Are you compressing everything else individually as well?

Lately what I've gotten into doing more of is multing it off, like I said. The k ick and snare I'll put through maybe a [dbx] 160 and very lightly compress it, m aybe pulling down half to 1 dB. Then I'll mult them off and go through a new 160 S and really compress those and sneak them up underneath, so you're basically he aring the character of the drum you recorded rather than this bastardized versio n of it. Then I also send all the dry drum tracks, not the rooms or overheads, b ut the kick, snare, and toms, through another compressor and sneak that in to gi ve the kit an overall sound. Distorted guitars I don't compress as much because, when you get a Marshall on 10, it's so compressed already that it doesn't reall y need it. But cleaner guitars or acoustic guitars, I'll compress. And I actuall y got into doing the vocals the same way I do the kick and snare - multing it of f and compressing it real hard and sneaking that under the original vocal. When you say "real hard," how much do you mean? I would say 10 or 12 dB and at a ratio anywhere from like 4:1 to 8:1. My compres sion technique is something I learned from [engineer-producer] Ed Cherney. He wa s telling me about compressing the stereo bus when I was assisting him, but I us e the same technique on everything. I set the attack as slow as possible and the release as fast as possible so all the transients are getting through and the i nitial punch is still there, but it releases instantly when the signal drops bel ow threshold. I think that's a lot of the sound of my mixes. It keeps things kin da popping the whole time. Also, you can compress things a little bit more and n ot have it be as audible. Interview with Jerry Finn (EQ mag)