Please don't laugh at me, but...

Compression, in all instances of my using it, tends to thicken up the wav by
lowering the peaks and pumping up the valleys, for a uniform sound.

But what if I want to do the opposite? Meaning, I want to further the divide
between both. For example, trying to get the snap of a snare to come out
more, and less of its trail. Say, everything above -6db gets a boost (or
stays put) while everything below it disappears a bit more (gradually, not
noise-gate-like).

What kind of settings would I use?