The role of compression in Dam Swindle’s emotional tone and groove

Dam Swindle has spent the past decade refining a production style that blends live instrumentation with groove-heavy house music, built on patience, character, and subtlety.

With their new album Open out on Heist Recordings, the duo sat down with us to reflect on how they use tools like the VC 2A and VC 76 compressors not just for control, but for musical shape and feel.

So, if they’re dialing in warmth for vintage synths or tightening their drum bus for club impact, their compression workflow is rooted more in their taste than in any template or formulaic step-by-step process that a tutorial teaches.

Jump to these sections:

• Why VC 76 helps Dam Swindle balance instruments without crushing transients
• How compression changes depending on a section’s emotional tone
• Group vs. track-level compression: when to go granular and when to zoom out
• The difference between glue and character in a busy mix
• How digital compressors become part of the instrument
• Why mixing as a duo keeps their decisions grounded and collaborative

Let’s dive into our catch-up with the duo to hear how they think about compression creatively, how they avoid overworking their mixes, and why trusting their ears still trumps chasing perfect tone.

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When you reach for something like VC 2A or VC 76 early in the chain, what exactly are you listening for in the dry signal?

There’s so many ways you could use a compressor and so many reasons to go for one in the various stages of production.

We use compressors like the VC 76 for parallel compression on our drum bus to give the whole drum section a bit of a boost and a pumping feeling, but without losing any transients. Sometimes, we reach for a compressor to fine-tune the presence of the different synths and pianos we use in our tracks.

We often have different synths playing parts together or filling voids of another synth. With compression, we can decide on the position of each synth and how much of it we want to punch through the mix, or really blend in with the rest.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Use the internet and your community. The internet is your friend. You can learn almost anything for free. Sit in with people who know what they’re doing. It’s the best way to learn skills like mixing and engineering.

How does your approach to compression shift depending on the emotional tone you’re trying to build in a section?

Well, sometimes you just want something to really get crunchy, even distorted, or to get more harmonics out of that particular sound. In that case we’ll go for pretty extreme ratios and heavy input. Sometimes, it’s about that final detail to get your keys to sound as a whole, and then it’s a way more gentle approach.

We use a lot of sidechaining as well, and when we’re getting close to the final mix, we’ll tweak these parts a lot to make sure everything works together to give the track the right groove and the energy it needs.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Be patient. Mixing is a skill. It takes patience and a lot of training. Everyone sounded bad when they started and that’s ok.

Do you generally compress individual tracks before bus processing, or do you shape at the group level first?

We tend to start at track level.

That could be compression on a snare, kick, synth or bass. The drum bus always gets treated with a range of modules such as EQ, distortion and compression. We tend to go back and forth a lot from group to track level once we’ve got most of the processing in there, because it can be tiny tweaks on both ends that really help you get the mix you want.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Listen to your mixes on different speakers and headphones. Yes, also cheaper ones. It helps you polish your mix.

How much of the “glue” in your mixes comes from compression versus EQ or saturation?

Good question. I’d say we use a fair amount of everything and most key elements in our tracks will have all of these in there. The glue is probably something we obtain most through compression though, whereas saturation is really about character.

Playing around with EQ settings and compression settings on an instrument is also useful to get a feel of how much a certain EQ range affects the signal, so that’s something we do throughout creating our tracks. We’re also always pretty quick to slap a compressor on a sound, just to get a feel of how it would sit in the mix, what function it could have in the track, etc.

There’s always quite a lot going on in our tracks with keyboards, bass, different synths, samples and vocals. Getting all of that to sound good together as a whole is probably one of the most challenging things we’ve had to learn over the years. Glue has been a keyword for us in that respect.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Not everything needs compression. Some things are enjoyed best when they’re not loud at all.

When you’re working on a warm or nostalgic-feeling track, do you think about the compressor as a musical instrument in itself?

These digital compressors sound absolutely great and they can make (or break) a sound. In that sense, we see them more as an extension of the instrument. We’ve got a couple of old synths that definitely need compression to mix them properly. It’s a tool that helps us shape the sounds we create.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Go for extremes. See what happens when the input maxes out. Go for silly ratios. It’s the best way to discover what an instrument can do for you.

How do you avoid second-guessing tone-based decisions when you’re mixing with fresh ears the next day?

Well, as a duo, we’ve already got a second pair of ears – fresh or not – listening in all the time. We both have to stay open to the ideas of the other, so that probably makes it easier to listen to your mixes with an open mind.

After almost 15 years of releasing music, we also know we’re still learning. Some days your mixing is just better than other days. We also always remind ourselves that a great track is still a great track, even if the mixing is a bit rough. Sometimes those subtle mixing mistakes can turn out really great and give a track its character.

Pro tips from Dam Swindle: Start with creativity, not gear. You don’t need any gear. Embrace your limits and find your own sound.

Wrapping it all up

With Open, Dam Swindle offers a showcase of production finesse and is a masterclass in subtlety, cohesion, and groove. Their use of compression across the record is all about personality. Whether it’s the bounce of a Rhodes loop or the tuck of a filtered snare, you can feel how dialed-in their instincts are from years of trusting the gear to serve the emotion.

And that’s what makes Open feel so enduring.

It’s built from the kind of thoughtful decisions you only make when you’re mixing with your ears, not your ego. It’s a clear example of how you can make a technically tight record without ever losing its soul. If there’s one takeaway here, it’s that compression is part of the conversation and not just a link in the chain.

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