Guide to Applying Compression on Snare Drums

The snare drum is usually one of the key pieces of a fully arranged song, and as such it's important for it to sound it's best. Even professional Engineers can get stuck for hours or days trying to find the perfect snare drum sound to fit the song. Do it yourself engineers are often puzzled by how these pros get their great snare tones, but I'm here to tell you secret ingredient: Compression. So how do we use compression on snare drums? Let's begin.

First, it's important to understand why compression works so well for snare drums. The snare drum itself is a percussive instrument. And with all percussive instruments, the actual attack of the drum if much louder than the drum itself. Using compression, you can boost these quiet signals to match the strike, while reducing the volume of the strike to match the rest. Makes perfect sense, right? A consistent, uniform snare drum sounds much better that one that's drowned out by the batter skin strikes.

Now, when using compression on most things you'll want to be very gentle so you don't ''squash'' the dynamics of the audio. For most Snare Drum applications, you're actually going to want to really use really high settings. Perhaps the only instance where this won't be the case is when the snare is playing many ghost notes. Even then, you'll still probably need a generous serving of compression. The most important thing here is to experiment with the settings. Remember what you like but also change the parameters and bit to find the best sounding ones.

The attack parameter is also extremely important. The attack parameter signifies how fast the signal is effected. Obviously, if it's too slow then it will miss the snare being struck entirely. Loop a part of your song and listen carefully, make sure you don't completely squash the dynamics but remember you want a very even tone. If your ears need a rest, give it to them. After awhile, your ears won't be able to discern the minute differences it could when you first starting your mixing session. So take a hefty break if you need one.

Finally, one great tool other than compression is limiting. Limiting can create many awesome sound effects on drums, so feel free to experiment. Even with the highest settings, you can really hear some great tones coming out. Many industrial and even metal drum parts feature this effects laden type of drumming.