A Simple Way to Get Fatter, Punchier Drums

If you’ve ever wondered how to make drums feel fatter while retaining their natural punch, a great way to achieve this is parallel compression.

The idea is simple: you blend your original, uncompressed drums with a separate, heavily compressed version.

To set this up:

1. Send your drums to an auxiliary track
2. Apply a fairly heavy amount of compression to that auxiliary track
3. Then blend the heavily compressed drums with the original uncompressed drums

The original drums retain all of their natural punch, while the compressed version provides the weight and thickness of fatter drums.

It’s a simple technique that can really add impact in your mix.

Give it a try on your next mix.