Hey AC,
I generally find the delivery of my singers heats up a bit for the choruses, plus a lot of times there are backing vocals that kick in for the choruses, thus I don't usually have to bump the vox up. I'm not saying I've never done it...
Great topic! David

Hi-hat (and crashes and ride) groove! Makes a whole lot of difference.

thanks!
other folks?

I think it's best if, in general, the band can be able to take care of their own volume or "macrodynamic" of a song. yeah, there are lots of times where I'll slowly ramp up or down the guitar parts or even the bass and drums. It can be much too noticable just turning everything up at once during a chorus, even 0.5dB, cause even though it's louder, it really doesn't add tension the same way as it would if the band were to just play louder.

But actually, I once automated a compression plugin so that during a chorus the density of the song increased, or once I even slowly ramped it up towards the end of the song leading up to the final 'release' or conclusion. It kinda worked well, supposadly my client was happy with it, shouting "it just keeps getting better and better!"

I just try to think of compression and gain as another form of tension and release, and encorporate that into the harmony and structure of the music. Alot of times with more classic music where there is so much tension already, there is no need for further effects. But for music with really basic harmony, like rock music, which is much much less harmonically complex and lacks that type of dissonence (note: yes! most rock music is MUCH less dissonant then most classic symphonic type) I guess using the compression and gain ramps help aid in the tension-release thang, especially if you have a rock song were the guitar parts are initially compressed to death due to their stomp boxes. (in this case, I'll automate some EQ, or WAH pedal, to shift into different zones of songs, to add some shifting dynamic to it)

well anyways, that's how I try to think of it. ..sorry if that last paragraph is a bit wish-washy, i'm in the middle of intense editing job.. I've been tempted to go all out with volume ramps and sweeping intros, but I'm not mastering this, and don't even know the order of the songs. I think the order is really important before going too much into macrodynamic manipulation, cause I personally hate albums where each song tries to be a big epic hit or something, I like the ones that are there as a less critical event, one that adds to the significance or tension towards the bigger plot points or conlcusions.

nice comments by!
:)