# Big punchy drums - compression - 1176-style, or...



## alligatorlizard (Sep 19, 2014)

I'm demo-ing a bunch of compressors, after something mainly for big punchy pumping drums - bigbeat/rock/edm style sort of thing. My go-to compressor for ages has been psps oldtimer, but I'm not feeling it's right for _this_ purpose.

So far I've demo'd: 

softube FET
the rocket
big blue compressor
Waves H-comp
FabFilter Pro-C

Now I've always thought of punchy drums as needing a decent attack time - 20 - 50 ms maybe, depending on the kick. However I've noticed that 1176-style compressors (which I've not used before) have _very_ short attack times, below 2ms. Also, I keep reading that 1176's are great for punchy drums, and I'm indeed finding this to be the case - but I'm not understanding how they do this with such short attack times?

From the list above, I'm liking the FET best (sounds way better than the rocket to me) - but are there any limitations a fast-attack compressor of this style might have compared to ones with longer release times? Or to put it another way, if you have a 1176 and a VCA (or any other type with longer attacks available), what would be the thinking behind choosing which one to use on a drum bus?


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## jeffc (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*

Check out the IK T-Racks 1176. It's pretty awesome for that....


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## tokatila (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*

Elysia mpressor, free 14 day demo from plugin-alliance.com

Review here http://www.musicradar.com/reviews/tech/elysia-mpressor-236450/


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## guydoingmusic (Sep 19, 2014)

If you have any of the UAD plugs.... the 1176 Collection is nothing short of amazing! Also, the dbx160 is a fav of many. I think Zimmer likes to use this a lot.


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## Lemmonz (Sep 19, 2014)

If you haven't already, check out Molot for character/color compressor with similarities to the LA-2A/1176 style compressors. It's free:

http://vladgsound.wordpress.com/plugins/molot/

You'll need to know how to tweak its settings, but it's very capable of some really great results.


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## Carbs (Sep 19, 2014)

guydoingmusic @ Fri Sep 19 said:


> If you have any of the UAD plugs.... the 1176 Collection is nothing short of amazing! Also, the dbx160 is a fav of many. I think Zimmer likes to use this a lot.




+1 UAD is killer in the 1176 department.


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## spiralbill (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*

H-Comp is growing on me a lot.
I started using it a lot since I saw them all the time in Brian Tyler's left screen (on a lot of his interviews, studio pics). It's a very easy way to get parallel compression going in your stuff (wet/dry knob). I usually just compress the hell out of the thing and back it off by half or so. Additionally, you can stick a Pro-C before H-Comp to do a mild compression to soften transients a bit.

I mean c'mon, H-Comp even has a knob dedicated to "Punch."


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Sep 19, 2014)

Big fan of the Rocket.


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## Oliver_Codd (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*

I think a large part of the 1176 drum sound has to do with the analogue distortion so I'm not sure how the plugin versions hold up. A common practice with the 1176 is to use it as a parallel comp with the ratio set to 'all' while slamming the input. You get all sorts of tasty color and good distortion that way, and the drums sound enormous. I think my 3 favorite drum comps would be the 1176, api2500 and Distressors. The waves api 2500 is a fantastic plugin comp. It's by far my favorite.


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## Carbs (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*



Oliver_Codd @ Fri Sep 19 said:


> I think a large part of the 1176 drum sound has to do with the analogue distortion so I'm not sure how the plugin versions hold up. A common practice with the 1176 is to use it as a parallel comp with the ratio set to 'all' while slamming the input. You get all sorts of tasty color and good distortion that way, and the drums sound enormous. I think my 3 favorite drum comps would be the 1176, api2500 and Distressors. The waves api 2500 is a fantastic plugin comp. It's by far my favorite.



I think the UAD MKII 1176 compressors do a much better job in this department, for what you're taking about.

Of course...nothing beats the analog version! It's just expensive to have 10 of them going in a mix!


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## ceemusic (Sep 19, 2014)

also check out
Klanghelm DC8C2
Kush UBK-1
API emus


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## dgburns (Sep 19, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*



alligatorlizard @ Fri Sep 19 said:


> I'm demo-ing a bunch of compressors, after something mainly for big punchy pumping drums - bigbeat/rock/edm style sort of thing. My go-to compressor for ages has been psps oldtimer, but I'm not feeling it's right for _this_ purpose.
> 
> So far I've demo'd:
> 
> ...



I own a bunch of hardware comps(zener,distressors neve etc).My vote goes to UBK for a host of features that make it easy to get slammin drums.Also,many ppl seem to not know of the "clipping" distortion plugs out there.They are a secret weapon.Check out the Stillwell event horizon,also Logic has a decent clipper in the distortion menu,very usefull for brickwall limiting with attitude,just remember to set the bit rate to 24bits.as it was maybe intended to be used as a lo fi type effect as well.
Also decapitator from Soundtoys is fun too


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## ed buller (Sep 20, 2014)

*Re: Big punchy drums - 1176-style, or...*

you are doing parallel compression aren't you ? 1176 should be great ! all the buttons in

e


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## alligatorlizard (Sep 20, 2014)

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'm about to demo a few now - the krush thing looks particularly interesting, tho unusual.

However my question on this thread is not so much "what's the best compressor", but about trying to understand the difference between 1176 (and maybe also la2a?) style compressors, ie those with very fast attacks - and what is different about these that means you can still get a nice transient punch with these fast attack times. 

Can anyone explain what's going on here technically speaking? eg is there a fundamentally different way these compressors clamp down? Or is the key to the 1176 to use parallel compression with fast attack & release, and let the transient punch come from the unprocessed channel?

As for am I doing parallel compression, I've tried it with all the above while demo-ing - I reckon the FET sounds best using parallel compression (all buttons in!) - however with more of a subtle approach (not parallel) 4:1 ratio, few db gain reduction, longer attack, I'm finding the big blue one is my favourite, especially once I started adjusting the "choke" and "drive" knobs - can't get anything like as bombastic a sound from the Pro-C for example.


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## ed buller (Sep 20, 2014)

I personally don't think compression does anything pleasant to an overall drum mix unless it's in parallel . On individual tracks maybe. A little room,or overheads ....a cheeky bit on the snare or kick....fine...but for THAT sound you ideally want to crush the drum bus and mix it in with an uncrushed signal. Also make sure you are not having phase issues. 

What I do when i'm mixing is ( on pro tools ) send all the drums to two busses. On both i put compression. Then bypass one. Both busses I send to another bus which is my master. On the compressed side I crush 40:1....set the threshold so it's always compressing then back of the attack so it's fairly slow. release should be fast. Then set the level against the uncompressed. 

Start with the uncompressed and slowly mix in the compressed. You can at this point play with the attack for faster responses and the ratio too.


e


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## Dan Mott (Sep 21, 2014)

*I personally don't think compression does anything pleasant to an overall drum mix unless it's in parallel* - ed buller



agree


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## alligatorlizard (Sep 22, 2014)

That's pretty much what I'm finding - so far, I've got closest to the sound I'm after with FET compressor ALL buttons in, short attack/release, lots of gain reduction and in parallel.

That does seem to be the trick for big larger than life hyped up drum loops? (Crystal Method/Chemical Brothers/Fatboy Slim etc.) Or would anyone say there's a good way of doing this without parallel compression, and using a non FET style compressor with release long enough to let punch thru (eg around 30ms say)?


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## tokatila (Sep 22, 2014)

Just came to mind. If you own Cubase 7+, its new Vintage Compressor (1176 style) is very good for sidechaining and pumping.


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## Marius Masalar (Sep 22, 2014)

Compression gets you the "Big and Pumping" element, and the parallel stream lets you keep "Punchy" in there as well. Otherwise you can't really have both.

Frankly, I don't think the choice of compressor will make that big a difference here...any of the ones you mentioned will probably get you this sound. Personally, I tend to use the Softube FET for NY-style drum mixing, but I could just as easily use Pro-C, one of the NI compressors, or even Logic's.


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## alligatorlizard (Sep 23, 2014)

Marius Masalar @ Mon 22 Sep said:


> Compression gets you the "Big and Pumping" element, and the parallel stream lets you keep "Punchy" in there as well. Otherwise you can't really have both.
> 
> Frankly, I don't think the choice of compressor will make that big a difference here...any of the ones you mentioned will probably get you this sound. Personally, I tend to use the Softube FET for NY-style drum mixing, but I could just as easily use Pro-C, one of the NI compressors, or even Logic's.



That's a really good way of thinking of it, compression itself giving big/pumping sound, parallel stream giving punch. Tbh I've never tried parallel comp much before - I've always tried to inject punch back in to a compressed sound by increasing attack time till enough transient comes thru - I'm guessing both methods are valid, but just result in slightly different effects? 

Also, after reading your second paragraph, I went back and gave parallel compression a go with PSP Oldtimer ME - setting this on fastest attack and release, max gain, max ratio, I actually got almost indistinguishable results to the FET! The FET maybe has a bit more presence, but it's subtle difference in the mix.

Maybe I don't need another compressor for NYC-comp after all?!?

btw, am still on cubase 5, tho 7 is staring to look more and more worth the upgrade.


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## Marius Masalar (Sep 23, 2014)

In my opinion, the difference between recovering transients by easing up on compressor attack values vs. never losing them in the first place by using parallel processing is a bit of a no-brainer.

Parallel compression is—by definition—the best of both worlds. That's why it's such a critical technique to have in your toolbox of mix tricks.

As for compressor choice, the one aspect where it might be worth having a different compressor (beyond subtle "character" differences) is in terms of convenience. A compressor like Softube's FET emulation has a Mix ("Parallel Inject") knob right there on the interface so you don't have to create an extra channel. If you don't have a compressor with a mix knob then that might be something to look for.

On the other hand, manually separating the channels opens up a world of extra possibilities as far as processing the two streams individually to really surgically sculpt the combination. Depends how much time you want to spend on this kind of thing.


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## Soundmagic (Sep 23, 2014)

Based on your case, I would suggest you also demoed this
http://www.supremepiano.com/product/neodyna.html
It is an all purposed dynamic processor which provides many types of compression, you should check it


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## ed buller (Sep 23, 2014)

of course you don't have to limit it to just compressed and un compressed. Lot's of mix engineers drop another compression bus in on top of the ones they are already using. Favourite trick of a lot of US mixers for spanking the chorus !

e


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