{"id":208,"date":"2017-07-22T10:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T10:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5722.temp.domains\/~audioor1\/extremely-dirty-compression-method-using-reapers-custom-actions\/"},"modified":"2017-07-22T10:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T10:10:00","slug":"extremely-dirty-compression-method","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/audioordeal.co.uk\/extremely-dirty-compression-method\/","title":{"rendered":"Extremely Dirty “Compression” Method Using Reaper’s Custom Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"
While there are hundreds of software compressors out there fighting for transparency, sometimes we want something much more dirty. I’m going to show you a very simple technique for supercharging your drums in a way that is raw, unapologetic, and overall more gritty. It is something which I’ve been working on and have found it to be incredibly useful for drums in genres such as Dubstep, and Drum & Bass, where the transients are fully retained, yet the sound is destroyed in another way to achieve the ultimate loudness.<\/div>\n
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The technique can be a bit hands-on for the first time you try it, but if you make use of macros and custom actions (e.g in Reaper’s powerful custom action editor), it can be achieved at the push of a single key command.<\/div>\n
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First thing to do is to add a drum loop. I took one from a future percussion sample pack.<\/div>\n

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You then want to set your grid to smaller divisions (if not already). I have set my grid to 16th notes which makes it much more handy to split the items. At each grid line, split the item.<\/div>\n
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After you have split each the item into 16th beat chunks, select it all and normalise each one.<\/div>\n
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The reason we do this is because if we normalise the item as a whole, it will make the loudest peak hit the loudest possible point. If there is a single loud hit, the rest of the sample doesn’t increase by much. By dividing it into 16th beats, each individual slice is normalised to it’s loudest point meaning the quieter beats between the louder ones are brought up too.<\/div>\n
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Glue the item back together and enjoy! If you look at the above photo, you will see the unedited version, and the edited one below. The hats (blue hits) are the most apparent, being much bigger peaks than they were, in comparison to the kick. If you notice, the kicks remain more or less the same, and none of the transient has been snipped at the top, like it would have been with a normal compressor.<\/div>\n
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If we want to get technical, we could argue that this resembles an upwards expander, more than it resembles a compressor, however the technique results in a very similar outcome.<\/div>\n
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For more “compression” try chopping it into 32nd beats instead and the slices will be smaller, meaning more can be brought up. This is a much more obvious effect and for long tails, you get a stutter like effect as each segment hits it’s loudest point again.<\/div>\n
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Above, you can see the different amounts of “compression” applied by different grid size divisions, going from 16ths, to 128ths. Cool artefacts arise with different sizes of grid slicing, some of which resemble delay-like features. <\/div>\n
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When using a sparse drum beat with room ambience the effect can be incredibly powerful, great for techno styles where sudden, brief bursts of loud ambience chop in and out between the beats.<\/div>\n
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Below is a sound demo showing the benefits and flaws of the technique. Each different division from the original sound, through to 128th divisions are indicated by a brief saw wave beep.<\/div>\n
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