should I compress my drums before mastering? Is it a good idea? I'm thinking of sending the mix dry (meaning without any compression) but then again I also think that person mastering might not get the same "punch". what should I do?

  • Redsecta Mix & Master Chief of Operative Operations

    For sure! Bus compression is something that I think is done best at the mix level. When I mix and then master a track, I like to take care of most of my compression in the mix (compressing the drum bus with a different compressor than the vocals, etc.)

    I prefer using compression at mastering to tame the peaks a little bit, just for an added bit of dynamic control and sometimes I might leave the peaks on a mix poking out a little bit too much (on kicks for example) so that I can add more "glue" at mastering, sometimes after tone shaping a mix with filters. Once in a while, I may get a mix that has a bit too much "crest" (the difference between the peaks and valleys in the signal of a mix) so the mix isn't sounding "glued" the way an optimally-processed mix might sound when using just the right amount of dynamics control; I would then use compression to even things out a bit, but as you know, it's not possible to focus just on the drums when applying a compressor to the entire mix.

    Not enough compression is always better than too much compression though. I recently worked on a mix where someone applied a bit too much compression, making a lot of the other elements of the mix squashed and uneven, and there's a few things you can try at mastering to pull things out a bit, but there's nothing like having just the right amount of compression and other processes that work for the mix. If you work out the dynamics you want to hear from your mix, it's possible that at mastering, all you would need is just a bit of tonal shaping, and if levels are to be increased a bit, it could happen without changing too much of the mix's dynamics.

    Good luck and thanks for the question!

  • Redsecta Mix & Master Chief of Operative Operations

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