Ever have an extremely full track and can't hear your drums? Or do you just want your kick and snare to stand out more? Learn how to make your drums upfront with compressors and dynamics!
Prior Knowledge
Compressor
A compressor is a dynamic range adjuster that turns the loud sections of a sound down, or can turn quiet sections of a sound up, even automatically (not featured in audiotool).
Dynamics
A sound's dynamic range is loudness - quietness; it is loudness in relation to quietness of a single sound. Low dynamic range is more upfront, and high dynamic range is more in in the background.
Making A Sound More Upfront
How to use the compressor
There are a set of parameters that control a compressor. Here is a list of those parameters: Ratio: the mix of the compressor in relation to infinity. Ex: 1:2 is 1/2 effect, 1:inf is full effect. Threshold: The level at which the compressor will turn down a section to. Knee: The level of curve between the threshold level and -infinity decibels. RMS: Root Mean Square. Google it. Peak: 0 RMS; Absolutely instant. Attack: Fade in. Release: Fade out afterward; tail. Make-Up: Post gain. Auto Make-Up: Like an inverse compressor; automatically turns the quiet sections of a sound up to a set level. Tip: Use 0 RMS/Peak, Attack, and Release, and 1:inf Ratio to make a clipper, which forcefully cuts off, and kinda squarifies the waves of audio.
How To Lower Dynamic Range
Want to know how to lower dynamic range and make your drums more upfront? I will give these directions step by step. 1. Set ratio to 1:inf, or as high as you can. 2. Set RMS/Peak and Attack to 0 ms. 3. Set Release to 50 ms or so. 4. Set Knee to 0 dB. 5. Adjust the Threshold to your liking. 6. Make up any lost volume with the Make-Up parameter, or turn on Auto Make-Up if available.
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"only applies if they are weird techno drums with nothing but transient." Sorry, no. Every drum, electronic or acoustic, has by its percussive nature a transient and a decay. If you chop the whole transient (the initial impact) of the drum with a limiter set to infinity and its shortest attack, you will kill the sound, you will effectively remove its -impact-. You can try it yourself. Actually, mixing engineers use moderate compression ratios and control the attack time very carefully to leave the first transient (especially kick and snare) almost unaffected. The attack and release times will also be affected by the tempo of your track, because you want the compression of your drums to be "rhythmic" and follow the track. Your method doesn't address any of that. Here's a general guide to treat and mix drums in a track. There are many more excellent ones online: (link is only visible to registered users)
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[a comment downvoted by multiple users] 
what you are saying about the impact transients only applies if they are weird techno drums with nothing but transient.
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i do before and afters. The uncompressed is the same volume as the compressed, but it gets blurred out by other sounds. so i compress and compress and boom it's up-front. (of course, not relying on compression only, but it plays a huge part.)
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I usually just side chain most instruments and check out the really low frequencies for most of sounds that aren't a bass.
3 things: 1) "Ratio" isn't really a mix of the full effect versus dry signal. Is the amount of volume reduction applied to the portions of the signal louder than the threshold. Even if your Ratio is very gentle, that's the particular "full effect" that you're creating. This is important when considering parallel processing with a compressor. 2) "Root Mean Square. Google it" What about you define it here, since you're taking the trouble to create this topic? 3) With your extreme settings in the example (which work rather as a hard limiter than a compressor), you could actually suck the life and impact out of your drums and make them -less- upfront. High dynamic range isn't necessarily more background. You still need transients to produce impact. Subtle distortion combined with moderate compression is usually a good way to make things more impactful.