Good, low cost compressor for kick & snare

[east3rdst]

what makes a compressor acceptable for kick drums and snares? I have a alesis 3630, and it ain't cutting it.

[phamtec]

Why not a plugin?

Cheaper than external and much easier to deal with when mixing.

[BradLyons]

I would STRONGLY recommend to look into the Bomb Factory Vintage Compressors or even the Waves Renaissance Compressor. Sure, I'd rather have a rack of Manley Varimu's (and sometimes have access to them), but that isn't cheap! You'll find that these plugins are of excellent quality even in the native land (and far better than the 3630 by a long-shot).

Hope this helps.

[davidp158]

A poor compressor will suck the life out of any track, especially so with fast attack instruments like kick and snare.The Bomb Factory stuff is cool if you want to mimic vintage gear, but I find their compressors to have rather limited characteristics that I haven't properly learned when and where they best work. I don't mean to say they're not good....I just haven't gotten a handle on where they are best suited.

I'm using the McDSP Compressor Bank series and think they are much better than the Digi rack plug ins. I haven't been able to keep the Digi rack stuff from hacking off tone with drums. The McDSP plug ins don't seem to eat up a lot of CPU power.

Plug ins are convenient, and let you adjust your compressor settings in the context of the mix, which is usually preferred. Still, I often compress some instruments when tracking to keep peaks under control, so an outboard compressor is nice to have.

For outboard compressors, I've heard good reviews of the FMR RNC (Real Nice Compressor) for drums. Its a basic stereo compressor, which sells for $175 from Mercenary Audio, in Boston. Not many frills, but the audio quality is reported to be extremely good for the price.

Hope this helps,
Dave Patterson
Knobville

[east3rdst]

Ive used a some of the bomb factory stuff too, but I would like a good, loud as possible, without clipping, signal going into the digi. Plugins can't do that.

[east3rdst]

I also have a Focusrite Tone Factory. I don't think it's cut out for drums, but I've yet to tried it.

[phamtec]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:<HR>Ive used a some of the bomb factory stuff too, but I would like a good, loud as possible, without clipping, signal going into the digi. Plugins can't do that. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Plugins don't NEED to do that! Just turn the gain down so it doesn't clip.

You have tonnes of headroom to play with!

It's all digital remember.

[ThomCat]

It sounds like you're trying to do two things...both brick-wall limit to allow a hot level while tracking, and compress to shape the envelope. I usually try to do the former just for the tracking phase and use a plug for the sound-shaping phase later on, but a good hardware unit should allow some of both during the tracking phase, even though in many ways these two tasks can be at cross-purposes to each other when attempting them with one unit. If you think about these as two separate tasks it's easier to narrow in on what you're trying to accomplish, even if you end up doing it all with one unit during tracking.

I like the Waves C1, but as you say, plugs are no help when tracking. I've also heard nothing but good things about the FMR RNC.

If you are trying to get a transparent sound but still get hot levels while tracking, the Waves L2 or an Apogee with SoftLimit turned on should do the trick...they will tame any transients letting you track at a perceptibly much hotter level without squashing things too much (or hardly at all). That solves the hot tracking issue. You can precede that with a hardware comp such as the RNC if needed for the envelope-shaping.

If you are simply trying to get a hot track without obvious compression using a conventional hardware unit, try a medium-fast attack, fast release, high threshold, soft knee, Peak or RMS (depending on taste) and high ratio for tracking, and try a plug such as the C1 to shape the sound afterwards if needed. For a sub-track that includes both kick and snare, the Waves C4 or another multi-band can be very useful as well.

[carloswarlick]

You might want to try finding a couple used dbx 160x compressors as they would be a nice improvement over a lot of plugins for the kick & snare. I would say they would be a good investment since they go for pretty cheap & you could use them on many different applications.....even an occasional vocal!!!
Good Luck

[east3rdst]

RNC good for kick & Snares?