What to compress?

Ok, ok. I'm a dud when it comes to compression. I used it only on drums, but how about compressing other sounds? Samples. basses, software instruments?
You see I'm a nice guy I only ask what do you compress, not how and not what are you using to do it.

Vocals and masters on mixtapes I do!

I think compression can help on any audio material, vocals, drums, keys, all that shit.

Be careful. Over compression kills sound fast. It reduces punch in Kicks, brings up the noise floor, reduces top end. But if used right it can be your best friend.

look into bus compression and parallel compression.

From when I was tampering with the compression, it seems like a very powerful tool. Seems that there is no one thing that you want to compress, more like sections or certain sounds. I've heard people say that they like to compress snares and whatnot, but I'm sure it's all preference. I was doing it for the masters, only because I didn't want to normalize my sounds that I sampled. The sounds were very quiet and the compressor amped up the sound. Be careful with it though, as it can murder or help your song all in the same

Sm0keydaBear wrote: I've heard people say that they like to compress snares and whatnot, but I'm sure it's all preference.

It all depends on what kind of track ur working on and the quality of the samples/recordings u're working with.
Like the snare thing. When used correctly, compression can make a snare more dominant, make it sound fatter. But if u have a simple 'empty' beat and ur snare is already cutting through ur mix I don't see any reason to compress it. If a snare drum is loosing it's presence in the mix while I want some more accent on my backbeat, then yes I will use the compressor.
And lot's of time I use it for what it was originally designed for: to smooth out those high volume peaks. On vocals and other stuff.

For a beginner in compression you dont really want to get into compressing every sound as it can totally ruin your track.
If you are not sure how to use compression on different sound its better to do just the beats and the bass and leave the rest alone for the final master.

Yea. I started to experiment with the basses and it gave nice effect.

You can compress anything, at the end of the day it's just a tool. First and foremost read about how it works, get that theory down so you know roughly what to expect and then apply that knowledge.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep09/articles/compressionmadeeasy.htm

I can't remember which other magazine it was, I think it was SOS, but they had a really good article on creative compression, it may even be in the article above I haven't read through thoroughly, but it was really good. Try track that down if you can too.

i really dont want to sound like im telling anyone what to do cuz everybody has their own way to go about things and nothind is 'wrong" (well mayb some things r wrong) i suggest especially with compression that u read up on what compression does what is its purpose so that u can use it properly i ve seen a lot of people say(not necess in this particular thread) that compression does this or that and i disagree with that statement ie: compression kills the punch in drums.
compression CAN kill the punch in drums would b a better thing to say as someone mentioned above .
a compressor dosent do 1 particular thing it effects DYNAMICS of a signal according to the variables that u set. Quickly for those that dont know dynamics of a signal is the levels of volume in a signal (bad explanation) its how loud or quiet the volume is at different moments in the same signal. compressors help change the difference in volume anyway u want it to. anyway honestly read up on it before u go and do it, it will help u understand the results . To answer the question i could use compression on anything it depends what im going for sound wise .Someone mentioned that they use compression during the recording of vocals i was curious as to why u would do that? not nescessarily that its a bad thing but i wanted to know what r u trying to accomplish by doing that is it to avoid clipping cuz personally i think that the dynamic range of vocals is very important
and i always process after recording. thx.

oh didnt realise scooby just said the same thing in less words my bad

^^^^

Maybe some use it as a limiter?
Some vocal artists (who don't have that much experience with a microphone) have a wide dynamic range. When u set the pre-amp at normal gain the signal will cause clipping, while lowering the gain will make the signal too quiet causing an unwanted raise of groundnoise after normalizing.
I know a few cats who recrod thru compressors/limiters for this reason.