Compressing Percussion

Audiotent Tip 363. Compressing Percussion.

Percussion can often be very dynamic and take up lots of valuable headroom in your mix.
Compression can help control the percussion by reducing the volume of the loudest hits and making the overall level consistent.
A good starting point would be medium to fast attack, so that part of the transient can come through, enhancing the natural characteristic of percussion instruments.
Release set to fast as there needs to be enough time for compression to recover before the next hit.