nice post boydie, thank you.

bitflipper
Compression ratios are additive, so even if you're taking off 2 dB at each stage, 3 compressors doing that will result in 6 dB attenuation. With makeup gain you could be raising the cymbal tails by 12 dB, hence your "swishy" sound. (I gather a classic Ringo cymbal wash isn't what you're after.)
 
You could try a multi-band compressor, but more compression probably isn't what you need. A dynamic equalizer such as MDynamicEQ or Pro-MB might be able to contain the cymbals enough that they're not being squashed so hard by your broadband compressor. 

That's interesting Bit.
 
I always thought that compression ratios were multiplicative - so a chain with, say, 2, 4 & 3dB's would yield 24dB.

Decibels are additive; it's the output/input ratios they represent that are multiplicative. In your example 2, 3 and 4 dB correspond to amplitude gains of 1.26, 1.41 and 1.58, respectively. Multiply those together, and you get a net gain factor of 2.82. Convert that to decibels (20 x log(2.82)), and you get 9 (i.e. 2+3+4).

How about duplicating the overheads so you have 2 tracks. Use the hpf on one and the lpf on the other. Compress the one that does not contain the bulk of the cymbals as normal and use different compression techniques for the cymbals in the overheads or don;t compress them at all.
 
Just a thought.

brundlefly
Decibels are additive; it's the output/input ratios they represent that are multiplicative. In your example 2, 3 and 4 dB correspond to amplitude gains of 1.26, 1.41 and 1.58, respectively. Multiply those together, and you get a net gain factor of 2.82. Convert that to decibels (20 x log(2.82)), and you get 9 (i.e. 2+3+4).

You and Bit are right of course.
 
It was the ratio I was thinking of. In my example, ratios of 2:1 3:1 & 4:1 would produce a 24:1 ratio

In the 2^nd post you mentioned a few things you might change when recording and I wanted to add to those thoughts.
 
When setting levels take the time to work with the drummer to get that ride cymbal level in the mix.  In other words when getting the levels, make sure he/she is playing the ride as they will in the song.  I know I have to consciously play softer on the ride when recording than I would if I was playing the song out live.  The ride is the first place (at least in my experience) where the playing volume picks up as the excitement of recording gets intense.
 
Wrt the ride cymbal itself, the type of ride cymbal may make a big difference for you.  A big washed-out sounding ride may be perfect in a big band setting but is just going to turn into unmanageable white-noise in a loud rock setting.  You should be looking at a “dry” cymbal possibly with a smaller diameter.
 
You mentioned recording the cymbals separately.  Take a listen to this, the whole song is crash and ride.  The way I approached this was by tracking with 2 overhead mics to get the entire drum-set.  After that I went in and tracked each drum separately.  It was a very time consuming process but I was really happy with the results (Ed did the mixing and mastering).
 
https://soundcloud.com/stan-dupp-the-tillies/for-a-thousand-mothers
 
 

QUANTUM, did you record that whole cd with just 2 overheads? and on the first song, how much compression was added in all total? and which plugins did you use? or ed use? pretty clean recording. different music than i do, but impressed by the clean and tight feel to the cd. thank you for the reply. vizio