[larry b]

Compressors arent really something that you find a lot of "presets" for, with certain noted exceptions such as the release times of various units such as the Daking FET II and the emulations on Crane Song's units. With compression your better off learning how to just use it properly.

I'm taking a total stab here but it sounds like maybe you are just getting your ITB comps going with far too much gain reduction (GR).

Pick your ratio depending on what your program material is. "Soft" or low ratios like 2:1 will yield gentle compression, "hard" or high ratios such as 6:1 or more will give you harder compression and beyond, into limiting.

Use auto release settings for now if your comps have them. Avoid ultra-fast attack times combined with high ratios unless you like flattening all of your transients out. This can be cool as an effect, or for purposeful compression, but avoid it for now and just deal with typical compression situations. Conversely, you probably dont want super slow attack times either.

Start with zero gain reduction, and gradually lower the threshold control until the GR meter begins to show compression action. Use your ears. Listen to what is happening to your signal. Less sometimes is more.

I use compression very often to just take the "edge" off things a bit, maybe 2-3 dB of GR max. You will find that if you use many compressors on many different elements of your mix and if all of them are working hard, say 10 dB or more of GR, your mix will be quite overly compressed. Sometimes you want a single element of the mix to have heavy compression for the effect it produces, but for most things you want to keep it light.

Again, use your ears, and watch your GR meters as you lower the Threshold control into GR action. A few careful adjustments and you should be able to pop a compressor onto anything and get some nice smooth compression.

When you audition compression on a given sound source/audio track, you may find it helpful to solo out the track so that you can really hear whats happening with the compressor. I might recommend that while this is an important way to learn to hear compresson, it's generally best (at least for me) to dial in your amount of GR while listening to the whole mix. I tend to use too much or too little compression unless i have a point of reference.

You can use make-up gain to bring the compressed signal back up to its proper level if you are hitting it really hard.

Play around with it, and the bottom line is use your ears. Some comps sound really good working hard, deep into the GR. Others do not at all and will be happiest just trimming off the peaks of your signal.