1. bus drums and apply New York (parallel) compression
2. snare: to get that pop sound short attack, low threshold, heavy ratio, long release.

There has to be a good tutorial on this somewhere.

I'll frequently compress bass drum & snare drum. When I do that, I'll generally also add gating or fast downward expansion to tighten things up. If I have a good room with good ambience, I'll frequently highly compress room mics/overheads. Frequently I will it gate all the toms as well. So this gives you a very zippy & tight sounding drum kit. You have to realize, all the drum microphones are off unless the drum is being played. I particularly like to do this with hardware devices as opposed to software. There are some better downward expander gating programs but I haven't been terribly impressed with what I've heard. So I still do the analog thing any old way I can.

Beyond the gate
Ms. Remy Ann David

can you elaborate on what downward expansion is please remy?

" Downward-Expansion " is the same as gating. The difference being is that you can set the amount of downward-expansion. So I will generally downwardly expand by the same amount as the gain reductions in the compressors.

Gating, can sound simply horrendous since Gates are an on-again, off-again, proposition. Whereas, downward expansion, can be told to stop at -6, -10, -20, etc.. So, not designed to actually eliminate background audio issues, a moderately fast device can provide a tighter drum sound/mix.

Setting threshold can be the most challenging as is a fine line between the gate opening & closing.

Punching in. And punching out.
Ms. Remy Ann David

I have a plugin, acts as a noise gate but has a range control, from infinite, then -24 to 0dB. Also has expand controls etc.
[[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.geocitie…"]Autogate/Expander[/]="http://www.geocitie…"]Autogate/Expander[/]

Hey Codemonkey! Those plug-ins look interesting. Can't tell if they are just trial demos, until I load them?? I don't read Mandarin Chinese. I'm particularly looking forward to the downward expander as I've not found anything that works as particularly well as my 30+ year old KEPEX 1's. I actually don't play on the Internet much and so don't generally search for this type of thing. I already waste too much time here which I don't really consider a waste when helping others.

Thanks!
Ms. Remy Ann David

Yeah I just remembered that after I saw the page :lol:
They're all (I think all) freeware, and I've just picked up a few new ones such as the side-chain compressor.

I found them while searching KVRaudio's pretty good [="link removed database[/]="link removed database[/]. Set the type to "effects" and choose some types further down, after the instruments. I always uncheck "Commercial" too because I'm that way.
But not THAT way.

[edit] I now have over 60MB of plugins mostly all of which were found listed in that database. Not all of which I like, or use, or can use, but still have.
My favourites include [[url=http://="http://karmafx.net/…"]KarmaFX[/]="http://karmafx.net/…"]KarmaFX[/] reverb (haven't found a more featured one although the sound is a bit mmm sometimes) and the compressor from Reaper's [[url=http://[/URL]="http://reaper.fm/re…"]plugin pack[/]="http://reaper.fm/re…"]plugin pack[/].
Not exactly rivals to high-end gear but 60MB or $6000?