Hey! Yepp you guessed it, another “kick compression” thread!

What I don’t understand is the concept EQ then Compress? When you equalize a kick, what you do basically is lowering the volume of frequencies you don’t want. However when you compress the kick what you do is “flattening” the volume over the frequencies?

So what’s the point?

Don’t get me wrong, professional kicks often sound way better then mine, but it just feels like compression only removes character of the sound?

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By compressing a kick you are removing some of the dynamic range (loudest point to the softest i believe) depending on how you do this you may end up with a rounder kick or a dull kick. By compression it can sound louder and thumpier without as much volume but it may sound flatter.

Was this really important enough to post on two forums?

Besides. Compression doesn't remove character, it changes it. Same with EQ. It's all about where you're aiming at.

Compression helps alot to gain headroom in a mix where EQ isn't enough. Especially on the kick, which usually takes up the most space in a track.

First thing first:

You don't have to compress.

Second:

If you EQ then compress it doesn't cancel out the EQ, unless you compress it like crazy, which you don't want to do. It does flatten it out a little bit, but you can compensate that by lowering the EQ even more, so no harm done really.

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i always eq AFTER compression, because surely that would get round the problem of cancelling out the EQ?

is that right?

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quote:

Originally posted by messytechie i always eq AFTER compression, because surely that would get round the problem of cancelling out the EQ? is that right?

Anything is right, but it might mess up your compressiong more than it would mess up you EQ if you would do it the other way around.

If you do this you should compress after the EQ to. I often do that. ie:

Compress -> EQ -> Compress

But I often overcompress so...

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There is no right or wrong imho. What you're aiming at is crafting a sound. Sometimes you comress, eq, compress then eq to get the sound, sometimes you eq then compress. Sometimes you just eq. Sometimes you do nothing. The combinations are endless, and it's all about learning what to use and when with the source sound's you're trying to craft.

yeah, another example would be if you want to just compress the tail of a kick then you could use a long attack time to let the click of a kick through the compressor untouched. Suppose you could achieve this with eq too but the results sound different