. But should you use Glue, Compressor or MBD? Or perhaps a 3rd party plugin? Then again, do Logic's native plugins sound better than Live's? And should you be using a FET, optical, FF or FB emulation?

Welcome to the fabulous world of subjective taste. If it sounds good, tweak until it's ruined. See you again in 5 years.

Samuel L. Jizzle wrote:Everything needs to be compressed. But should you use Glue, Compressor or MBD? Or perhaps a 3rd party plugin? Then again, do Logic's native plugins sound better than Live's? And should you be using a FET, optical, FF or FB emulation?

Welcome to the fabulous world of subjective taste. If it sounds good, tweak until it's ruined. See you again in 5 years.

You're so deep man

I was deep once.

IMO there is not magic formula to this. It takes tweaking and tweaking until your ears tell you its right. Experiment with differnt eq and compressor settings. Add a spectrum analysis so you can see where your sounds are hitting.

Wish I had a better answer. I'm still struggling with this, still can't get it right.

This is an old chestnut that seems to get asked every second day.

Chances are that you personally will never achieve the type of result you are looking for unless you undertake a lengthy and expensive training course and spend a decade perfecting the art. You can still get good results just playing around but if you were to do it 10 times over from scratch on the same material you will probably get 10 different results.

I have pretty good headphones but I must say I can't really hear what is so badass about that kick...

It's a deep kick with a very long release

If I recall correctly you'd find many examples of such a kick on any one of the standard sample collections e.g Vengeance House Essentials or suchlike.

As the other say, play around till you get the sound you like.

Professionally produced dance music: the secret is not in compressing the kick or the snares or using any individual trick. It is years of audio experience applied to how everything sits in the overall mix. A bit of intensive study of compression and EQing won't get you to that level - but don't despair, even using basic knowledge will allow you to avoid obvious flaws or mistakes

90% of using compression, I find, is getting your ears attuned. It's tricky. Unlike reverb, positive EQ or distortion, compression is oddly not something our hearing naturally picks up with ease.It is easy to overdo. You need to learn what to listen for.Learn to hear what is happening.

A couple of compression tips from me, even if they may not answer your question that well

In general terms, small amounts of compression in chains are better than slamming something. Eg. Small amount of compression on a snare, drum bus with very small amount of parallel compression, master bus with compressor compressing a very small amount. Makes it sound way better.

The Glue Compressor is awesome, and incremental settings are your friend. Set and move on, no fiddling about for a full f**king hour with atk and release settings. Speed is good.

I'm glad you're getting responses bc it does seem they're rare to find on this site.

You should definitely compress your drum buss. The Glue Compressor is amazing especially with the soft clipping feature. I don't do much compressing other than drums AND when I'm recording a live instrument like Guitar or Bass DI (my electric bass really needs to be compressed!).

Make sure you're reading and watching tutorials on compression to get a better understanding. You might find yourself saying, "Well, I certainly don't need a compressor on this lead synth part, in fact I squashed the dynamics." And, if you don't know what dynamics are, well then don't even be screwing around with compression until you educate yourself on the compressor.

Layering? Yea you probably should to get that big sound. Get two kick samples; one for low end you can feel, and the other for punch. Layer the samples, EQ, and compress them the taste. Your punchy sample need not have the low end so roll it off so it don't compete with the more sub bassy kick sample. Also, if you want your kick to really cut through the mix then sidechain compress that bad boy.

Compress everything to taste, so everything fits in well, and layer to add width or depth. I'm sure you can make an 808 kick drum in operator

Some thing to consider which I found useful:

a) Learn how a compressor "really" works and what a parameter eg. treshold really means...
b) same is valid for EQ
c) use samples for Kicks , there are trillions of them out there (eg Goldbaby) Most of them are layered and compressed already
d) Get yourself the best speakers you can afford...
e) maybe even more important treat your room.
f) use spectrum to analyze tracks
g) analyze tracks and try to rebuild them

I hope this helps...

Vorb wrote:Generally, in trap music, or in prog. house, etc. what all needs to be compressed? The kicks? Snares? What else needs to be compressed for a better mix? I know a lot of it varies on what sound you're trying to get out of it, but generally, what needs compressed?

Also, if you have studio monitors or a good headset, you can hear the amount of depth in the kick drum used in this song: https://soundcloud.com/oskimusic/oski-spaced-out

How do I achieve such a deep, badass kick? 808's layered on kicks?

Thanks a lot!